Three weeks with APAP...

I've just received my APAP, the AirSense 10 AutoSet and the first two or so weeks I was okay. But lately I've been feeling almost claustrophobic in the middle of the night and I think that has a lot to do with the amount of air that my machine is pushing. I have a full mask - I sleep with a slightly open mouth - and when I do wake up in the might it feels like I have a fan blowing straight into my face and mouth and I will have a completely dry mouth.

I have the humidity set to 7 - when I set it to 8 it was blowing water, but the reservoir may have been overfull. I've adjusted the auto ramp to 45 minutes and I can definitely get to sleep, but once the unit ramps up I seem to wake up within a few minutes.

The few times I was able to get 7+ hours of sleep with the APAP, I did find the next day that I felt better and was far less tired than I had been previously.

The only other items of note are that I used to be a stomach sleeper - I have not attempted this with the full mask, although I've slept on my side a few times - but the mask has a tendency to leak and whistle which definitely wakes me.

Any thoughts, suggestions or advice?

Welcome to the site! Therapy does require sleep habit adjustment as you have already figured out. I never slept on my back prior to therapy but now sleep that way pretty much exclusively for the reasons you have already found. I used a Simplus full face mask initially and it got bumped off seal if I wasn't flat on my back. I soon found that my old football related back arthritis kicked in if I slept flat on my back so I learned that sleeping with my head up on a wedge shaped pillow fixed that issue. All this stuff was adjustment for me.

Mask leaks can not only keep you up with the wind in your face and noise but if you sleep with a wife, as I do, the noise can be annoying for her as well as you. This can be fixed by buy "MASK PADS" which are basically tee shirt material that is made to fit your mask cushion. While the mask may still leak, the air in the eyes feeling and noises will be gone. It is also important to find the right size cushion. I am a fairly large guy and was originally given medium sized cushions for the Simplus. The mask pads fixed the more annoying mask leaks but going to a small cushion fixed almost all. Face shape and such effect the mask seal a lot I think so you may have to try one size up or down from your current mask cushion size.

Ultimately, I switched to an AMARA VIEW full face which doesn't have the top brace above your nose. It is more comfortable and tends not to leak if I roll onto my side and sleep. While this works for me, keep in mind that there are reasons different mask styles are manufactured as not one single mask works from everyone. Also, keep in mind that pressure also determines if you can wear a specific mask. I was prescribed very high pressure and can't wear nasal cushions as they are not capable of the flow rate and a nasal mask doesn't have enough exhaust hole size and I basically am very uncomfortable and can't wear one. The pressure issue doesn't effect everyone as most folks don't have their machine running at 21/25 as I do.

You might check with your doctor to make sure your pressure is set correctly. Mine was set too high at first and I ended up with lots of air in my stomach. I was getting up 3-4 times each night to burp out the air. My doctor wasn't concerned at first and left the pressure where it was until I told him that my sleep was badly disrupted because I was getting up so much so why use the CPAP if it was the problem. He lowered the pressure slightly and now it works fine. Just a suggestion.