I can talk with mine but I sound really stupid. There is a trick to it, not sure how to explain it but I use a combination of my tongue and palette to block the airflow so I can briefly talk.
For me, I get my talking in bed out of the way before putting the mask on. My fiancé knows, when the mask goes on I am going to sleep. This great part is, once the mask goes on… I almost immediately fall asleep (okay, within minutes). This never, ever happened to me before CPAP. I’d always have a hard time falling asleep no matter how tired I was. Now it is like a light switch - mask on, MeanJoe sleepy-time.
Mama Zappa, Echo7tango and I all use the same mask. I started off with a nasal mask (as opposed to the nasal pillow) but I couldn’t stand it. My nose itches a lot (I’m sure most of it is in my head) and so I needed a way to be able to get to my nose without having to fix my mask. When I first tried the nasal pillow, I thought that I was going to hate it because I really hated the nasal canula during the sleep test. To my surprise, after about a week, I was totally accustomed to it. Now, after a year, I usually can’t even tell if it’s on. If my Resmed S9 (which I also love) is correct, I don’t have any problems with leaks either. I also sleep on my side and do the “hose over the headboard” thing.
I tried the nasal gel once. I couldn’t tell that it did anything other than make my nostrils feel slick.
Keep trying. You’ll get there and it will be worth the trip.
I think one of the biggest differences is just how quiet they are. My mother got one within the past 5 years or so and the sound bothered her so much that she couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t believe it when I showed her how quiet mine is. It literally doesn’t make a sound. I don’t know how it does it.
When I first started CPAP (no longer on it, thankfully), I had this problem to the extent that it was like I had constant allergies. I found an in-line heated humidifier did the trick for me. Only problem would be when condensation would get into a bend in the hose and end up making a gurgling sound and vibration, often waking me.
As another poster said, you learn the trick of blocking off your palate somehow - imagine you were someplace that had a truly awful smell, and you needed to breathe but wanted to avoid smelling it, so you had to only breathe through your mouth.
Someone mentioned the “hose over the headboard” thing - I’ll have to give that a try, actually. The problem with me, due to the positioning of my CPAP / nightstand, that might not work too well. The masks that include a hose clip on the forehead might also help prevent the hose from tugging on the nasal pillows, though I haven’t tried them. Typo Knig’s headgear has a loop to do that and he doesn’t use it.
Chinstrap: I’ve seriously considered using one. If I roll into my back during the night, I wind up having my mouth fall open. I’ve largely trained myself to keep the tongue back so that even if my mouth opens, the CPAP/nose seal is maintained, but if I’m on my back, that doesn’t work perfectly and I wind up making a truly lovely (not!) sound as the air escapes.
If you have a sleeping partner, he/she will be grateful once you get this all sorted out. I’m assuming there’s some snoring going on; most people do (though oddly, I never snored much - my insistence on sleep studies was for other reasons). I did however nag Typo Knig to finally go in for a study - his snoring was getting pretty bad and seriously disturbing my sleep. As I have several other sleep / fatigue issues going on, my nagging him was pretty much selfish (well, I was concerned about him too but might not have pushed as hard). When he finally got the study, then the CPAP, it helped me!!
And another anecdote: I was sharing a hotel room with another woman on a Scout trip last year and Oh. My. GAWD she snored. I kept expecting the hotel to boot us out for having an unauthorized lumber mill set up in the room.
Somehow the topic of CPAPs came up (I guess because I had mine on the trip :p). She said she’d actually had a sleep study once and was told she should look into it, but she’d pulled off a fair bit of weight due to a gallbladder attack (eating low fat because she was worried about another attack, and didn’t want to have to have surgery) and knew she didn’t snore as badly because her mother, who lived with her on another level of her townhouse, no longer could hear her snoring 2 floors away. :dubious:
I swapped emails with her a few days later grumbling about the hotel ( we were stuck in a smoking room which was HORRID), mentioned I had had to change out all the disposables (mask, filter) because the thing stank so much - and said in that email that she really might want to reconsider that sleep study / CPAP because her snoring was still bad enough, and nonstop enough, that she might benefit from it.
The best part: she was working so hard to avoid the gallbladder surgery ( and my understanding is, once you’ve had one attack, it’s a matter of when, not if, you’ll have another that may be worse), and avoiding the CPAP, going against all medical common sense…
Thank you all for the information and testimonials here!
