Chin strap failed

There is just something about taping my mouth shut that bothers me reminding me of suffocation. Is this practice recommended by doctors? What if you have to cough? Does your taped lips cause you not to be able to cough? I bought those expensive (only one time) chin-up strips and will try them on my jaw this weekend. Granted, on this topic, chin straps are no picnic, my ears get rubbed, my cheeks get rubbed by the straps, but I know that I will be safe if I have to cough. By the way with everyone who recommended taping, do you tape your lips totally closed as if you were putting on lipstick?

Luthie2006 wrote:do you tape your lips totally closed as if you were putting on lipstick?

Yeah, pretty much. Some people sort of roll their lips inward so the tape doesn't go on the lips themselves but I never did that.
As to coughing...never had to so it was a non issue. If I was ill (like with a cold or something where I was obviously going to be coughing or whatever) I wouldn't be taping anyway. When we are ill all bets are off and I just do whatever I can to get halfway decent sleep and don't worry about the leak line or even bother with the reports because they are likely going to look yucky anyway.

If a person isn't comfortable with all aspects of it....don't do it.
If it freaks a person out...don't do it.

If a person is on the fence and just wondering...do a practice session with tape for a couple of hours and watch TV or read and cough and yawn and see just how easily the seal can be broken.

Thanks Pugsy: I did try the white "sensitive" tape on my lips once but it didn't work. The blue painter's tape didn't work either. I don't remember if it was because it was painful or I didn't "tape" correctly. I used 2 or 3 little pieces of tape going vertically on the SIDES of my lips and the front of my lips still "opened up in the middle of the night. This is important to me because apparently I must open my mouth at night. It is dry as the desert. I bought those
chin-up strips which I will try this weekend, super expensive, so no matter what, this will be the last time I buy them. I did not realize that you put the tape over the front of your lips, so it prevents them from even opening a little bit?

Luthie2006 wrote:I did not realize that you put the tape over the front of your lips, so it prevents them from even opening a little bit?

Yeah...the lips won't open unless the tape seal gets broken for some reason...it's a big piece of tape and I found it still would come loose with drool but didn't happen often. I can see that 2 or 3 little vertical strips wouldn't work. Would likely need much larger/longer strips vertical.

Pugsy: So if you put it on vertically, one piece of tape vertically over the front of the lips so the sides of your lips are open? Thanks so much. The chin strap is starting to hurt my ears.

Luthie2006 wrote:Pugsy: So if you put it on vertically, one piece of tape vertically over the front of the lips so the sides of your lips are open? Thanks so much. The chin strap is starting to hurt my ears.

I never tried the vertical thing but if I was going to I would put 1 strip about an inch wide vertically from right under the nose to probably under the chin for extra support and leave the sides open...and expect some drool which might compromise the seal but would try it to see just how much.

Thanks Pugsy. There is something about taping the lips totally shut (I know a lot of CPAP users do this) that has been a little nervous. But I will try the long piece of vertical tape in the center of my lips going from the bottom of the nasal pillows down to my chin and keep the sides open. I just hope air doesn't escape from the sides of my lips, which it probably will. I was sleeping on my back last night (because my back was giving me pain on my side) and sure enough even with the Ruby Puresome chin strap, my mouth was like the Sahara desert. I will go back to this medical tape I have that is for "sensitive skin". I don't know if the stick will be strong enough. But I will try it vertically longer though. Just don't know about the air escaping from the sides of my mouth?
Thank you again.

Luthie2006 wrote:Just don't know about the air escaping from the sides of my mouth?

There's always that chance.
And it may or may not be a significant problem. Not all mouth leaks result in massive therapy pressure loss. I have proof of that somewhere (no time to go find it right now) where I woke up mouth breathing for sure and it right at my normal wake up time so I just continued to mouth breathe for about 10 minutes so that I could actually see just exactly how much the leak was affected and to my surprise it didn't even make it to large leak territory. Remind me later and I will go look for that screen shot....I know for a fact I was mouth breathing and the leak line showed minimal leak...so not all mouth leaking will result in the therapy being in the toilet.
Now of course if the mouth leaks disturb sleep then that's unwanted but if small leaks happen and we sleep through them and they aren't so huge or prolonged to really make much of a negative impact on therapy...I don't think they are worth worrying about and for sure not worth going to the extraordinary measures to fix.
For me it all depends on
1...just how big is the leak
2...just how long does it last
3...does it wake me up
4...just how often does any of the above happen? like is it every night or once a week?

I answer those questions and then decide if I want to shrug my shoulders and move on or work on fixing it.