Okay....remember that we don't sleep the same each night...and that's going to include variables in either mask movement leak or mouth opening leak. It's why I don't go into panic mode when I see a lot of leaks (again these leaks didn't wake me up no matter how big or little they are) and why I choose to not go to extraordinary measures in an effort to "fix" things.
Most nights things don't need fixing and I learned a long time ago that most of the time "fixing" the leaks seemed to negatively affect my sleep quality. My sleep quality sucks enough without adding more potentially sleep disturbing stuff.
I do NOT have nasal congestion issues at all unless I am ill and I am not ill at the present time.
It's a bit difficult for me to measure potential mouth breathing causing dry mouth because I take a medication at bedtime that causes some dry mouth so it's not a reliable indicator of just how much mouth breathing I might be doing.
And yes....I know that I do some mouth opening/breathing but I don't do it every night and for the most part I don't go very deep into large leak territory and if I do it isn't for very long. I admit it and I already explained why I just don't care.
So....I had a bit of a zit come up on my nose which made for a problem with the Eclipse adhesive so I decided to use the P10 while things healed. Hence the P10 use for a few nights.
The top report for April 23...that's a P10 night...
The middle report (April 24) is also a P10 night but I added taping my mouth shut just to eliminate mouth breathing from the equation. More on that in a bit.
The bottom report from April 25....that's an Eclipse night and NO taping either. Since the Eclipse simply doesn't move around there isn't any mask movement to leak (and I made sure the adhesive didn't come loose) it's pretty safe assumption that the little bit of leak you see is mouth opening leak.
So...my point to all this is we simply can't tell from looking at the leak in these reports if the leak was mouth opening or mask movement. Some might say "look at the reduction in leak with the tape use compared to the prior P10 night" but remember I might not have had much leak anyway due to the fact that we don't sleep the same each night anyway.
I have had bad leak nights followed by near perfect 0.0 leak nights and not done anything to change outcome.
No tape....for sure no chin strap or anything yet no leak to speak of no matter what the cause. Yeah some of that leak on April 23 was likely mouth opening but we have zero proof that the bulk of it was mouth opening. We just don't know for sure exactly how much was mask movement and how much was mouth opening. It wouldn't be impossible for that April 24 report to have been like it was even without the tape.
This is why we say "look for trends" and "don't base major decisions on anything on just one single report".
I have already seen what my "trends" look like and they look more like the Eclipse report from April 25 than they do the April 23 report for sure.
BUT....even if every single leak on that April 23 report was mouth breathing it really wasn't bad enough or last long enough deep into large leak territory to really impact my therapy. Didn't impact my sleep since the leaks didn't wake me up and surprisingly the mouth really wasn't all that dry. Now I have had a rare occasion where the mouth was so dry it felt like it was cemented shut but that wasn't the case with the April 23 report. So I will admit that on a rare occasion there is likely significant mouth breathing but it is rare and I simply refused to tape my mouth (which does mess with my sleep quality) just to deal with something that might happen once every month or two.
The taping thing...yes if affects my sleep quality a bit but less annoying than trying a chin strap because for me anyway...chin straps didn't help and were highly annoying and caused enough discomfort to really mess with my sleep quality. In my mind though....a once a month not so pretty report doesn't make it an urgent need that I go to any extraordinary measures to keep the mouth shut.
AND....there is no way in hell that I will go down the full face mask road. Simply not going to happen and there's certainly no urgent need anyway. I got more than one reason to omit FFM use from my equipment list and all very important to me.
Oh...I am surprised no one mentioned the April 24 taped night and what happened around 01:00. I looked at that time frame up close...what with all those centrals...and I spotted a bit of maybe weak periodic breathing but I don't think I was asleep when that stuff happened. I have never had that sort of thing happen before. I see no need to go over analyzing something flagged when I wasn't asleep that I have never seen before. 75% of any AHI that I might see is always SWJ stuff and not real asleep flagged events.
Remember....my sleep quality isn't so great but it's not from apnea stuff. It's from pain/discomfort from my back/pelvic issues. I work on it the best I can but it's a war that I know I won't ever win. I keep fighting the battle though and sometimes I win but sometimes I just have a crappy night despite waging a good fight.
I may have to RISE but I refuse to SHINE.
If you want to try the Eclipse mask and want a special promo code to get a little off the price...send me a private message.