One of these days . . . One of these days! . . . I’m going to rouse myself up off my ass and try looking into this again. I’m still worrying about how many different devices, masks, pillows, or whatever, I might have to try, and how much of that I will have to pay for myself. (Does it get expensive?) I get all my health care from a very assembly-line style, one-size-fits-all HMO that isn’t really very supportive IMHO, and I’ve always gotten discouraged when I’ve tried to get support there. They tend to be very perfunctory. (Not just about CPAP stuff. Other stuff too.)
Still, I’m bookmarking this page so I’ll have it when I get a round tuit. One of these days.
I was going to get a full-face mask but the techs talked me into nasal pillows plus a chin strap. I am very grateful.
I only used the chin strap very briefly - it woke me up more than the mask did. I now have trouble if I have any congestion at all and try to sleep without my CPAP. Apparently I no longer mouth-breath, no matter what.
I have learned to talk with it on, too, but it took quite a while.
The techs who originally set me up were terrific and gave me several hints that helped me a great deal in getting started.
When you’re first starting out, put the mask on 10 or 15 minutes before you try to sleep - wear it while you read or watch TV or whatever you do settling in. That way you’ll have had a little while to get used to having it on. (As others mentioned, you get over this - putting on my mask puts me to sleep now also.)
At first, the mask may wake you up at night because it’s just too uncomfortable and you’ll take it off. Or you may pull it off without fully waking up. DO NOT WORRY ABOUT THIS. Don’t get frustrated or annoyed or feel like it’s all pointless because you’re not doing it right.
Look at it this way - you just got 4 hours (or 2 hours or whatever) more good sleep than you would have without the CPAP. Don’t stress out because you’re not wearing it all night, just appreciate the benefits of wearing it for even part of the night. And before you know it, you’ll be wearing it all night.
If you’re in a mask that’s at all difficult to put on or get correctly placed, don’t take it off to go to the bathroom at night. Unhook from the hose instead.
Oh, oh, oh… one other great benefit of CPAP that redtail23’s post reminded me about:
No more waking up 3 times a night to go take a piss. I put my mask on, fall asleep, and don’t wake-up until my alarm clock goes off. Ah, the simple things in life are the best!
Thanks for all the advice, it has been very helpful.
I’m doing somewhat better with the new mask, although I have more problems with condensation in the mask/tube (from the humidifier) with this one.
The hardest thing so far has been not falling asleep without it on. I’ve been sick for a couple of days, and dozing happens. But I am taking my naps with it, not without.
Cool that it’s working better. The suggestions for condensation include dinking with the humidifier setting, raising the room temperature, and/or putting a “hose cosy” on the pipe.
Sick: it’s definitely hard to use the CPAP when you’re ill, maybe impossible depending on the nature of illness. If I’m stuffy with a cold or asthma flare, I may decide to skip it for a night. If I’ve got something going on that might mandate a sudden rush to the bathroom, ditto. Even that split second to take off the mask might turn out to be Very Regrettable :eek: :). Of course now I’ve got a mental image of dashing across the room without taking the mask off, and having the CPAP machine chase after me, wreaking destruction like a very strange puppy.
Oooh: one thing that I’ve taken to doing is not emptying / refilling the water chamber every day. The person who got me set up initially was very much in the “Thou Shalt Not Leave It Filled” mode, but it honestly saves time in the morning, and also makes it easier to grab a nap on the weekends, if I can just grab the mask vs having to fill / assemble stuff.
I had no idea that there was such a mode. That would have either turned me off completely or I would have just ignored it (probably the latter). I won’t say how often I clean out my tank but let’s just say it’s not very often at all. In fact, let’s just stay away from the whole cleaning the equipment period. It would be too embarrasing to admit.
Hey, a couple people mentioned they take melatonin to help them sleep. I’ve been having falling asleep issues, and I wouldn’t mind trying something natural.
Is there a “minimum” number of hours you should plan on sleeping (e.g. Ambien says something like “plan on 8 hours of sleep”)? Is there any sort of groggy hangover in the morning? What dosage do people take?
