chinstrap headache debate update?

[Pugsy]

No guarantee, but I never experienced chipmunk cheeks while wearing a FFM. Plenty when trying to learn to use a nasal mask, though. Just sayin

The chipmunk cheek thing is from the lips being shut and air expanding the cheeks.
That can happen no matter which mask is being used...full face mask users can keep their lips closed as easily as the next person in some instances.
It's a function of sealed lips...not mask used.
Now maybe people using a full face mask just don't keep the lips so tightly sealed so the air leaks out before the cheeks ever get a chance to expand and cause people to wake up and be annoyed. BUT if they kept the lips tightly closed...air still gets into the mouth and eventually if enough of it accumulates while the lips are sealed....poof..out go those cheeks.

[Jay Aitchsee]

The chipmunk cheek thing is from the lips being shut and air expanding the cheeks.

Yes, I understand the phenomenon very well. I don't disagree with your analysis, except that, IMO, most people who use FFM tend to exhale through their mouths (mouth breathe), which precludes Chipmunk Cheeks from forming. When these folks switch to a nasal mask, they try to stop this mouth exhale with tape or similar and chipmunk cheeks are formed. But I fully agree that chipmunk cheeks could happen when wearing a FFM (as well as dry mouth).

However, if a FFM allows one to sleep better (with fewer disturbances and a less compromised therapy), then it should be used. Again, IMO.

[Jas_williams]

So do you guys tape as well (or other solution)? Or does your jaw stay up on it's own?

After a while I learnt to keep my mouth shut

[Pugsy]

However, if a FFM allows one to sleep better (with fewer disturbances and a less compromised therapy), then it should be used. Again, IMO.

And I whole heartedly agree.

My whole point was that using a FFM doesn't 100% guarantee a stoppage of the chipmunk cheek thing from ever happening.
Just means maybe less annoying if it happens and less potential for negatively impacting therapy if there is a lot of mouth breathing going on with the deflation of the cheeks.

[tyrone747]

If you didn't do anything like taping or whatever to keep the lips shut.....just how bad would the mouth opening/cheek inflating things be in terms of
1...waking you up
2...show up on the leak line as massive prolong leaks deep into large leak territory.

Sometimes you have to choose between 2 evils...which is the worst evil?

Food for thought for me. I have another 40 years of CPAP treatment ahead of me unless they come up with something better. So if I can I'd like to get away from the FFM for comfort's sake. But in the short term this will mean disturbed sleep and waking up with a sandpaper mouth once in a while until my body learns. Or it never learns and I wasted a lot of good sleep for nothing.

[Thumper68]

Food for thought for me. I have another 40 years of CPAP treatment ahead of me unless they come up with something better. So if I can I'd like to get away from the FFM for comfort's sake. But in the short term this will mean disturbed sleep and waking up with a sandpaper mouth once in a while until my body learns. Or it never learns and I wasted a lot of good sleep for nothing.

But you won't know until you try. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to keep my mouth closed. I still have the occasional opening of the mouth, but the tongue tricks works great.

[tyrone747]

But you won't know until you try. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to keep my mouth closed. I still have the occasional opening of the mouth, but the tongue tricks works great.

I tried the P10 mask again last night and don't remember waking with any mouth leaks. Can you guys have a look at my chart and see if it looks like I was mouth breathing at all? There is one extended leak charted. I certainly needed a lot less pressure with the pillows than I do with the FFM. 8.7 max with the pillows and over 10 with the FFM.

[Jas_williams]

But you won't know until you try. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to keep my mouth closed. I still have the occasional opening of the mouth, but the tongue tricks works great.

I tried the P10 mask again last night and don't remember waking with any mouth leaks. Can you guys have a look at my chart and see if it looks like I was mouth breathing at all? There is one extended leak charted. I certainly needed a lot less pressure with the pillows than I do with the FFM. 8.7 max with the pillows and over 10 with the FFM.

No large leak issues if you were mouth breathing it was not enough to worry about

[Pugsy]

I tried the P10 mask again last night and don't remember waking with any mouth leaks. Can you guys have a look at my chart and see if it looks like I was mouth breathing at all?

There is no way to distinguish mouth breathing leak from mask movement leak just by looking at the leak graph.
They simply can look the same. I agree with Jas... if you were mouth breathing it sure wasn't very much and well within the machines ability to compensate for the leak...so no matter what the leak was caused by...it didn't wake you up and it's well within the machines ability to handle. I would shrug my shoulders and move on.

Look at my report below......now those are some really big leaks. At first glance people would tell me that I was mouth breathing a LOT and I need a full face mask. Only problem with that advice...I wasn't mouth breathing. That was a new mask experiment and I was seeing a lot of that leak every night so I taped my mouth so that I would know for sure where the leak was coming from. The tape stayed put all night...all that leak is mask movement leak. I simply couldn't ever get the mask to not move around all over the place. I think this was the DreamWear under the nose cushion...come to find out I needed the small frame instead of the medium frame to get it snug enough to not move so much.