Air blowing out the wrong end !

I keep waking up at night with the pressure blowing out of my mouth, instead of blowing out my rear end (which I would prefer), and it's driving me nuts.

I must have woken up 4-5 times last night with this problem.

I don't believe I am opening the hole on my face to snore, because when I was at lower presures of 4-7 this simply didn't happen. (My AHI was much higher at this lower pressure)

Now that I'm ranging 10-14 H2O, I wake up with the air blowing out of my mouth and it must be for a considerable amount of time since my mouth is extremely dry.

I think it's the pressure that's actually blowing my mouth open during the night. If this is the case, I don't believe a chin strap would be very effective.
(Do they make chin straps that have little bunny ears on top ?)

Is a piece of duct tape my only option ?

Maybe I can plug it with a pool ball and some silicone.

Not too interested giving my wife comedic material seeing me with a couple of "pillows" up my nose connected to a 6 foot long hose and a piece of duct tape over my mouth...

I can just hear it now, "Let me take a picture."

It can really be a problem when air is blowing out the wrong end of a Hugh Jass...

jjb

sorry, couldn't resist.

Hugh,

This is a problem that many of us on the forum have encountered. The medical community has not, in it's ultimate wisdom, devised a solution to this other than an uncomfortable leaky full face mask that many have trouble sleeping with anyway. If you can't sleep, the therapy is useless so we're back to where we started here. Some on the forum have used tape, I would suggest something other than duct tape. Others have attempted to make some sort of silicone mouth guard to prevent air from escaping out of their mouth. The key is the tougue. Do some experimenting with your machine on. You will find if you move your tongue up and back, that you are able to stop the leaks with your mouth wide open. By now I better mention that I am not a doctor nor are any of the forum members that I have refernced. Sorry but not mentioning this every time seems to be causing a problem with some posters. Getting back to the meaningful part of the discussion, The key is that the air likes to take the path of least resistance, so you need to devise a system that works for you to make it harder for the air to come out of your mouth than down into your lungs.

Your other option may be to try a full face mask.

Hugh Jass wrote:I keep waking up at night with the pressure blowing out of my mouth, instead of blowing out my rear end (which I would prefer), and it's driving me nuts.

I had the exact same problem, at times sounding like I was blowing raspberry kisses at my wife.

I made a chip strap and it didn't help at all.

My solution was to use a full-face mask, which I have been using for 1-½ years. With the full-face mask I never wake up with a dry mouth caused by escaping air, or waking up my wife by making raspberry like sounds due to air escaping from between my lips.

We both sleep better since I started using a full-face mask, no more raspberry kisses.

For the past two weeks I have been using an Auto C-Flex which drops the pressure on exhale. This now makes me wonder if I could use a nasal mask.

Good luck

I had a problem on straight cpap. I would tape my mouth (medical tape, not duct tape) I switched to auto w/c-flex in January. I still had a small problem during the first week or so - i think I had just gotten used to the mouth opening while the machine as on - and also had to adjust the c-flex so that if felt more like my normal breathing. It's been fine since.
Exhaling against the pressure can be difficult, and you might have to try a couple of different soluntions until you find the one that works for you.
Debbie

snoozin' wrote:I had a problem on straight cpap. I would tape my mouth (medical tape, not duct tape) I switched to auto w/c-flex in January. I still had a small problem during the first week or so - i think I had just gotten used to the mouth opening while the machine as on - and also had to adjust the c-flex so that if felt more like my normal breathing. It's been fine since.
Exhaling against the pressure can be difficult, and you might have to try a couple of different soluntions until you find the one that works for you.
Debbie

Oh no, not the straight cpap again

I can suggest a Resmed Ultra Mirage Full Face Mask. It could be better, but at the moment, it is the best there is...