Sierra

I did not take to wearing a CPAP well at all. I recall thinking that I would get up and throw the whole thing out the window. but fortunately I did not. Getting the settings right, along with finding a mask you can "make friends with" goes a long way to improving comfort. What mask are you using?

If you can post a screenshot of a typical night with OSCAR I may be able to help you with the device settings to gain some more comfort.

That looks better. On the mask the Full Face is the right setting. However, there is no leakage reduction benefit in taping your mouth while using a full face mask, because your mouth is already covered. Mouth taping is typically only used with a nasal or nasal pillow mask. I have heard from others that when you tape under a full face mask the tape gets soggy and does not stay on. Some also have expressed concern that the tape may be more difficult to get off in the case you need to get it off in a hurry...

Your EPR is on Ramp Only, and needs to be switched to Full Time. That may improve your Hypopnea and RERA event frequency. Lets see that that does to the flow limitations. They seem to be driving the need for more pressure. Perhaps with EPR on full time they will decrease and pressure will decrease too.

On the humidity control I just leave it in Auto, but my level seems to default to 4 not 6. But, with a long night's sleep I do use most of the water, but not all.

On the pillow a down or down alternative is a good choice. I try to sleep with my head resting on the pillow but with my mask hanging over the edge of the pillow. And the satin pillow case seems to help too.

Try the EPR on full time and see what happens to the pressure.

After thinking about your OSCAR screenshot a little longer I realized that if you are using mouth taping, you must not be using a full face mask. The machine should be set to match the type of mask you are actually using. Setting the wrong type of mask can make the leakage rate less accurate. However if you have it set to full face and are using a nasal mask the error would be in under reporting your actual leakage rate. Each type of mask has a calculated vent flow which is subtracted from the total flow to give the leakage rate. The full face has the highest vent flow and the nasal pillow the least. So if you have it set for full face and are using a nasal pillow then air leakage will be under reported.

I am a determined mouth breather. My solution has been to use two layers of tape. The first layer is 1" wide 3M Micropore tape which you can get at Walmart. I fold the end over to make a tab that I can quickly remove the tape in an emergency. I have never had to actually do it. At first that is all I used, but found it was coming loose at night and not sealing for the whole night. So then I added a wider second layer of tape 4" wide which I cut to about 60 mm long. It is called Molnlycke Mefix. It is more flexible and keeps the first layer on through the night. You probably have to go to a medical supply place for this or to Amazon, which is the last place I bought it at. Again I fold the edge over in case I have to remove it during the night. This works for me. You may get away with the Micropore tape only.

This said, I think your leaks are so large that I suspect your mask is become dislodged at night totally breaking the seal to the face. The first step may be adjustments to the headgear. Unfortunately too tight is not good either. It may take a different style of mask to get to a happy place. What mask are you using currently? I see it is set for full face.

There is nothing wrong with having the mode in AutoSet at least initially. However, when you nail down the best pressure it can be worthwhile to switch to fixed pressure CPAP mode. That is what I do. My wife still has her machine in AutoSet but with a very narrow band between min and max pressure. That is almost the same as fixed pressure mode. She averages less than 0.5 for AHI so I don't like to fool around an change it. Also if I change something and she has a bad night sleep then guess who gets blamed?

As for quirky things to blame or solve issues here are a few of mine. I blamed the weather, and more specifically the atmospheric pressure. After tracking it for a while I found that was a red herring. On the more successful side I have found that keeping the temperature cool at night seems to help. And the other thing is using a down alternative pillow that conforms to my head, and a satin pillow case cover. I believe it is slippery and helps to not drag the headgear out of place on my head. And I find the down alternative does not push back against my face and move the mask out of position. You mention shaving. I shave and wash every night before I go to bed as I think that makes the tape stick better and not come loose during the night!

The first thing I would try is turning your EPR on, and set it at 3 cm. That has the potential to reduce the hypopnea (H) events, and possibly the RERA (RE) events as well. And, you have to find a way to stop the mask leaks. The leakage is way too high, and is keeping the machine from determining what kind of events you are having. It is just reporting them as UA's, or unclassified apnea which is not very informative. Of the events reported clear airway (CA), or central apnea events are the highest. More pressure does not resolve CA events as the airway is already open, and in fact higher pressure can make it worse. I think the pressure may be going too high. I would suggest you reduce your maximum pressure to about 12. Post another report after you make those changes. If you need help making the changes just ask. There are some other changes for comfort I could suggest, but this is probably enough for a first change.

