Mouth leaking vs. mask leaking

[mets123]

Can someone explain and maybe post screenshots to show the differences between mask leaking and mouth leaking would like to be able to look at Oscar and have a better understanding of these two issues.
Thanks

[samurai3005]

Can someone explain and maybe post screenshots to show the differences between mask leaking and mouth leaking would like to be able to look at Oscar and have a better understanding of these two issues.
Thanks

Hi, I wouldn't consider myself any kind of expert but since I also had the same question like yours a while ago, I feel like I could help a thing or two.

Mr. Jay demonstrated how different the mouth leaking would be from a normal breath in there: viewtopic/t114197/Flow-Rate-Waveform-Ex ... -Mask.html. But if you're having doubts about whether your mask is leaking, I suggest you use a Lasinoh cream to help seal the mask (viewtopic/t94885/Lansinoh-is-a-God-Send-.html and many other articles you can find in this wonderful forum). More ideally, you should also switch to a P10 and use this cream for better treatment effect IMO.

[Pugsy]

As much as I wish there was an easy quick way to know with certainty if a big leak we see is mouth breathing or mask movement...I have yet to see it just from looking at the leak line graph.
Sometimes you can get an idea by the flow rate or breaths but not always.
Been there and done that myself and I have never found a simple way to know for sure unless I eliminated for sure the chance of mouth opening/breathing by taping the mouth shut and making darn sure the tape stayed put.

I know I mouth breathe on occasion but it's rarely a lot so once when I was trying a new mask and I was wondering about mask movement and fit because I was seeing some massive leaks....I couldn't be sure so I taped my mouth just to see.

This was with my mouth taped and the tape didn't come off. The only thing left was mask movement...poor fit.

leakynight.JPG

[mets123]

Thanks Pugsy and Samurai for your response. Pugsy, can you explain or maybe also with a screenshot just what you are looking for in the flow rate chart . Thanks

[samurai3005]

Thanks Pugsy and Samurai for your response. Pugsy, can you explain or maybe also with a screenshot just what you are looking for in the flow rate chart . Thanks

I believe what she meant was, one way to tell the difference between the two (mouth leaking vs mask leaking) is try to eliminate one for good (and make sure it's really out of the picture) and see if the outcome is still there (massive leak). In her case, she confirmed that the tape stayed on the whole night, which made mouth leak possibility effectively zero, so the only explanation for her leaks was the poor mask fit, hence the mask leaking.

I don't think in her case you can get much information from the flow chart rate without taking the context into consideration (successful taping). In Jay's post that I posted earlier, he said that mouth leaks would have classic plateau shaped waveforms, which are what displayed in Pugsy's report as well.

[Pugsy]

Thanks Pugsy and Samurai for your response. Pugsy, can you explain or maybe also with a screenshot just what you are looking for in the flow rate chart . Thanks

I don't use a flow rate graph to help me figure out mouth breathing or mask movement for leak evaluation. I have never been able to spot enough difference for it to matter ....at least for me. I just go for the guts and eliminate one potential source of leak and if it still leaks a lot then that tells me what I want to know or need to know. I am only concerned with big prolonged large leaks. I am not concerned with minor small leaks that don't wake me up and would require looking at the flow rate like the example you were were already given by someone else. I have no such examples because I don't use that sort of evaluation. Sorry.

Jay's examples are good but for my own stuff...way more work than I ever wanted to do and to be honest I couldn't ever really see that much of a difference in my own flow rate or breaths like he can or he showed. I just couldn't spot enough consistent differences to be certain about anything and Jay did a lot of known breathing awake testing when he did those examples. I see no sense in duplicating his work.

I will tell you this...mouth breathing doesn't always mean massive leaks. I did wake up one morning and I was mouth breathing. Nice gentle mouth breathing and no tornado effect out the mouth. So I laid there for a while and decided to just continue doing it so I would have a nice known mouth breathing leak to see on the leak graph. Did it for about 15 minutes until I got bored and needed to get up to pee. The known mouth breathing leak is circled in red in the image below. Not enough leak for it to matter at all. So not all mouth breathing equals massive loss of therapy pressure. As for the obvious bigger leaks that happened earlier in the night....have no idea but most likely mask movement. They didn't wake me up nor were they horribly prolonged so I don't really care what they were caused by.

[mets123]

Thanks Pugsy and samura for your feedback

[morny]

I noticed I was getting regular large increases in pressure/leak. Happened regularly for the first 2 weeks, as soon as I started using mouth tape no more large increases in pressure and leak, much more consistent. I was tinkering with the starting number, was initially 4 and increased it to 7,8 and then 9 but even when I was on 7 and not taping my mouth I was seeing the 45 degree increases (which often woke me up). So at least for me, it seems to have had a noticeable impact.

I just put 1 piece of medical tape over the lips, no bother at all with it.