Sierra

Pat, I have no personal experience with this mask, but I have bought a ResMed F20 using the sizing guide they provided. I believe I ended up with a mask that is too big for me. I have looked at that sizing guide chart for the DreamWear and find it quite confusing. For example if your nose length measures small but your nose width is into the extra wide section what mask size do you need? And your example is the same. The cart is based on nose size. What do you need if your mouth is not in proportion with your nose. I guess this all highlights the need to fit each mask to the individual. The nasal pillow mask perhaps do it right. They provide all sizes of inserts in the fit pack version of the mask probably at probably a reduced profit margin. It at least gives you the chance to try each size and use the one that fits best.

They don't look at all alike to me.

F20 Cushion

F30 Cushion

You may want to read the article at the link below. It says that individually peroxide and vinegar are good disinfectants, and you can use one after the other, but you should not mix them together. Use them individually with a rise between. Keep in mind that hydrogen peroxide is not unlike using ozone (SoClean) to clean your CPAP. If you are one of the ones that thinks ozone can be damaging to your equipment, then hydrogen peroxide is likely not much better.

Non Toxic Disinfecting

My mother is in her 90's and has been in and out of the hospital a few times. At one point she managed to pick up VRE at the hospital. One of the things I learned out of that experience is that one of the most effective ways of disinfecting is simply mechanical. Like just wash your hands thoroughly with water to get them clean. No real need for an antibacterial soap. Mechanical abrasion and flowing water is all it takes. My thoughts are that is probably the most effective in getting the water reservoir clean.

I like the idea of a down pillow too, but my wife says she is allergic to real down and won't let one in the bed. That is why I had to go with the down alternative. I think it is a microfiber fill. It is different than a standard polyester fill which tends to have a lot of push back.

If you want some initial thoughts on what is going on, just post the daily report here. On a PC all you have to do is press the F12 key to get a screenshot. It will be saved in the SleepyHead/Screenshots directory. Then with Windows Explorer just left click and drag the image file to the body of the message. But before you do that, here are a few tips to optimize the layout.

• Press F10 to hide the right hand menu bar.
• Click on the little triangle beside the current date in the top left. That will hide the month calendar to allow more important stuff to show.
• Under File, Preferences, Appearance, uncheck the box which says display the pie graph. It is kind of redundant as the colored bars show the same data, and there is more important stuff that will then show in the screenshot.
• Make sure the Events bar is pinned to the top, and under that show Pressure, Flow, Mask Pressure, Flow Limitation, Snore, and Leak Rate if it will fit. You can click on the gray bars between graphs and drag them to scrunch up the size of each a bit
• Last maximize the window and use F12 to make the screen shot image.

There is a lot of other graphs below which will be hidden, but they are not so important for now. No need to post them.

Good to hear it is working for you. I have always wondered how one would know if they actually worked. I guess a sleep study is the answer...

I think you have it pretty much right. It is unfortunate that SoClean is allowed to publish their fear propaganda to the point where CPAP users feel like their are the most irresponsible people on earth for not using their machine (even though CPAP manufacturers do not recommend them). In my view a solution in search of a problem.

The source of contamination is the user of the machine, not the machine, or the water, or to any reasonable extent the air from the room. Non CPAP users breathe the same air. Air on exhale does not go any further back than the mask vent, so the main concern is just cleaning the mask and to a lesser degree the hose and water reservoir.

The water reservoir could be a place for bacteria to grow. Using distilled water does not prevent it, as the distilled water will become contaminated as soon as you open the jug. But, nothing really grows to any extent. Tap water is less likely to grow anything due to the residual chlorine in it. There is no harm in using tap water for short periods of time, and if anything it is safer from a contamination point of view. However, it will have minerals which will build up in the reservoir.

My method of cleaning is to use straight household vinegar. I believe if you dilute it, then it loses the sterilization effect. So my thorough routine for a cleaning is pure vinegar, followed by Dawn dish detergent and water, followed by a tap water rinse, and then hang to drain and dry. Pure vinegar cleans the water reservoir the most effectively because it dissolved any residual minerals.

The machine, deeper than the humidifier, really does not need to be cleaned unless it is going to be recycled to another user, or it is a common use machine in a hospital. The manufacturer does provide a procedure to do a "Reprocessing Disinfection". Way overkill for a user to do it on their own machine though. If you look at the Technical Manual from ResMed on pages 22-26 you will see a description of the process and the disinfectants they recommend. See link below:

Technical Manual

That pressure is well within the range of those masks. I use the P10 at up to 15 cm. My wife uses the Brevida up to 15 cm as well.

I have the issue of mouth breathing as well, and my wife to a lesser degree, but still an issue. My current solution is to use a chin strap over top of the P10 mask, which is a Breathewear Halo brand. I have tried several and it works the best. It is more adjustable and heavy duty than the others. In addition I have had to tape my mouth closed to fully stop me from opening my mouth in the night. It is not nearly as bad a thing as it sounds. Here is a video from a dentist about mouth taping to prevent mouth breathing. It works for me, and now my wife has started to use it as well, although she does not use the chin strap. I have tried two different full face masks (Mirage Quattro, AirFit F20), and I just couldn't tolerate them. So a nasal pillow mask along with a chin strap and mouth tape has worked much better. I average just over 8 hours a night for sleep using this setup.

How to Mouth Tape for a Better Sleep

Something strange is going on. It would seem you have data but SleepyHead is not displaying it. I have this nagging feeling that I had an issue with SleepyHead a long time ago where I was only getting summary data, but I don't remember the solution to it. I know I mixed up my A10 card with my wife's S9 SD card and that caused big issues, but beyond that I just can't remember.

My thoughts would be rather than try and trouble shoot it, would be to totally delete SleepyHead. Delete any data you have on your PC, and then start over again. Download SleepyHead. Set yourself up in it as a new user with a slightly different name so you don't somehow mix your old data with new if you missed deleting any. Then download the data from your new machine and card to the new installation of SleepyHead. All the data you have captured to date should still be there on the card.

About the only other potential issue I can recall is that apparently on some computers the standard Open GL version of the software does not work, and they have to use the broken GL version. On a PC when SleepyHead installs it creates two exe versions, the normal one and the BrokenGL version. If you look in c:/Program Files (x96)/SleepyHead you should find the two exe versions. By default the installation runs the normal one. You would have to modify the start to point to the other other one. Or as a test, you can run the Broken GL version by just double clicking on it.

Hope that helps some. The good news is that it looks like the machine is capturing data!!

Do you know what pressure your machine is currently using? More pressure almost always means it is harder to get a leak free seal with your mask. My immediate thoughts would be that a nasal pillow mask may be the best solution for you. A few to consider are:

ResMed AirFit P10

ResMed Swift FX - has been tested up to 20 cm of pressure

F&P Brevida

There are others, but it would be a matter of testing them to see which would work best for you. Masks are very individual. Nasal pillow masks tend to be the most comfortable of all masks and the easiest to wear for 8 hours a night.