Continuation of leakage discussion

I don't know why I didn't think of this before. I turned on the EPR feature last night and it helped quite a bit.


It's still not great, but it will help until I find a better mask.

My sleep doctor wasn't willing to give me a prescription without another office visit. My primary care doctor doesn't want to get involved in CPAP therapy. He told me to go see my sleep doctor. It took a while to get in to see him, but I finally got a new mask prescription. He told me I was very brave, when I mentioned my desire to try the Oracle. I agreed to look at some of the newer FFMs before taking the Oracle plunge.

I took the Rx to a local DME that I haven't tried before. The RT pointed out that my main problem is that I'm trying to use a FMM with a high pressure. But, she was very kind and let me try on several of the newer FFM models. I found that the Simplus fits me a lot better than the Quattro, so she gave me a free demo model to take home. (Like I said, she was very kind.) In the meantime, I sent the Rx to cpap.com so they could ship the Oracle 2 I ordered, which should arrive tomorrow. While the Simplus leaks a lot less than the Quattro, it still leaks more than I want. I can't wait to try the Oracle tomorrow night!

Being ever the master of the painfully obvious combined with the principles of Occam's Razor, I wonder if you have tried washing both the seal every day on arising and washing your face right before bedtime? Before I discovered this simple trick I assure you my leak line looked at least as bad as yours.

Use very warm water and baby shampoo on the mask cushion and warm water and soap on your face. Facial oils can really create a problem. This protocol, along with tightening the mask down more than most here recommend has worked wonders for me.

Plus, it doesn't cost anything to give it a try.

Good luck!

Oh, and by the way, how high is your pressure?

old dude wrote:Being ever the master of the painfully obvious combined with the principles of Occam's Razor, I wonder if you have tried washing both the seal every day on arising and washing your face right before bedtime? Before I discovered this simple trick I assure you my leak line looked at least as bad as yours.

Use very warm water and baby shampoo on the mask cushion and warm water and soap on your face. Facial oils can really create a problem. This protocol, along with tightening the mask down more than most here recommend has worked wonders for me.

Plus, it doesn't cost anything to give it a try.

Good luck!

Oh, and by the way, how high is your pressure?

That's good advice. Even with a freshly washed face and mask, the leaks are really bad. I find that using a liner helps, but I still need to clean my face before bed. Having a clean face helps the liners last longer, too. I can typically get 2-3 weeks from a Quietus liner if I keep my face clean, which is good because you can't buy those liners anymore.

I can eliminate the leaks if I tighten the mask to the point of pain, but I really don't like that.

My prescribed pressure is 17, but I've been keeping the machine set to 15 or 16 to reduce leakage. It's amazing how much less it leaks with a small pressure reduction.

Yes, I found the same thing to be true with a small pressure reduction. My logic was that the eventual therapy was probably better at the lower pressure since more pressure was being retained in the mask instead of leaking out with the higher pressure.

old dude wrote:Yes, I found the same thing to be true with a small pressure reduction. My logic was that the eventual therapy was probably better at the lower pressure since more pressure was being retained in the mask instead of leaking out with the higher pressure.

I like the lower pressure because less leakage means less waking up in the night due to loud sounds or air in my eyes. Also, if the leak rate is too high, the CPAP machine can't correctly regulate the pressure. My doctor demonstrated this to me. He connected my CPAP machine to a pressure gauge and then intentionally introduced a large leak. The machine responded by raising the pressure well above the set pressure, which can cause even greater leakage and discomfort. Large leaks also make it so the machine can't properly detect apneas.

Pugsy wrote:The problem looking for just XLarge is that we don't know how a different model actually might compare with what you are using size wise. We don't know if one person's XL might be the same another's Large.
Have you ever tried these below?

The ComfortGel Blue offers XLarge size. Now how much different it might be than the Quattro Large...anyone's guess
https://www.cpap.com/productpage/pr-com ... -mask.html

The F & P Forma offers XLarge
https://www.cpap.com/productpage/fisher ... -mask.html

as does the FlexFit HC432
https://www.cpap.com/productpage/FlexiF ... aykel.html

Aside from the benefit of a larger mask to begin with, the chin cup in both the Forma and FlexFit may eliminate the leaks in the mouth area. My cousin uses the Forma and has great success with his large head/face.