Dry mouth but can't use full face masks

[lliann]

So I have nasal masks and generally I breathe through my nose when I am awake. I have a deviated septum but seem to have adjusted to nose breathing. However, once I go into deeper sleep, the mouth does it thing and I awaken with severe dry mouth. I have tried chin straps, tape on lips.

Are there any new ideas or products I could try or is there some magical new larger mask. I must have an asymmetrical face because all full masks have leaked badly on me. Thank you

[Pugsy]

Do the leaks mouth breathing cause you to wake up often?

Or do you sleep well and you just see the leak report numbers and panic?
Are you using the available software to actually view the leak graph to see just how bad thing went to?

Which mask would you prefer to use...nasal or full face? If mouth breathing issues were reduced to an acceptable level or eliminated?

Have you tried/seen the Amara View (Respironics) full face mask? It is the only full face mask I have ever had any success with for any number of reasons.

[chunkyfrog]

Have you tried chin up strips?

[lliann]

if the chin up strips look like a big u, I do have some.

The mouth breathing noise wakes me at the same time I realize I have a big cotton comforter
in my mouth. very very dry. I start off with the nose breathing very well and its around 4 that I become aware of whooshing/dryness. I have not started taking graph notes yet. I have a big binder of notes that you all have shared with me at a previous time. I got pretty good at understand things (plus I have a mac so I have to refigure how I ended up being able to navigate all the graphs)

I have an amara full face, and a simplex, still new in the bags. I had a mask long time ago that only did the mouth and that did not work well because I really prefer to breathe though my nose when I am awake, so just breathing through my mouth I did not feel like I was getting enough air. I am not looking at graphs yet but the small reading on my machine says I have been having good mask fits and ahi has been 6 or under.

I think I have the card in my machine so as soon as I find my doohickey that attaches the card to my computer, and then how to call it up on my mac, I should have some more info. Today was nap day. I think my body is going cray cray over this new thing called almost sleep.

[Pugsy]

There is the Amara View which is sort of a hybrid type full face mask.
https://www.cpap.com/productpage/pr-ama ... -pack.html
note nothing over the bridge of the nose area
It is this one that I did try and use for a couple of weeks and kept it just in case I couldn't use my nasal pillow mask for some reason.

and there is the Amara full face which is more like a traditional full face with the part that goes over the nasal bridge area and has the forhead thingy which would drive me bonkers.
https://www.cpap.com/productpage/respir ... -mask.html

If the mouth breathing didn't wake you up then I would say try the nasal mask and see just how bad the mouth breathing is but anything that wakes us up is unwanted and if the other usual stuff to stop mouth breathing doesn't work then I don't know how to stop the wake ups.

[lliann]

Looked at the Amara half face. I wonder if they created a mask with the new Dreamwear nose cradle and a soft mouth extension?

[Pugsy]

Looked at the Amara half face. I wonder if they created a mask with the new Dreamwear nose cradle and a soft mouth extension?

They did indeed. The cushion under the nose is very similar to the cushion on the DreamWear nasal mask. Very similar.
the frame holding the cushion (which covers the nostrils and the mouth at the same time) is plastic but it's far enough away from the face that you don't really notice it. If someone wants a full face mask and doesn't like anything over the bridge of the nose area (like me) then it's a pretty sweet little mask.
I actually slept quite decently with it which is saying something for me.
I won't do anything over the bridge of my nose ..period..and I did try the Innomed Hybrid but it was a bitch to seal and fit the cushion on the frame...and I only used it one night and while I guess I could have maybe made it work...didn't really like it well enough to put forth the effort.

I actually used the Amara View for 2 weeks just to see how I did with it. First few days I did wake a bit more often "fiddling" with it but after a few nights it sort of disappeared on my face which is always my ultimate goal.

[lliann]

Well heck then, that seems like a real good idea. I think I will definitely try it

[Lttuna]

I had the same problem. During the night while using a nasal mask I would breath thru my mouth and it would wake me up with dry mouth.

Solution for me, try soft cervical collar and it worked great keeping mouth closed. Have used it work a week now with no more mouth breathing !

Good luck and stay with it.

[zorki1c]

Had an interesting experience earlier this year. Tore a bicep tendon in my left arm and after surgery had to sleep in a recliner for awhile. I use a Airfit P10 mask and normally get AHI scores 1.7 or below. When sleeping in the chair my AHI shot up into double digits and I was breathing through my mouth. A chin strap helped but I absolutely hated the thing. As soon as I could get back in bed my scores dropped back where they were before.