Mouth breathing going away with CPAP?

[dp135]

I watched a video that stated that mouth breathing that is NOT caused by congestion or a deviated septum can stop with adequate CPAP use. Is the consensus that this is true? I ask as I am doing an experiment of one. I've been using the Dreamwear nasal mask ( which I really like vs a full DW mask ) and tape ( Somnifix) as I always have breathed through my mouth and snored without CPAP. I do not usually breath through my mouth during the daytime. I dislike the tape sometimes. I am finding I am not as tired not using the tape. Does that make sense to anyone? My mouth is not super dry in the AM so I am wondering if I am ok doing it just with the nasal cushion.

Only using CPAP since late Sept 2020 and am trying to sorts things out.

PS someone mentioned that I should add my machine profile - I see it on my posts - is it missing for others?

[Julie]

If anything, those who've been able to not mouth breathe may be the few (or a bit more) who learned how to keep their tongue tips behind their upper teeth - it apparently does work...

[dp135]

Thank you.

[Pugsy]

Sometimes people ended up doing a lot of mouth breathing during sleep more from gasping from air due to sleep apnea events happening than anything else. Once the sleep apnea is treated optimally they no longer mouth breathe. Now there might be a period of time where the mouth breathing habit is a bit hard to break but it can be done.

I was one of those people. Nothing wrong with my nose and I never needed to mouth breathe during the day but I sure did a lot of it at night and I think it was simply more of a mouth breathing gasping for breaths kind of thing.
I first thought I also might need a full face mask but I quickly realized that wasn't a good option for me so I decided to go the nasal pillow mask route first and it worked out fine. First 2 or 3 months I had some mouth breathing happen but that was more out of habit than anything else. After that my mouth learned to stay shut for the most part and I didn't mouth breathe enough to be a problem.

So yes...mouth breathing can go away with cpap use for some people and I always tell people they might as well give it a try. Don't have anything to lose and it might just work out.

I was able to even ditch the taping the mouth thing after about 3 months. On occasion I do see some random probable mouth leaks but they are rare, random and short lived so I don't really care.

[Driver1814]

How do you know if your mouth breathing is enough to be an issue? Is there signs of mouth breathing to be looking out for? Is breathing in nose out mouth considered mouth breathing?

[Pugsy]

How do you know if your mouth breathing is enough to be an issue? Is there signs of mouth breathing to be looking out for? Is breathing in nose out mouth considered mouth breathing?

If air is going out your mouth then you are mouth breathing.

If it's enough to be a problem it will show up as a big leak on the software reports leak graphs.

Most common sign of mouth breathing...dry mouth but it doesn't take much mouth breathing to dry out the mouth so I don't panic just with dry mouth. I have learned that my mouth dries out quite a bit with as little as 5 to 10 minutes of mouth breathing and I don't bat an eyelash for mouth breathing leak that only lasts 10 minutes. I learned a long time ago that the things that can be done to try to eliminate mouth breathing (tape, full face mask, etc) cause me more problems with sleep than 10 minutes of mouth breathing might cause.

Not all dry mouth is from mouth breathing though. Sometimes it's a medication side effect or sometimes just a hydration thing or even some other health issue.

[Driver1814]

Air sense 10 16L leak average. Would it be higher or lower if you were breathing alot through your mouth?

[Pugsy]

Air sense 10 16L leak average. Would it be higher or lower if you were breathing alot through your mouth?

Most likely a lot higher.

I assume the number off the machine's LCD display which is a 95% number. That means at OR BELOW that number for 95% of the time.
You might be doing a little mouth breathing but it is well within the machine's ability to compensate for it.
Large leak territory is 24 L/min. You need to look at the software detailed leak report to know just how high but even if it goes higher it sure doesn't last very long. The machine doesn't start running into real trouble recording, sensing and responding until you get up around 35 L/min anyway.

Not all leaks are mouth leaks as well. We can have mask movement leaks too. When I see a 95% number less than 30 I don't even bother to look at the leak details....assuming the leaks don't wake me up.

I would assume with a 95% leak number of 16 L/min...that the bulk of your night the leaks are going to be minimal no matter what the cause and I wouldn't be worrying about them.

[Driver1814]

Hope I'm not hijacking thread so last q. What if your mouth breathing and your AHI is 1.5 or less??? Worry or not worry about it? Can't download oscar doesn't appear to be chrome or droid friendly:(

[Pugsy]

Hope I'm not hijacking thread so last q. What if your mouth breathing and your AHI is 1.5 or less??? Worry or not worry about it? Can't download oscar doesn't appear to be chrome or droid friendly:(

No problem. I don't consider this anywhere close to hijacking and I suspect that the OP will benefit from this discussion.

