Taping mouth for mouth leak.

[sleepstar]

I'd be interested to know if there are many (any?) people out there that use tape to control their mouth leak

A few years ago we would commonly suggest using some micropore tape over the mouth to help control the mouth leak. I haven't really advised anyone to do it for a while - except my dad. Works well for him.

Anyone out there with stories?

[kaiasgram]

Hi sleepstar -- There are lots of discussions about mouth taping, just type "mouth" and "tape" or "taping" into the search box.
I use tape every night with a small piece of fabric in the center where it goes over my lips, and a small "safety slit" (where you see the paper clip in the photo):

[Sir NoddinOff]

I'd be interested to know if there are many (any?) people out there that use tape to control their mouth leak

A few years ago we would commonly suggest using some micropore tape over the mouth to help control the mouth leak. I haven't really advised anyone to do it for a while - except my dad. Works well for him.

Anyone out there with stories?

There are literally dozens of good threads on mouth taping on this forum. Just search for mouth taping.

My story is that with nasal pillows I had to tape my mouth for the first five months. Then one night I forgot to tape and discovered my brain had decided I no longer needed tape on my mouth to keep the therapy pressure in my airways. Brains are funny like that. Happy days. Well, sort of. About once every two months, in the middle of the night, I wake up with a dry mouth from mouth breathing and have to slap a piece of tape on it. The next night things return to normal and I don't have to tape. Not a big deal, really.

[Dreamingofsleep]

LOL We really are a determined bunch! Who would have thought we'd tape our own mouths shut!!

Dreaming

[Pugsy]

I taped for about 2 months when I first started therapy. I thought I was a mouth breather because I had been having the usual dry mouth, sore throat from snoring stuff pre cpap. Though I never had any real problems breathing through my nose at any time.
I opted for nasal pillows despite the appearance of maybe some mouth breathing because I have neck issues that are made hugely worse with any mask that comes down near the base of the skull and cervical spine.

I used blue painter's tape because I am a tightwad and I had some left over from a painting job.

After a couple of months I started "forgetting" to tape until after the lights were out and mask was on and I was sort of half asleep. Started forgetting more and more often. Come to find out the leaks weren't so bad any more. No more massive looking gaps from mouth breathing. I think that in my case my mouth breathing habit was more from a habit that came about because of the apnea events and gasping and I know the sore throat was just from the massive snores.

I haven't taped since. Sometimes my leak lines look like I am doing a little mouth breathing but it is rarely a large amount and most of the time well below large leak territory. On occasion I will go past large leak boundary line but it is very short in duration like maybe 3 to 5 minutes. I sleep through all this and feel fine. So I choose to allow a little less than perfect leak line for whatever reason, slide because it just isn't worth the trouble to tape to fix something that might be happening for a very short period of time.

I am lucky. I was able for the brain to unlearn the habit of gasping for air during the night and subsequent mouth breathing.
Taping isn't horrible and I actually found it preferable to a chin strap. The tape was less of an annoyance than chin strap was sliding all over the place.
I am also lucky that my cheap blue painter's tape didn't bother my skin.

[idamtnboy]

I'm going back to taping and the Swift LT, or maybe the FX, after trying out a Mirage Liberty hybrid mask for 3 nights. I usually have zero leaks with the tape. My brain hasn't learned to keep my lips from relaxing even after 1 1/2 years of tape, and a chin strap didn't solve the problem either. I tried the Liberty to see if I could get away from taping but my leaks with it ran about 15 l/min. I use Johnson & Johnson Hurt Free paper tape. Some discomfort for a few seconds when I pull it off, but time hasn't made it any worse than it was at the beginning.

[Xney]

Still taping here, without tape the leaks go crazy. No full-face masks fit me so the taping isn't going anywhere.

[OutaSync]

Five-plus years and still taping, and using a chinstrap.

[imfletch]

Similar to Pugsy, my mouth breathing didn't last long.
Initially, I used the FitLife TOTAL face mask (covering mouth, nose and eyes) and I would just place a small piece of painter's tape vertically across the center of my lips. It only took about two weeks to notice that I wasn't mouth breathing any more.
I have since witched to the Swift LT nasal pillows and am having awesome results with it.
Like Pugsy, I sometimes sleep REALLY soundly and find I allow my lower jaw to relax and drop, but that doesn't happen too often.
There are chin straps that help keep you jaw lifted, but in the end, it isn't enough to keep your mouth closed, you must also keep your lips sealed.

