Dry mouth even with taping it shut. Please help.

UGADawg · Post by **UGADawg** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 1:52 pm

I have been a CPAP user for about 3 weeks now. At first I had a shallow mask and would wake up feeling great. The problem was that it made the bridge of my nose so raw that it would lose skin and pimples would form on it during the day even though I have not had pimples since being a teenager some 19 years ago. Now I have a nasal pillow mask. It is much more comfortable but I just cannot seem to get a good nights sleep. I woke myself up many times breathing through my mouth so I started taping it shut. Last night was my first night on taping it shut. To my surprise I woke up 3 times in the night having to chug water from severe dry mouth. My pressure is 16 CM. I dont understand why my mouth would be so dry with it being taped shut? Any advice or help is much appreciated.

WindFlyer · Post by **WindFlyer** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:05 pm

Do you have a humidifier in the circuit?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:08 pm

I am discovering that I actually have a DRY THROAT, not a dry mouth. I increased my humidifier setting (I was running straight passover) to 1 and I'm much less parched.

Give that a try.

Cheers,
Babette

UGADawg · Post by **UGADawg** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:08 pm

Yes, I do have a humidifier. I will say that I have been putting it on level 2 heat. I did an experiment this afternoon and put in on the next to the highest level possible and was able to stick my finger in the water and it was barely even warm. Is this normal? Perhaps I have to crank that bad boy all the way up to see results? Or is it normal to not really be able to feel much heat in the water?

oceanpearl · Post by **oceanpearl** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:36 pm

[quote="UGADawg"]Yes, I do have a humidifier. I will say that I have been putting it on level 2 heat. I did an experiment this afternoon and put in on the next to the highest level possible and was able to stick my finger in the water and it was barely even warm. Is this normal? Perhaps I have to crank that bad boy all the way up to see results? Or is it normal to not really be able to feel much heat in the water?

UGADawg · Post by **UGADawg** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:40 pm

I had the machine/humidifier running for about 45 minutes to an hour before I tested the water. Was nowhere close to being hot.
I still do not understand why I would have to wake up 3 times in one night to chug water with my mouth taped shut where I had to wake up to get a drink maybe 3 times the entire 3 weeks prior when I was not taping my mouth shut.
Any ideas? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

oceanpearl · Post by **oceanpearl** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 3:06 pm

My suggestion would be to set the humi on 3 and if you are stilll dry, try raising the humidity until you are not dry.

tuna · Post by **tuna** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:06 pm

I have a REMStar intergrated HH and on setting 4 the max, it didn't work for me, so I hot an F&P HC-150 and on setting 2.5 it did the trick!

grandmma · Post by **grandmma** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 5:52 pm

Hi there, this is slightly off the topic, however you mentioned that you've only taped for one night. I'm new also, and have been scouring this site for 6 weeks for tips, which have helped enormously (thanks all). I've had mask problems and have realised a FF is not for me, but the mouth leak was an issue. I found taping was not for me after a while, but the polident thing is (thanks again to all those who've mentioned this past and present).

You purchase strips of polident, moisten and insert between lips. No marks, no ongoing soreness from the tape, and the lips stay shut. Messy, but comes off well enough. You might want to give it a try if you do have problems with the tape further down the track. Just a thought.

roster · Post by **roster** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 6:15 pm

[quote="UGADawg"].......... I woke myself up many times breathing through my mouth so I started taping it shut. Last night was my first night on taping it shut. To my surprise I woke up 3 times in the night having to chug water from severe dry mouth. My pressure is 16 CM. I dont understand why my mouth would be so dry with it being taped shut? .............

beegee · Post by **beegee** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:13 am

I don't know what brand of machine you are using, but when I purchased a Resmed S8 auto with integrated humidifier after using a hired Fisher & Paykel machine, I noticed a big difference in the heating levels for the humidifiers. The Resmed did not even begin to heat the water on the first 2 settings, while with the F&P, I never needed to turn it higher than the first 2 settings. I decided to return the Resmed humidifier and bought a stand-alone F&P humidifier to use with the Resmed APAP machine. This worked fine, and when I decided to change my machine to Respironics a year or so later, I didn't need to purchase their humidifier as the F&P stand alone can be used with any machine. The downside is that you need extra space and a short hose from the machine to the humidifier.