Finding is good mask that suits you is difficult. I use a ResMed AirFit P10 nasal pillow mask. It is a very minimalist mask and is comfortable. If there is a weakness, it is the headgear. Fairly recently they have come out with a somewhat improved headgear for it. I believe it is the most popular mask used. But if you open your mouth in your sleep, it is best to use mouth taping. I mouth tape every night.

With the ResMed machine events are not reported when the leak rate of the mask exceeds the redline of 24 L/min. If evens are flagged during a high leak period they should be identified as Unclassified Apnea (UA) events, and the machine does not respond to UA events. So, pressure should not increase while the mask is leaking. You can confirm that by looking at the OSCAR pressure graphs to see what the pressure does when you are having a large leak - there will be grayed out areas of the graphs when the leak exceeds the redline.

If you want to post a typical OSCAR Daily Report screen here I can take a look at it to see if there is anything obvious that can be done. To do that on a PC make the Daily report full screen with a full screen window and press F12. A box will pop up asking where you want to save the screenshot image. Save the file. Then with a full width post here, find the file with File Explorer, left click on it, and then drag it into the post here. It should upload.

Based on what you report your AHI readings do seem fairly high. What is the average breakdown of the various components of the AHI? You should be able to see that on the Statistics page. AHI, OA, H, and CA events are the important ones. The 95% pressure is also a useful number. If you have imported a year's data there should be some good averages there.

However, I can tell you the most if you post a Daily report screenshot for a typical night. I posted an example of one in an earlier post.

I have tried the Swift FX with the standard headgear. The headgear was great but I found the mask itself to be terrible. The vent system on it consists of small round holes that seem to accelerate the velocity of the air venting out. I tried a few different ways to try and tame down the velocity of the air so I could sleep with it, but was not successful. I did like the harness and adapted it to my AirFit P10 mask. See this link. I have looked at the Bella system but not tried it. I would be concerned that it would not stay on, or would be irritating on the ears. But, like I say, I have not tried it...

https://myapnea.org/forum/resmed-airfit-p10-flimsy-headgear-upgrade-solution

Since that time I have gone back to the AirFit P10 with the somewhat improved headgear. It is working quite well for me.

Mouth taping and nose congestion have not turned out to be a problem for me. I was originally using Otrivin spray now and then, but have found it not necessary. When you are forced to breath through your nose, the congestion seems to take care of itself...

Hi Steve, welcome to the forum,

The machines count the whole time it is running to calculate your AHI score whether you are sleeping or not. And, when the machine is in ramp mode the reporting of events is suppressed. The newer ResMed machines have an Auto Ramp mode that ends when the machine decides you are asleep. Then it switches into run mode. However unless you stop the machine it never goes back into ramp mode for the rest of the night. In theory we do not have apnea events while we are awake, but we can go into a sleep wake mode and sometimes have apnea events or at least events the look like apnea events. The machine counts any event where the flow stops for 10 seconds or more as an event.

Actually it is a forum for people to come, ask questions, and to get informed. Perhaps this is not the right place for you.

How many people are "so many"? A few posts on social media does not really validate anything. I looked on Amazon for the HumidX cartridges and found they have an 83% 5 star rating with 827 reviews. If these things are so bad I would expect a much lower rating than that. I read a lot of reviews and did not see any complaining of this issue.

I do not have this problem because I would not bother buying one of these things. The standard AirSense 10 works very well for travel, and you can bring it on the plane for free. There is no need to bring or buy distilled water as for a couple of weeks or so, just use tap water in it, and clean the reservoir with vinegar when you get home.

And with the AirMini there is no real need to use the humidifier cartridge if you are "allergic" to it. We run our AirSense 10 without water all the time when we are camping off the grid. It is a nice to have, not a must have.

And last we have a Z1 Auto CPAP that our son gave us because he found it too loud. It never gets used as it is much less of a hassle just taking our AirSense 10 machines. We just keep it around in case we have an unexpected failure of our our machines and need one in a hurry.

When people ask for advice here, I always answer that the AirMini and Z1 Auto are a waste of money. Unfortunately I guess you did not come here for advice before you bought it...