Does mouth breathing come and go?

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yoshi
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Does mouth breathing come and go?

Post by yoshi » Wed Oct 07, 2015 7:19 am

I'm on night 5 of cpap. First three nights went pretty well, no leaks. Two nights ago, I kept waking up with the tornado sound/dry mouth and a leak rate of 7L. Interestingly enough, I still felt pretty rested despite wakeups. Last night I woke up with my mouth wide open, but the wakeups were less frequent. The leak rate was 2L according to the screen on my cpap. I haven't changed my humidifier/heat settings, and when my mouth is closed the humidity feels comfortable. I'm not congested or anything like that. Humidifier is set to 4, heat is at 70 degrees.

I'm curious if mouth breathing is something that can be intermittent. I'm just surprised that the mouth breathing has started the past 2 nights where the first few days were better. I'm also wondering, should I look into solutions for mouth leak (mouth guard, chinstrap, taping, etc) or get in touch with my DME to try a new mask? Is this is something that will resolve itself with patience or I need to make some tweaks?

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SleepyCarey
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Re: Does mouth breathing come and go?

Post by SleepyCarey » Wed Oct 07, 2015 7:36 am

For sure, mouth breathing can be intermittent. I can have several nights with no large leaks and then wham, one night with several of them because my mouth keeps opening.

If it's only night 5 for you, I would give it another couple of weeks to see if mouth breathing really is an ongoing, every night problem. Personally, I'm just not willing to go to great lengths to stop all leaks. Sure I want to minimize them, but if my leak rate overall stays pretty low, I'm fine with having a bad leak night here and there.

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Pugsy
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Re: Does mouth breathing come and go?

Post by Pugsy » Wed Oct 07, 2015 8:24 am

Any mouth breathing that I might do seems to be mainly when I am on my back.
Were you on your back when you woke up with the mouth open?
Normally I sleep right through it and when I look at the leak graphs they aren't horrible so I don't worry about it. From the looks of the graphs the time was usually short lived and the amount of leak wasn't horribly excessive.

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yippeekia
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Re: Does mouth breathing come and go?

Post by yippeekia » Wed Oct 07, 2015 9:14 am

I used to mouth breath all of the time. I got a chin strap and tried it to reduce the number of times I was waking up. I concentrated on keeping my tongue pressed against the roof of my mouth, especially when I was falling asleep. I even tried to breath through my nose during the day. After three months, on a really warm night I tried sleeping without the chin strap. Success. Almost no leaks now. I have not used it since and only have rare mouth breathing incidents when I am sleeping on my back. I know it is different for everyone, but that was my experience.

tiredandscared
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Re: Does mouth breathing come and go?

Post by tiredandscared » Wed Oct 07, 2015 9:16 am

aslong as your not nasally congested or have some issue with your nasal structure. It shouldn't be a problem. I only mouth breath if i my nose is congested.

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Wulfman...
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Re: Does mouth breathing come and go?

Post by Wulfman... » Wed Oct 07, 2015 12:24 pm

Could be any number of things that can cause it.......too much humidity, nasal congestion, tongue not staying to the roof of the mouth, etc., etc.

If you use a full face mask, it's not a problem because the therapy air won't escape.


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yaconsult
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Re: Does mouth breathing come and go?

Post by yaconsult » Wed Oct 07, 2015 12:41 pm

Yes, mouth breathing can definitely be intermittent. Also note that you can mouth breath even though your mouth is closed - through your lips. This is why I now tape every night.

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Goofproof
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Re: Does mouth breathing come and go?

Post by Goofproof » Wed Oct 07, 2015 1:34 pm

Yes, it comes, at times it comes less, many times it gets worse by you sleeping position. As long as my leak rate isn't higher than 5 lpm higher than the mask vent rate, I know it's not harming me treatment or data. Jim
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sptrout
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Re: Does mouth breathing come and go?

Post by sptrout » Wed Oct 07, 2015 2:03 pm

I guess I am lucky. I have to sleep on my back due to severe back pain issues that are made worse when on my side. Since I started CPAP on 4/2/15 I have had no indication of having any month breathing at all. Therefore, I can use a nose pillow mask without any issues. However, I have not had a cold yet so I have no idea what to expect then. (Probably kicked out of the bedroom and move to the recliner in the living room and try to sleep upright. LOL)

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Sir NoddinOff
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Re: Does mouth breathing come and go?

Post by Sir NoddinOff » Wed Oct 07, 2015 4:19 pm

Yes, for my first year on CPAP I used nasal pillows and managed to keep my mouth shut most of the time. Over the course of a year I started opening my mouth intermittently at an increasing rate and that would wake me up. Kind of a deal breaker in my case. Not too long afterwards I switched to a full face mask and have been using them every since. Of course there are always chinstraps and mouth taping, as examples of another way to go. I think mouth/teeth guards are useless for preventing mouth-breathing.

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yoshi
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Re: Does mouth breathing come and go?

Post by yoshi » Wed Oct 07, 2015 5:37 pm

I was thinking about this at work-- the only difference I can think of between the first few nights and the mouth breathing nights is that I was sleeping on my side during the problematic nights.

Typically, I'm a side sleeper. Usually, I can only sleep on my back if I'm extremely exhausted but I couldn't figure out how to orient myself so I wasn't breaking the seal on my nose pillows. I was thrilled (two nights ago) to have found the sweet spot with my pillow so I could side sleep again--my neck was starting to ache from sleeping on my back. I'm going to try back sleeping again tonight and see if the mouth breathing goes away.

I trained myself before cpap to plant my tongue on the roof of my mouth before falling asleep, to help with drooling. I'm guessing maybe my tongue must have fallen from its "spot". I initially woke up to a sore throat and the hurricane sound, so I planted my tongue and later woke up with the lip flap. Anyway, I'm hoping I can train my mouth to stay shut at night while side sleeping or find some way I can consistently sleep on my back. I got a new buckwheat pillow today, so I'm hoping that helps with my neck ache a little.

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