Mask Fitting Tips
What are the sizes of the masks? The basic three sizes are really just small, medium, and large. Some masks do have a medium-wide size.
Some masks have an extra large, and some masks have an extra small size, so you can kind of look out for that. You can take a stab in the dark and order a medium for most males and a small for most females. I would recommend taking a look at the mask-fitting video to get some good pointers.
Right? Because you don't want to waste your mask on the wrong size. However, if you get your mask and you feel like it's leaking or it's uncomfortable, or it's pushing on a certain area of your face, then you may want to reach out to your medical equipment company and they can send you either a different size or a completely different mask.
How would somebody know if they had the wrong size mask?
When it's the wrong size, it's going to be uncomfortable, it's going to push on your face weirdly or it will blow on one side or leak.
When you are evaluating the comfort of a CPAP mask, you'll need to look at the cushion of the mask and the headgear.
If you have fit issues, a nasal pillow mask will leak, and a poorly fitting nasal mask is going to hit your nose and can cause some skin breakdown. If the mask is too large it's also going to leak either around your nose or even up into your eyes. If it's a full-face mask, those fit issues are really obvious and often leak right into your eyes. You usually don't even have to turn the pressure on your machine but simply hold your mask over your face to identify the poor fit. It's typically very obvious.
I have heard a lot of patients talk about some irritation or air blowing in their eyes. If you want to dive into more details about mask fitting and the available solutions, you can take the CPAP 101 class.
Essentially there are three primary sizes of the different masks and it is super important to have the right fit for you. To ensure you have the right fit, you can either talk with your medical equipment company to help you with the sizing or you can get more support from the KimberlyMD team.
