New to CPAP and having some problems

Mothra7,

You either need to go with a full face mask, or tape more.

Rested Gal is a "pufferfish" and has written extensively on how she tapes up at night. Perhaps she will read this attach the post that contains the info. Or, you can do a search for Rested Gals posts with the word tape.

Good Luck.

PS: RG please forgive me for calling you names.

Occasionally I have the blowfish mouth thing too. But usually I can manage not to. When it does happen somehow I sort of swallow and sometimes the air goes where it is supposed to and sometimes not making me gassy. But I am lucky, most nights I managed not to get the puffer cheeks. I don't know what is different on the days that I do.

If you work at it and you still can't avoid it, then maybe the Full Face mask is your best bet.

Hmmm. I'm having "pretty good" results but I'm not moving as much as I would normally during "normal sleep" without the CPAP, hose, etc. I think it's causing neck aches. I've been using the same pillow for months now with just the occasional neck pain but so far I'm experiencing it on 50% of the nights. I'm also getting some ear pain now that people mention it from the chin straps. I don't expect this process to go perfectly. I know from talking to many of you and reading other posts that success varies and time is the key.

I really really really appreciate many of your sense of humors. I hear words like hosehead and just crack up out loud. I too like to think of myself as a "fighter pilot" and so any stigma associated with being a "hosehead" is minimal at best. At 36, I'm old enough now not to care what anyone else thinks anyway. We're all flying through this life by the seat of our pants afterall.

Chinstrap? Seems to be working pretty good on my swift mirage pillow system. I don't like the idea of tape because I tend to talk a few words at first before conking out. It's not easy to talk with this thing on either. It seems like I'm talking against the wind. But there's that funny little sound when you finally get your mouth open to utter a word. Air escaping and a vacume breaking I guess.

I just washed my hose this morning. And I've been washing the humifier (not the unit but the tray) with soap and water daily so I guess I didn't need to do the weekly cleaning. Maybe I did. I don't know. I'm trying to remember when to change filters. There are 2 of them. One needs to turn gray I think. The white one? It sounded like one gets changed monthly and the other every 2 or 3 months. I can live with that. The daily washing is easy too. I just wash my "Pillow" and the 2 pieces of the humifier tray. Easy easy. I leave them to dry all day. I put the hose over the shower curtain. Also easy easy.

From reading this thread I'm getting a much better idea of what you guys (us guys) are going through. I feel like many of you must be thinking the same thing I used to think about anyone who's the parent of only 1 child. They really don't completely get parenting until they've had TWO children. Then it starts to make sense. So, I feel for all of you who have had to McGeyver your masks to get them to work.

I'm definitely a mouth breather. My dentist can attest to that. My nose is very narrow on one nostrel. The CPAP machine has done wonders of making it easier to breath through my nose during the day though. And my wife noticed during the 3 hour power outtage in my neighborhood this week that I'm now breathing through my nose quite a bit when I'm off the machine. Thank god for observant wives. Otherwise, I would still not know about OSA and my current place in the hosehead saga.

One day they will have a much better higher tech way of dealing with this problem. Something will pop out of a wall or out of your headboard or something like that. You know, like oxygen masks on a plane. Compact and all that jazz. They'll come up with an invisible hose or something like that. But as a mouth breather I feel lucky that I'm able to use the Swift Mirage pillow system. I probably should be using a mask but there seem to be all kinds of problems associated with that. Eventually, they work. I wonder if they ever work right off the bat like my Swift system does me?

Well, either way I hope all your issues get resolved to your satisfaction.

I, too, am a mouth-breather. At first I did OK using the Tiara chin-strap but even it still does not keep me from awakening with terribly, painful dry mouth all of the time. I've had the blowfish problem, too. I've been on CPAP since Feb. I've tried taping--never thought I'd resort to it. I tape across mouth, an elongated "X" across mouth, then under bottom lip in a "smile" curving up at ends to secure all. I don't like it--can't speak to hubby and got a phone call in middle of night once--that was fun trying to rip everything off as I madly dash for the phone! (And it was a wrong number!). Anyway, it's a process. One thing I have tried with some success is putting a stretchy knit ladies headband across my mouth, with or without tape. It is usually successful. I tried a fairly open-knit one but have found more air escaping so picked up a close-knit one today to try. They should be at least 1 1/2"-2" wide--the one I got today is about 3" wide. I got mine at Target but bet the dollar stores have them cheaper. I hope this helps. I am going to try a full-face mask to see if I can skip all this nonsense altogether. I wanted to go for a briefer mask on the face, not more! But, I've got to get past the mouth-breathing problem. Good luck and thanks for sharing!