I'm not use if I've ever mentioned before. But I'm not over weight. In fact the last time I went to the doctors he said I could afford to put a bit on.

I say this because for the majority of people, Sleep Apnoea is a direct result of them being over weight. Period. If they lost weight, chances are they would resolve most of their snoring issues and would no longer have sleep apnoea.

I however am not in that group. It seems that me and every member of my family has some kind of design flaw in our internal throat that causes us to snore so badly that we stop breathing for a period. That's right, everyone in my family has this condition.

My father (who has never been overweight) also now has vascular dementia, which in my mind could have been aggravated, if not directly caused by him having sleep apnoea for 70 years without treatment.

My sister has it, although she is overweight, she is working on that, but even if she was "normal" sized then she would probably still have this condition.

My brother, recently got himself into a spot of trouble with the police. It seems his anger management issues were recently accentuated due to his CPAP machine not working properly.

Recently my niece has also begun to think she has it too. As yet she is too scared to get it checked out, in case she ends up having to wear a mask like the rest of us.

FULL FACE CPAP AND GOATEES

Been a while huh!?

Well I'm still here and I still have Sleep Apnoea.

I was just looking through the keywords that people use to find this site and strangely one of the things that people pick up on is using a full face mask when you have a goatee.

I must admit I was really getting fed up with the nurse telling me that any leaks I get would be caused by having facial hair. Which to be honest really annoyed me!

It's just a really lazy excuse not to follow up on any problems I was having. I had to really push to have them understand that I never suffered from leaks around my mount area, it was always just under my eyes. I have a very pronounced (AKA BIG) nose and not terribly big cheek bones, so I'd often suggest that the masks just weren't designed for people with my facial features.

I actually went through a period of about 18 months where I'd wake up in the morning with a bright red mark on the top of my nose that would, no kidding, be there ALL DAY!

After several masks, of different sizes and shapes, I managed to work out that by changing the way to put the mask on at night made a HUGE difference.

I used to align the mask from my chin, and then pull over the straps. This felt like the right place, but I'd have to pull the top straps quite firmly to stop the leaks in the cheek/eye area. Now I position the mask from the top down. So first I position the top of the mask as far up the bridge of my nose as possible. (If the mask ends up in your eyes, you've gone too far! :-) )
Having the mask right up the top of my now meant I didn't have to pull the straps so tight to get a good seal. After adjusting the bottom straps I was read to go.

I have noticed that if I change the settings on my straps at all, I tend to wake up an hour or so later and have to fine tune them to stop any leaks. But after that it's fantastic!

So if you do have facial hair, like a goatee you can use a full face mask successfully, don't fall into the trap of believing you are doomed to suffer from leaks because of it. Spend some time adjusting your mask and see which way works best for you.

Most importantly of all, don't give up!! This damn thing is a pain in the butt, however when it works it's effectively extending your life!

Good luck!