mouth breathing

[carol hayhurst]

I have a deviated septum. Can it cause or complicate sleep apnea? Also, I breath through my mouth when i sleep, is this caused by my deviated septum? What can i do to cure it?

[LSAT]

I have always had a deviated septum...in May of this year I had surgery to correct it and to have polyps removed. It had no effect on my sleep apnea.

[Julie]

The ideal solution is to use a 'full face' mask that extends to cover your mouth, rather than a nasal one, so you can breathe with your mouth open but not lose the 'good' air. Popular ones are the Quattro FX, Hybrid, Ultra Mirage II, etc. Some people use chin straps, but they tend not to keep your lips closed. Others use certain tapes (do a search here on taping).

[Big Stevoreno]

I too have a deviated septum and am a mouth breather. After years of using a nasal mask and wearing a chin strap which really did not help I switched recently to a FF mask. My pressure is "18" which is high for someone attempting to use a FF mask, I keep my room cool at night, about 72F, now that I've been on a FF mask I have my humidifier's dial set to the max which is "5", prior to using a FF mask I kept it on "2".

I'm still breathing through my mouth even with a FF mask on, my biggest complaint now is waking up to a very dry mouth, gums and tongue. I'm not nearly as tired as I was when I used a nasal mask but I'd like to know if there is a way to make the air that I'm breathing now more humid? As I said before my humidifier's dial is set to "5" which is the max. Would a heated hose help me out or not? I'm thinking about going back to using a nasal mask unless I can figure out a way to get more moisture inside my mouth at night to avoid waking up every morning with it being so dry.

[avi123]

deleted. it was not about a cure to deviated septum.

[harry33]

if the humidifier is working properly the water level should drop

[Big Stevoreno]

if the humidifier is working properly the water level should drop

If you were replying to my post my humidifier is working properly because every morning when I get up the water chamber which is very small in my machine is almost empty which I'm not surprised since I have it set on the maximum setting of "5" during the night. Any suggestions for being able to increase the moisture level so my mouth, tongue and gums will not be dry but so I can also avoid "rainout" will be appreciated.