mask leak

i hear a lot of people talking about aceptable leakage what is the number for this?, i have the resmed f10 airfit and i had to tighten it to prevent leaks, thank you in advance.

Look on page 7 of your user manual and find a normal leak rate chart. Notice that this leak rate is a function of cpap pressure. As the pressure gets higher, the rate gets higher. This mask ( as have all cpap masks ) has a built-in leak rate (sometimes referred to as a ventilation rate) that provides a way to eliminate the CO2 in your exhaled breath.

Depending on the software you are using to monitor your leak data, it may report either total leaks or unintended leaks which is the leak rate after adjusting for the built-in leak rate of your mask at your pressure.

For example, for your mask, at a pressure of 10 cmH2O, the leak rate that is "normal" for this mask is 37 Lpm.
Most cpap machines will be able to deliver proper treatment pressure and flow when the unintended leak rate is below 100 Lpm. Its better if the unintended rate is very low. Mine, for example, tends to be down near 3-4 Lpm on average most nights.

Acceptable leak numbers vary because of many things...pressure, type of mask, but most importantly whatever machine they are using to report whatever leak number is being reported.

I your case with a ResMed machine to understand acceptable leak number you need to understand how your machine reports that leak number.

ResMed machines subtract the mask's expected vent/intentional leak numbers prior to reporting leak.
So in your machine what you are seeing is all excess leak and doesn't include the vent rate.
ResMed says that they can compensate or handle leaks up to 24 L/min...and this is all excess leak.
When you start going over 24 L/min it starts getting iffy and iffier the further you go past 24 L/min.
From my own past experience...once you go past 35 L/min excess leak reported from a ResMed machine the machine really isn't able to do a good job.

Any leak that wakes people up...needs to be worked on because anything that wakes us up is unwanted.

ResMed will still give a person a good "fit" score or Mr Smiley face if someone spends 29% of the time in large leak territory (over24 L/m). Mr Frowny doesn't show up until a person spends 30% or more of the night over 24 L/min. I personally think that is a little generous as I know it takes a LOT of big leaks to add up to 30% or more of the time. Just how bad it might be...I always like to look at the actual graph to see exactly what happened...was the bulk of the night spent at 26 L/min leak...or 46 L/min leak.
The machine won't have that much of a problem with 26 but it will at 46.

In terms of just general glancing at the numbers from ResMed machine...if the 95% number is below 24 L/min and the person isn't reporting that leaks are disturbing sleep...I would be happy with that.
Remember the definition of 95% number... at OR BELOW that number for 95% of the time...and not where you were at for 95% of time.

thank you so much my leak rate is either 7 or 8 and a happy face every morning.

yawningjoe56 wrote:thank you so much my leak rate is either 7 or 8 and a happy face every morning.

The number being reported on the machine's LCD screen with the Mr Smiley face is a 95% leak number.
So 7 or 8 at or below that number for 95% of the night is excellent. Better than mine I assure you.
Whatever you are doing for leak control....it's working quite well.