My sister had a real difficult time with the mask. She has a lot of scaring from 2 surgeries on her neck, so that and the tumor by her carotid arteries may have made it more painful. It never got easier for her, she even cut her hair short, hoping that would help. The doctor had her take adivan (1mg) and morphine before the procedure each day. On the days they had to do a scan, sometimes she would have to have them stop the procedure and give her a few minutes to regroup. They did not like this as it is not good for the machinery to stop it in mid flow. She had the waffle face afterwards and since she was also taking the amofistine shots she usually vomited after the procedure. Had to stop the shots after 3 weeks, even with anti nausea meds, she vomited each time, and the whole process was wearing her down. She's not a wimp either, is pretty tough, ran a marathon about 10 years ago. I hope your experience is an easier one than hers was. Get meds to take care of the pain before the procedure, it helps make it more tolerable.

Hang in there,
Nancy