I am a stomach/side sleeper and a CPAP user. I selected a nasal pillow mask (Breeze by Puritan Bennett) and have never been dissatisfied. Unfortunately, this mask is no longer manufactured (but are still available) so some day I’ll have to get a new style; but it will definitely be a nose mask with pillows.
Popping into mention: I’d noticed in recent weeks that my mask seemed to be having more minor leaks than I was used to, and I had to twiddle it a bit more than I was used to to get it to “sit” right. I had a followup today at the sleep clinic (I have a number of other issues) and we discussed the mask. I’m due for a new one but wanted to hold off on getting it until I could talk with them.
We tried a different pillow size for the same mask - I use the Medium size, and had tried the Large a while back (the mask comes with 3 sizes) and it works, but I’ve always felt that my nose was somewhere between the two. Today’s specialist actually concurred - we decided I need a Medium-and-a-half in that mask :).
The report from the CPAP’s memory card bore out the awareness of leakage: there are some patterns of increased leakage and higher AHIs several times in recent months (both times around the time I replaced the mask, I think).
The upshot is, I’ve got an appointment for a few weeks from now to actually spend some time with the sleep technicians to be fitted for a different mask.
While I like the one I have (aside from recent months), there wasn’t any process of having me try various ones and see which one was best. The PA today was a little horrified at how they chose a mask for my titration session (different clinic, and this is a part of why I switched): I arrived for the study, the technician on staff handed me a nasal mask and told me to practice breathing through it. NO attempt to try different styles. Egad.
My husband went to this new clinic before I did, and when they scheduled his titration study they had him come in beforehand for a full-scale mask fitting (the same thing I’m going in for now, rather after the fact!!).
Regarding leaks, I’m not one of those people who washes my mask/nasal pillow every single day. But I do find that if I go more than 2-3 nights without washing it, the oils build up enough to make it more leaky. So that’s an important part of the maintenance.
Now does anyone have a tip for easily cleaning out the hose?
Yep - take it in the shower with you. Seriously (this was suggested by the sleep clinic). Take it into the shower, wash it out with a little liquid soap or whatever, and you can rinse it out while you’re rinsing yourself. Throw over the curtain rod or edge of the cubicle to drip dry, or you can use a suction-cup hook or a bent-up old coat hanger if you want it to drip entirely inside the shower enclosure.
This thread is getting a bit elderly (not quite zombiehood yet) but I wanted to pop in and tell you about the mask-fitting session I had on Friday (that I had mentioned up-thread): this was actually at the sleep clinic, and they had me try a number of different ones. One thing they did for me, that they did NOT do for my husband: they actually hooked the mask up to the CPAP and measure the leakage (there’s some top limit which is acceptable).
There’s a new nasal pillow mask out there, the Pilairo. I’d heard of it, and was skeptical that a single thin strap could keep it in place - but let me tell you, that thing wasn’t going ANYWHERE. I wound up not choosing it, because it does place a bit of pressure on / around the tip of the nose and I found it annoying, but I could see myself giving it another try in the future.
I also tried the Aloha nasal pillow (wonderful headgear, but the pillows were irritating), the Opus nasal pillow, and the Mirage FX nasal mask.
I wound up with the Opus, though the Mirage FX was actually a close second! The Opus is a mixed blessing: my husband has the same one (so we’ll have to be careful not to mix 'em up!) but he takes a different pillow size than I do so we can swap the spares.
Bottom line, it’s worth trying a number of different ones, and if you can, get help from a professional in getting the right one. A mask that is perfectly good “on paper” (correctly sized, adequately controls leaks etc.) may just feel bad on you.
This. A thousand times, this! I work clinics for several of our sleep doctors, and getting the best fitting mask is one of the most important parts of keeping goof compliance.
A decent sleep lab should be able to help you with mask fit/selection around the time of your study (and quite possibly after), and a good medical equipment supplier should definitely help you out afterward. If you can’t get help in either place, find a new company for either/both parts of the process. (Some sleep clinics also provide the equipment, but other clinics are separate from the DME…and you always have the right to switch and get your information.)
Upthread, some others have mentioned that machines have gone through several generations in the last few years, and that’s correct. But masks have gone through even more.
Senegold – you mention problems keeping a seal while side sleeping and moving about in your sleep. One suggestion I have is the Activa. It’s a nasal mask, and – as the name implies – it was designed for active sleepers. It’s done wonders for me.
