My wife has been on CPAP for 20 years, started I her mid 30s, when she lost a lot of weight she was able to reduce the pressure a lot but not stop. She uses nose pillows. I did a sleep study after her (mid 30s) and went on cpap, I tried hard but never could tolerate the machine and gave up. At some point I tried a dental appliance that shifts the jaw forward, it help some. About 10 years ago I tried again with cpap and with the newer/smarter machines I was able to tolerate it. Ive been using a combination of Cpap and the dental appliance for about 10 years. Sleep studies that I have done showed that in combination I was able to get down to <4 events per hour, but neither alone could. I'm at 75 per hour without anything. My O2 gets a little low so I have oxygen hooked up to the cpap. When I travel I don't mess with the oxygen and do fine, but I do feel better with it. Many years ago I lost a bunch of weight and the apnea was better but not gone, now I'm seriously overweight which makes it worse. I know some people loose weight and the apnea is gone, but that wasn't our case, but I did help a lot. I use a full face mask, I have to have my mouth covered.