I was told by the supplier that the Resmed humidifier was designed not to heat under a setting of 3, which seemed a bit silly to me when the range was only zero to four. If this is your machine, then turn your humidifier to 3 or 4 and it should help the dryness.

Barbara.

stevoreno · Post by **stevoreno** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:34 am

I've had that problem off and on for quite sometime now. Before I put my nasal mask on I try to make sure my nose is open; no congestion; I then turn my CPAP machine on; put my mask on and attempt to go to sleep. About 2 or 3 hours later I'll wake up to find my mouth wide open and my throat and tongue very dry wanting to drink some water.

So I'll grab the nearest available bottle of spring water I keep in my room to quench my thirst; I'll then blast a few more puffs of nasal spray in my nose; put my nasal mask back on and try to go back to sleep. I've been forced to do that now an average of about once each night. Because of that I'm scared to death to tape my mouth shut.

Stevoreno
Biloxi, Mississippi
10/23/07

rested gal · Post by **rested gal** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:45 am

beegee wrote:The Resmed did not even begin to heat the water on the first 2 settings

My experience exactly, beegee, when I used two different resmed humidifiers. The wimpiest heated humidifiers in the world, imho. Almost as useless as their software.

beegee wrote:bought a stand-alone F&P humidifier to use with the Resmed APAP machine. This worked fine, and when I decided to change my machine to Respironics a year or so later, I didn't need to purchase their humidifier as the F&P stand alone can be used with any machine.

You just named my favorite heated humidifier of all -- the Fisher & Paykel HC 150 heated humidifier. As you said, the F&P stand alone heated humidifier can be used with any brand of cpap/bipap/autopap machine. Such a handy heated humidifier. Best of all, it works great.

beegee wrote:The downside is that you need extra space and a short hose from the machine to the humidifier.

Yes, but it doesn't take much extra space. Not much more than having a machine's own integrated humidifier added on and sticking out in front or at the side. The short connector hose the F&P heated humidifier uses comes with the humidifier. Actually, that short connector hose can be a plus since the humidifier doesn't have to sit on the same nightstand shelf with the machine.

beegee wrote:I was told by the supplier that the Resmed humidifier was designed not to heat under a setting of 3, which seemed a bit silly to me when the range was only zero to four.

LOL!! Sure does sound silly. Perhaps that's just a resmed excuse-in-reverse for "explaining" why their humidifier is so ineffective at heating water compared to all others?

UGADawg · Post by **UGADawg** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 7:35 am

Ok, so last night I decided not to tape my mouth shut. As per the advice of several members here I cranked up my lowly ResMed HumidAire 3i humidifier to setting 4. And I have a correction to make, the setting choices are actually 1-6. I believe I said 1-4 yesterday. At any rate, I only woke up once with a slightly dry mouth. In fact, I did not even get out of bed for any water, just kind of toughed it out and went back to sleep. Was finally on my way to getting a good night's sleep but my 19 month old bundle of joy (my son) decided he was going to wake up at 5:20 AM. All in all the increased humidification seemed to help. And a side note, it was also the first time that I had noticed that any water had actually been used by the humidifier. I definitely agree that this humidifier is not very good overall but my insurance company does not give a choice. I paid $159 for it which is basically 50% of what the clinic charges for it. Will have to check prices on others to see about the buying out of pocket option.

DreamStalker · Post by **DreamStalker** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 7:37 am

Get yourself one of these ...

https://www.cpap.com/productpage/fisher ... ifier.html

Mask

Dry mouth even with taping it shut. Please help.

Dry mouth even with taping it shut. Please help.

Re: Dry mouth even with taping it shut. Please help.