No I don't worry...if the 95% number is below 24 L/min and the AHI is low (below 2.0 AHI I consider low) AND most importantly I am sleeping well and feeling decent then I shrug my shoulders about a little maybe mouth breathing and move on.

BUT any leak that wakes you up, no matter the cause, is unwanted no matter how big or little because it is disturbing sleep.
Good sleep is why we do all this crap you know. I don't sweat minor less than perfect leak numbers as long as I am sleeping good and feeling decent and those leaks don't wake me up.

Heck I don't always get worked up about the leak numbers even when they are high because sometimes they don't reflect what really happened. Go to this thread I did a while back. OMG I now realize it was 2015...time flies here
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=108724&p=1036669&hi ... t#p1036669

It's pretty obvious I had a big leak and the numbers on the surface look bad. Now in this situation I know it wasn't mouth breathing as it was a new mask and I didn't have the straps adjusted optimally yet. It was for sure mask movement...but it was still big leak.
The 95% number was horrible but if you look at the graphs my time in large leak really wasn't all that long. Even if this had been mouth breathing I would just have shrugged my shoulders and moved on.

Sometimes numbers don't tell us the whole story but when someone is reporting a 95% number less than 20 L/min....I already know what their leak line looks like and it sure isn't bad at all and I don't really need to see it. Now if your 95% number was say 32 L/min then we might want to look closer.

Now if leaks wake you up...different story of course but if you are worried about mouth breathing and is it impacting your therapy...quit worrying about it because the machine can compensate for any leaks (no matter the cause) up to really a little more than 30 L/min before it gets into trouble. Now ResMed makes the red line at 24 L/min but IMHO that's an ultra conservative line in the sand.

Hope that seeing that thread above which visually I think will help ease your mind will put to rest the mouth breathing concerns you might be having. I know a lot of people see a little large leak and panic and think OMG I need a full face mask but it isn't always the case and besides...full face masks come with their own leak problems because there is so much surface area that has to remain sealed.
Unless someone just wants a full face mask or they simply can't breathe through their nose...I see no sense in even going down that road. In over 11 years of therapy the only time I have ever used a full face mask was just to try a couple. I have never actually had to use one even if I had a bad cold. I went 6 years and didn't even own one...then got one to try...and kept it because I could use it if I had to...then after a couple of years of non use I sold it because someone else needed it worse than me and I pretty much figured out I would never ever use it. Waste of a good mask.
So now I don't even own one. Do I occasionally mouth breathe...yeah, on a rare occasion I wake up on my back and the mouth has dropped open but it's never for very long and it doesn't happen often and I simply don't care.

[SDBud]

I watched a video that stated that mouth breathing that is NOT caused by congestion or a deviated septum can stop with adequate CPAP use. Is the consensus that this is true?

Not relevant for a full face mask, which I use, so can't help there. But I DOUBT it.

[dp135]

Thank you. I'm posting this from last night. I seem to always show snoring.

[Pugsy]

That screen shot is essentially useless. Sorry. Way too zoomed in to tell much of anything.

[dp135]

That screen shot is essentially useless. Sorry. Way too zoomed in to tell much of anything.

Ok thank you - what should it show? What is the proper zoom level?

[Pugsy]

No zooming to start with. Just the overall detailed page and if we want something zoomed in on we will request.

As for snores...I don't know how critical they are because I can't really see the events graphs well but you might read this.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=155478&p=1182858&hi ... s#p1182858

Usually snores will respond to a little more minimum pressure. From what I can see as to the pattern of the snore clusters it might be either supine sleeping related or REM stage sleep related or maybe a little of both. Both of which can cause OSA to worsen and/or need a little more pressure to prevent them. Snores are early warning signs that the airway is trying to collapse.
If you look at the OAs...a lot of them are flagged at the same time as the snores.

You probably need just a little more minimum pressure because what you are using now isn't quite able to do a good job holding the airway open and preventing the airway collapse.
Since I can't see the overall pressure graph because you are zoomed in I can't tell if the machine is responding well or not but Respironics machines are notoriously slow sometimes when it comes to increasing the pressure because of snores or OAs/hyponeas. The minimum pressure is much more critical in these situations.