AHI increased when taping my mouth shut. Confused.

[soundersfootballclub]

I taped my mouth shut to prevent mouth breathing thinking it would lower my AHI but instead it raised my #s. My AHI was coming in between 6.5 - 8.5 but went to 10.8 last night. Wondering if I should not tape my mouth and allow mouth breathing given the results of my experiment? And not surprising I also feel like my sleep wasn't as deep.

[jwwill0]

Can you tell if they were Centrals?

[nanwilson]

Your experiment was only for last night???? Give it a few days or even a week, last night may have been a bad night for some other reason. Leaky pillows, dog barking next door, too hot, too cold.............whatever....btw the dog barking was next door to me last night ggggrrrrrr.

[soundersfootballclub]

Can you tell if they were Centrals?

According to my software all my apneas that show up since I started treatment have been centrals but my doctor says I have OSA. This is something I plan to speak with him about when I see him next week.

[soundersfootballclub]

Your experiment was only for last night???? Give it a few days or even a week, last night may have been a bad night for some other reason. Leaky pillows, dog barking next door, too hot, too cold.............whatever....btw the dog barking was next door to me last night ggggrrrrrr.

Yep. I have only been on treatment for about 5 nights now. I definitely felt like I wasn't sleeping as well with my mouth taped. Sorry about the dog barking last night btw

[kempo]

I'll bet you didn't sleep good during the night. When most people try something new they don't sleep well. If i have a restless night I will have a bunch of centrals all through the night. All of my centrals happen right before I go to sleep and when I am waking. If I go in and out of sleep all through the night the central are all over the chart. Your probably the same way.

It takes a week or two to get use to the tape.

[Samba]

That's still high AHI's, how long have you been having CPAP ?

[soundersfootballclub]

That's still high AHI's, how long have you been having CPAP ?

6 nights so far.

[archangle]

Leaks can make it more difficult for the machine to detect apneas. It's possible you had just as many events when you had leaks, but the machine didn't see them. If your machine is in auto mode, your pressure may be different with leaks and without leaks. When your air is leaking, your pressure at the mask may drop and you may get fewer central apneas.

Look at your flow waveforms and see if the central apenas look "real." I'm suspicious that the machines are overly cautious and score some "central apneas" that really shouldn't be of concern.

Sorry if I've already given you the "taping is risky" lecture, but here it is:

Taping your mouth risks suffocation if the machine quits blowing and you don't wake up. You will be rebreathing your own exhaled air. Oxygen will decrease and CO2 will increase. This can cause you to sink deeper into unconsciousness and stop breathing.

Most people will wake up and be able to take the mask or tape off, but it's not a sure thing.

The other risk is aspiration pneumonia if you vomit before you can get the tape off. Aspiration pneumonia is very bad. Google it.

Many people tape anyway despite the risks. The risk may be small, but you'll probably be doing this for the rest of your life so risks add up.

[Goofproof]

The software only works when the leak rate is controlled, by taping you might have lowered the leak rate, andd made the software valid for a change.

[soundersfootballclub]

The software only works when the leak rate is controlled, by taping you might have lowered the leak rate, andd made the software valid for a change.

I am going to try taping the side of my mouth tonight and not fully taped shut. I really didn't have good sleep last night due to the full on taping. I even had weird dreams where I was in confined spaces. And since I can tell from my software my apneas are going full throttle during REM sleep I am paying attention to my dream content now closely.

archangle thanks the lecture. I actually think what you are saying makes perfect sense and should be considered however the small threat. I ordered the Mirage Liberty mask so this mouth breathing obstacle is going to be a moot issue soon I hope. Giving up on the straight up nasal pillow.

[Goofproof]

I chose to use a FF mask to delete the problem of mouthbreathing, although I have trained myself no to nouthbreath, it doesn't work every night. My leak rate is low enough not to affect my numbers or treatment, if this was not so, I'f use a FF mask all the time. Jim My AHI is under 3 all the time.

[idamtnboy]

And since I can tell from my software my apneas are going full throttle during REM sleep I am paying attention to my dream content now closely.

Uhhh, no you can't. There have been several discussions about this in the past. You might want to search for them. As I recall the consensus is that you cannot distinguish REM sleep from the Resscan charts. There are too many factors that need to be detected to verify REM sleep stage, and CPAP software does not detect them, like eye movement. Breathing patterns that are typical during REM sleep also occur during other stages of sleep.

The main thing to keep in mind about xPAP therapy, and it's been mentioned already, is you cannot rely on only one, or a few, nights data to give you an accurate picture of what's happening. Anytime you make a change, pressure, temp, whatever, give yourself at least a week before trying to determine if anything changed.

AHI can change dramatically from one night to the next. I've had sequences of something like 2, 10, 3, 5,1, 12, 2, events during consecutive nights, and have no idea what was different from night to the next.