[pikov22]

I used blue painter's tape because I am a tightwad and I had some left over from a painting job.

You're kidding!

Sometimes my leak lines look like I am doing a little mouth breathing but it is rarely a large amount and most of the time well below large leak territory.

Is that how mouth breathing shows up, as large leaks? What kind of numbers are we talking about?

Thanks.

(Jeez - blue painters' tape!!)

[Pugsy]

You're kidding!

(Jeez - blue painters' tape!!)

Actually lots of people here use it. Where do you think I got the idea? I didn't eve use the "delicate". I had no issues with it.

Is that how mouth breathing shows up, as large leaks? What kind of numbers are we talking about?

Usually a block of time with sort of a plateau vs a quick spike. Sometimes never even reaching large leak territory. Sometimes briefly into large leak territory a bit.

ResMed's example here. I think you will be able to see what it looks like... Respironics machine not quite the same but more rounded.
So it can be just a little mouth breathing or a lot of mouth breathing or in between amount. And that translates into small numbers vs larger numbers. As long as I don't spend much time actually in large leak territory and it doesn't wake me up...I don't care. Back when I first started therapy...I was spending about half the night in large leak territory and that is why I taped for a couple of months.

[pikov22]

Is that how mouth breathing shows up, as large leaks? What kind of numbers are we talking about?

ResMed's example here. I think you will be able to see what it looks like... Respironics machine not quite the same but more rounded.
So it can be just a little mouth breathing or a lot of mouth breathing or in between amount. And that translates into small numbers vs larger numbers. As long as I don't spend much time actually in large leak territory and it doesn't wake me up...I don't care. Back when I first started therapy...I was spending about half the night in large leak territory and that is why I taped for a couple of months.

Encore shows my average leak to be around 35 with 0 minutes in large leak. So do you think I ought to tape?

[Pugsy]

Encore shows my average leak to be around 35 with 0 minutes in large leak. So do you think I ought to tape?

Not unless you wake up often with mouth breathing.

Encore and your machine reports total leak which is the mask vent rate plus any excess leak. So your 35 L/min is probably mostly vent rate.
ResMed machines report only excess leak.
So your 35 L/min would be a massive leak on a ResMed machine but essentially no leak on your Respironics machine.

If your Encore says 0 time spent in large leak...I wouldn't be taping. The machine can compensate very well until you get up in the range of 80 to 90 L/min. Even if you spent 15 minutes in large leak territory...out of 7 or 8 hours that wouldn't hurt things much (if any) at all.

[pikov22]

Encore shows my average leak to be around 35 with 0 minutes in large leak. So do you think I ought to tape?

Encore and your machine reports total leak which is the mask vent rate plus any excess leak. So your 35 L/min is probably mostly vent rate.
So your 35 L/min would be a massive leak on a ResMed machine but essentially no leak on your Respironics machine.

If your Encore says 0 time spent in large leak...I wouldn't be taping.

<sigh> So we're back to the "frequent dry mouth while using all of the H2O in the tank and the humidifier is set to 3 (System One)".

Thanks.

[Pugsy]

So we're back to the "frequent dry mouth while using all of the H2O in the tank and the humidifier is set to 3 (System One)

Well that's a bummer. Now I remember that discussion.
You could try taping on night to see if it helps with the dry mouth.
I will say that it doesn't take much mouth breathing to dry out the mouth. I have woke up in the middle of the night with dry mouth...just about glued together dry mouth and when I go look at the leak report there is maybe a little 10 L/min leak for maybe 5 or 10 minutes (and sometimes no leak to speak of) so I have to assume it was very low level minor mouth breathing but the mouth feels like I must have done it for 2 hours with massive open mouth.
It sure doesn't show up as a massive leak on the leak line graph like I would have expected.

I don't know why your machine is using all the water at such a modest setting. It doesn't make sense unless you lived in the desert and I know you don't. I am using the new PR S1 machine right now in the regular System One setting (don't have the heated hose yet) and I have it set on 5 and it barely used 1/4 of the tank last night. Now I slept with the window open and humidity is high here due to some thunderstorms. So that explains part of the lack of water used but even when humidity is lower on the System One humidification setting the most I might use is maybe 2/3 of the tank.