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Greetings to you. First message here.

I am primarily a nose breather and I use a nostril mask (brevida). I believe that there is no leak with this mask. Nevertheless there are major leaks shown on Sleepyhead, some times associated with dry mouth.

My understanding is that my tongue gets relaxed during the night and opens an airway to my mouth. Therefore the air leaks.

I am now very tired. I tried a warm hose (Resmed) and a lot of humidity (highest temperature and humidity index 5, above I face water in hose/mask issues). This helps, I have much less dry mouth issues. Nevertheless I still get a lot of mouth leaks. This makes a lot of noise and is a nuisance for my spouse.

I believe that no close mouth device will help as the issue is not with my mouth opening but my tongue making an airway possible. In fact, my mouth remains closed and my cheeks suddenly get all puffed during the night.

I tried an full face mask, but I get a lot of air leaks in my eyes. Never dared to go to sleep with this mask.

What can I do to prevent the mouth leaks ?

I tried to lower the air pressure. This reduces the air leaks but I loose efficiency on AHI.

Thanks

bod,
ResMed 10, Brevida, hot hose

Have you tried taping your mouth? That's the most common fix for that problem. Chin straps can sometimes help.

No I haven't tried yet.
If I do, I guess that my cheeks will puff up, there will be no way out for the air in my mouth except in my stomach. Is this true ?

bod

bod wrote:No I haven't tried yet.
If I do, I guess that my cheeks will puff up, there will be no way out for the air in my mouth except in my stomach. Is this true ?

bod

You still have a nose...If you still have problems, use the FF mask. That's what it was designed for. There's nothing to fear about that mask.

Taping your mouth will train it to stay closed at night. Hopefully, after time, you won't have to do it and it will stay closed all night.

Sheriff

Or... check out a chin strap. That will help you keep your mouth closed if you prefer not using tape.

Sheriff

I use a nasal pillow as well......was having leaking thru mouth......started out with chin straps....helped some, but there is always enough relaxation with my mouth that the air would start to make it thru the lips......so I decided to try and tape with chin strap.....this makes the difference.......i found that 3M Nexcare tape was the most effective....its strong enough to hold, but yet wont hurt to take off etc......I found that the pap cap worked the best for chin straps.....But keep in mind, its never 100% perfect , as its tough to get the procedure to be identical night from night......But you can get pretty darn close.....

Just how badly is SleepyHead saying you are leakinig?
Is it 6 % of the time in large leak territory or is it 60%?
How deep do you go into large leak territory...max 30 L/min or spend half the night in 50 L/min area?
Are you sleeping through the leaks (whatever the size) or are you waking often.

How much time : bad days 15% above 24l/min with 13 minutes straight above 35l/min.

It is not waking me more than twice a night, with humidity, but my wife is really disturbed by it.

I prefer using pillows so I control mouth leaking by using the Ultimate Chin Strap http://sleepapneasolutionsinc.com/

Many people are successful using a FFM. Make sure the size is correct and adjusted properly.

Bad days of 15% if everyone was sleeping great I probably wouldn't worry too much but if wife isn't sleeping good because of your leaks then her needs are important also. ResMed won't even give you Mr Frowny face for leak management until you hit 30% or more of the night in large leaks.
SleepyHead tends to panic over much smaller numbers.

What I would do is try taping my mouth first...object is to see if the leaks totally go away or not which would give you the answer to the question
"is it mouth breathing leaks or mask movement leaks". I have personally seen large leaks with lips taped and while they look like mouth breathing leaks on the graphs if the tape is secure then it can't be mouth breathing leaks and that leaves mask movement leaks as the culprit.
So try to identify the cause of the large leaks first and then decide how to best fix the problem.

Yes, if you tape you run the risk of chipmunk cheek syndrome but right now the object of taping is only to make sure that you are dealing with mouth leaks. Once you have for sure identified the problem then you can consider various options for fixing the problem.

welcome to the forum, bod!

as the saying goes, happy wife, happy life.

i see you're getting lots of helpful advice. i'll chime in with-

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=112758&st=0&sk=t&sd ... i#p1086296

works for me. i'm a full bearded chap who uses a nasal pillow. don't relish shaving my beard, so i never tried mouth taping.

on eye leaking - I have a huge problem with that with full face masks.... the bridge of my nose is very thin and abnormally indented... like most noses meet the forehead, mine is like a centimeter further in with a ridge... there's simply no full face mask (so far) that rest on the bridge of my nose that doesn't leak into my eyes... but I also have similar mouth leak issues... I never could fully resolve them with a nasal only mask even with a chin strap etc, so Now I use an Amara view full face that doesn't use the nose bridge. Obviously results may vary, but as another Eye leaker I thought I'd share my story.

nicholasjh1 wrote:on eye leaking - I have a huge problem with that with full face masks.... the bridge of my nose is very thin and abnormally indented... like most noses meet the forehead, mine is like a centimeter further in with a ridge... there's simply no full face mask (so far) that rest on the bridge of my nose that doesn't leak into my eyes... but I also have similar mouth leak issues... I never could fully resolve them with a nasal only mask even with a chin strap etc, so Now I use an Amara view full face that doesn't use the nose bridge. Obviously results may vary, but as another Eye leaker I thought I'd share my story.

Have you tried the Amara View mask? I have a very narrow bridge on my nose, and used that mask for several months until the ResMed F20 came out, and I now use it most nights. I still use the Amara View once in a while when I have a small pimple come up just above the bridge of my nose.

Thank you all for your answers.

I taped my mouth and had wake ups due to my cheeks puffing up. I got rid of this issue by puncturing the tape with a toothpick to make a small hole between my lips.
During the night if pressured air comes into my mouth, it does escape slowly through the little hole.

Two advantages :
-pressure reduces to atmospheric pressure avoiding
-because of the tape small air leak, when my cheeks are puffed up, I breath in with my nose (can't breath in with my mouth due to tape) then my mouth closes again.

You can try for yourself (when awake), it is really more comfortable.

Bod