Finally, a small victory

I've asked so many dumb, needy questions and have gotten so much good advice here that I thought I would take a moment and share with you all what is probably my best night so far in 4-1/2 months of PAPing. Now 5:26 sleep time (with only one bathroom break) may not seem like much to most but keep in mind that I'm coming from a time when 2-3 hours total in maybe 45 minute blocks was the norm for me. And I know they will continue to plague me, but on this night my Large Leaks were at 0%according to Encore and my machine's LED.

While I know my progress won't be linear I'm still pretty happy to have had a night like this one. It reassures me that there IS light at the end of the tunnel!

Thanks again for tolerating my newbie-ness-what a great place y'all make this!

Old Dude, Old Lady here .... Congrats, small celebrations are still celebrations and every one adds up to success.
Cheers
Nan

Congratulations, Old Dude.
Baby steps beat the heck out of crawling.
Even the two-step is making progress.
First we crawl, then walk, then run; and finally fly.
It only happens fast on TV.

Congratulations. I know you have had a struggle especially with the leaks.
Good job.

Pugsy wrote:Congratulations. I know you have had a struggle especially with the leaks.
Good job.

Thanks for the kind words everybody!

Pugsy, the leaks have been a problem for me and I'm sure I'm not through with them. But for the moment I'm back to my old Mirage Quattro, which is probably my most reliable mask for not leaking too much. But there's a trade off; well-meaning advice to the contrary, in my case it has to be screwed down pretty tight to not leak. This of course leads to significant nose sores but I'm just trying to work through all this one night at the time. I have a Fitlife total face mask I want to try but I'm waiting until my sleep doc appt. passes by next Thursday-don't want him to see a couple of bad nights and suggest going back to my old pressures of 17/13 when the issue is really mask experimentation. He'll likely put me on a several month re-check and if so I plan to experiment a bit more myself with masks and pressures.

Of course, if and when my back issues allow me to go back to sleeping in the bed instead of the recliner I'm sure there will be more leak issues given that I'm a side sleeper. But for now, one thing at a time.

Congratulations, Old Dude. I have been watching your posts and I am glad to hear you had a <5 night in leak free zone! You deserve to celebrate!!

Leaks are a war that we rarely ever totally win. Think of them more like battles in the big war. Sometimes we win and sometimes the mask wins. Sometimes its a draw. We do have to have some semblance of "winning" though....and that's the part about at least keeping the large leaks to a minimum so we can trust the data that we see.
My thoughts about leaks...as long as they don't wake me up and stay mainly below large leak territory then I trust the machine to compensate. I have never used a full face mask but I can understand where it does present greater challenges due to the surface area in contact with the skin and higher pressures.

I don't think that any mask should cause sores or abrasions and if a mask just has to be so tight that it causes sores, blisters or abrasions then it might not be the right mask for a person. It's either the wrong size, wrong fit or simply the wrong mask for a person.

Finding the right mask is the hardest part to this therapy IMHO. Take your time and explore the masks that interest you in your journey to find the right mask. Eventually you will get there and it is just one of the things that some of us have to go through.
I settled on nasal pillow mask early on and over the past 4 years I have tried several. Some work better than others and some were nothing but a PITA. I learned something with each experiment though and I have always felt that no experiment is a total failure as long as we learn something.

Pugsy wrote:Leaks are a war that we rarely ever totally win. Think of them more like battles in the big war. Sometimes we win and sometimes the mask wins. Sometimes its a draw. We do have to have some semblance of "winning" though....and that's the part about at least keeping the large leaks to a minimum so we can trust the data that we see.
My thoughts about leaks...as long as they don't wake me up and stay mainly below large leak territory then I trust the machine to compensate. I have never used a full face mask but I can understand where it does present greater challenges due to the surface area in contact with the skin and higher pressures.

I don't think that any mask should cause sores or abrasions and if a mask just has to be so tight that it causes sores, blisters or abrasions then it might not be the right mask for a person. It's either the wrong size, wrong fit or simply the wrong mask for a person.

Finding the right mask is the hardest part to this therapy IMHO. Take your time and explore the masks that interest you in your journey to find the right mask. Eventually you will get there and it is just one of the things that some of us have to go through.
I settled on nasal pillow mask early on and over the past 4 years I have tried several. Some work better than others and some were nothing but a PITA. I learned something with each experiment though and I have always felt that no experiment is a total failure as long as we learn something.

Wise words indeed. I have nasal restrictions (deviated septum, bad turbinates and more) and near-constant blockage from vasomotor rhinitis ( not to mention I'm a mouth breather) so nasal pillows are pretty much out for me.

I've tried pretty much every FF mask in the ResMed catalog plus the Philips Amara and the F-P Forma, and likely a few I've forgotten. Throw in the F-P Eson nasal mask and the Liberty hybrid and there isn't much left to try. I tried the Fitlife for about an hour nap earlier this weekend and have high hopes for it.

Thanks goodness I have a great DME who is committed to working with me.

Small victories are to be cherished when you're still starting out and working hard on making this crazy style of sleep work for you.

Wishing you many, many more small victories in a row so that you start to feel like they're not so small any more.

Thanks for taking the time to post a victory! You give those of us newer than you hope it can work!