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For well more than a decade I have been utilizing CPAP therapy to treat my severe sleep apnea. While most people take a couple of weeks or even more to adjust to sleeping with a mask that forces air into the passage throughout the night in order to keep those airways open, I found relief from the terrible effects of sleep apnea from the very first night. In all those years that I have strapped a mask to my face I have only gone without it a couple of times, when the machine or power had failed. CPAP had made a radical improvement in my life from the night in the sleep lab when I was first exposed to the therapy.

But it has not been without its own issues.

I am what is called an ‘active sleeper’ in that I toss and turn constantly throughout the night. I am asleep but I am quite active. Once when I was something like seven or eight, I awoke not having been roused by my mother for school and with a black eye that I had given myself by some unfortunate combination of thrashing and falling from the bed. Because I also tend to breathe through my mouth in my sleep my CPAP therapy requires the use of a full-face mask that goes over the bridge of my nose and down across my chin with the air hose connecting directly below my nose. Using the full-face mask as an active sleeper has always been challenging. Having a hose stand that functions much like an IV stand has helped, dropping the hose directly down to my head and helping avoid, but not entirely, getting the hose tangled as I toss and turn. Maintaining a good seal across the nose was another trouble spot. When the seal wasn’t good there the pressurized air often blew directly into one of my eyes, causing me to wake the next day with seriously dry eye.

A few months ago, I came across a new, at least new to me, design for a full-face CPAP mask. Instead of going over the bridge of the nose, the mask fits under the nose with either ports or plugs that feed air directly to the nostrils and a much smaller portion that covers the mouth. Tubing connects this smaller mask design around the face to a port at the top of the patient’s head where the supply hose connects by way of a rotating connection.

Two weeks ago, when the schedule allowed, I called my durable medical equipment provider and requested to switch to the Resmed F30i and they sent me this new mask design with a 30-day trial period that would allow me to switch back should the new mask fail to meet my needs.

I have gotten all the benefits I expected from the F30i, no leaks because this one no longer tries to go over the bridge of my larger than average nose, and complete freedom to toss, turn, and rotate in the night without ever getting the supply hose wrapped around something.

There have been some downsides, but they were part of the adjustment period. The most acute was that after the first night of having plugs in my nostrils, the next morning my nostrils felt as if they had been set aflame. My nostrils have a large number of nerve endings and having a foreign object in them for 7 or 8 hours certainly irritates them. However, two weeks on and my nostrils seem to have nearly fully adjusted, with only minor touchiness that seems less each morning.

All in all, the Resmed F30i has proven to be the upgrade to my therapy that I had hoped it would be.