What? Mouth breathing is ok?

[lazarus]

quoting

Fixed.

[Rubicon]

Basically they are saying don't worry about it if you use a nasal mask and no mouth tape and you end up mouth breathing.

Not really. If you read some of his other posts he seems to be quite aggressively anti-mouth breathing under any circumstances.

[tisket]

Yes really. The posts you are talking about, he is talking about inhaling through your mouth being bad. Not mouth leak. He has no problem with exhaling through the mouth.

The original poster ("OP") asked:

"New to CPAP - wear a nasal pillow - Woke up twice through the night blowing air out of my mouth. Report says AHI is 1.37. Is that number accurate if I'm blowing out of my mouth?

I felt like I was still breathing air through my nose, like maybe it was going through my lungs and out my mouth? I'm not sure though. I'm mostly concerned as to whether or not I can trust my test results if I was blowing air out of my mouth. I plan to try some tape though to prevent it in the future."

Someone answered

"If you've got significant mouth-leak going on, the machine can't push air hard enough to maintain pressure in your airway and your therapy is ineffective.

Mouth tape is the answer. I use Cover-Roll Stretch, which is cheap on Amazon."


His reply
"
ridinbend
•
2d ago
Registered Polysomnographic Technologist
This is not true."


The OP asked "So can you comment on the AHI reading of 1? Is that accurate or not?"

His response

"u/ridinbend avatar
ridinbend
•
2d ago
Registered Polysomnographic Technologist
Please know the statement this person made is incorrect. See my previous response."


And his full response that I quoted from to begin with.


"u/ridinbend avatar
ridinbend
•
2d ago
Registered Polysomnographic Technologist
Yes, it's ok to vent pressure out your mouth at times. It's not a loss of treatment pressure is called oral venting. Your body has different pressure requirements based on stage of sleep(REM or Non REM) and positions(side and back) and sometimes when you don't need the highest pressure, air vents or your mouth. Do yourself a favor and get the sunset halo fun strap. *This is not a reason to get a full face mask."

[Pugsy]

sometimes when you don't need the highest pressure, air vents or your mouth.

Soooooo.....just how does one know that they "don't need the highest pressure"????
Oh....it must be that when I wake up with air whooshing out my mouth that's okay because I don't need it????

That makes zero common sense.

Oh well....he's a "professional" so he/she should (stress should) know what he/she is talking about....cough, cough, LMAO

Take his/her advice with a grain of salt....verify first then maybe trust. IMHO

Though I do admit to known mouth breathing myself and I opt to do nothing about it for other reasons such as
1...doesn't wake me up
2...short lived
3...rarely does that leak even make it into large leak territory
4...doing something to prevent mouth breathing is pretty much going to cause a bigger problem with my sleep than maybe a little mouth breathing causes.

[Rubicon]

Yes really. The posts you are talking about, he is talking about inhaling through your mouth being bad. Not mouth leak. He has no problem with exhaling through the mouth.

The original poster ("OP") asked:

"New to CPAP - wear a nasal pillow - Woke up twice through the night blowing air out of my mouth. Report says AHI is 1.37. Is that number accurate if I'm blowing out of my mouth?

I felt like I was still breathing air through my nose, like maybe it was going through my lungs and out my mouth? I'm not sure though. I'm mostly concerned as to whether or not I can trust my test results if I was blowing air out of my mouth. I plan to try some tape though to prevent it in the future."

Someone answered

"If you've got significant mouth-leak going on, the machine can't push air hard enough to maintain pressure in your airway and your therapy is ineffective.

Mouth tape is the answer. I use Cover-Roll Stretch, which is cheap on Amazon."


His reply
"
ridinbend
•
2d ago
Registered Polysomnographic Technologist
This is not true."


The OP asked "So can you comment on the AHI reading of 1? Is that accurate or not?"

His response

"u/ridinbend avatar
ridinbend
•
2d ago
Registered Polysomnographic Technologist
Please know the statement this person made is incorrect. See my previous response."


And his full response that I quoted from to begin with.


"u/ridinbend avatar
ridinbend
•
2d ago
Registered Polysomnographic Technologist
Yes, it's ok to vent pressure out your mouth at times. It's not a loss of treatment pressure is called oral venting. Your body has different pressure requirements based on stage of sleep(REM or Non REM) and positions(side and back) and sometimes when you don't need the highest pressure, air vents or your mouth. Do yourself a favor and get the sunset halo fun strap. *This is not a reason to get a full face mask."

Nah.

[Rubicon]

sometimes when you don't need the highest pressure, air vents or your mouth.

Soooooo.....just how does one know that they "don't need the highest pressure"????

Yeah, that part doesn't make sense, but look at all the people with "mouth puffs" (expiratory limb < inspiratory limb), often mistaken for palatal prolapse.

In those cases, why bother, for the reasons you listed.

[Rubicon]

What? Mouth breathing is ok?

No, anything to prevent or eliminate an open mouth is beneficial.

[Rubicon]

What? Mouth breathing is ok?

You never want to breath in through your mouth during treatment if you can avoid it. The nose is the primary source for respiration.

[Rubicon]

Gee, I hate to cloud the issue with facts...

[tisket]

Time to try out that "Foes" functionality. No time for trolls.

[Rubicon]

Wow! Did I fuck up! Boy am I an asshole!!

[lazarus]

Gee, I hate to cloud the issue with facts...

What?! Facts in forums are OK?!

No time for trolls.

I know I personally have three different nuanced positions on (1) occasional mouth leak during an evaluation sleep test, (2) constant high mouth leak during home treatment, and (3) whether mouth-breathing or nose-breathing, in general, is preferable, or ideal.

So I guess I, too, could be someone who could be made to look particularly foolish by taking some of my statements in one context and applying them broadly in another.

Discussions of masks, machines, PSGs, leak reports, noses, mouths, preferences, ideals, and the like are certainly not simple enough to reduce to simple mouth-breathe-bad vs.mouth-breathe-good.

Ask a tech if ya wanna know about how to set up sleep tests. Ask a doc--or even better, an RRT--if ya wanna know about breathing in general. And ask experienced patients in forums if ya wanna know about practical hints for effectively streamlining and tweaking of home treatment equipment for simple OSA.

But not all pros are equally experienced, knowledgeable, or clear--no more than all forum posters or readers can be expected to be equally experienced or fair or clear in understanding what is said or meant on any given topic.

And context matters.

At least that's my position as a recovering member of trolloholics anonymous.

May you get good info and find what works best for you.

[tisket]

Without mouth tape I get 30%+ large leak every night. With it, usually zero.

Nothing was taken out of context. As I said, the Reddit "sleep tech" was only concerned about mouth inhaling. They were clueless about mouth leak and contradicted the person who explained it.

[lazarus]

In my case, I used a mandibular advancement device in conjunction with CPAP. That eventually trained me to keep my mouth shut during sleep while using a nasal mask.

Although, so far, I have been completely unable to find any device capable of training me to keep my mouth shut when I get the urge to post in this forum.

[chunkyfrog]

Honestly, the title RSPGT does not instill me with confidence.
Too much specialization breeds savants, unable to focus on relevant associations.