Mouth breather using a nasal mask

[buckeyered]

For the past couple of months I have been switching between the oracle oral mask and the Mirage Liberty, I have less leakage with the oracle but the drooling just never stops and the Mirage Liberty hurts my nose after a couple of hours and has a higher leak rate. I have taken breaks from both and used the swift and ComfortLite without taping my mouth since it never held anyway. I only have the small cushion for the comfortlite when I need a medium so it leaked and the swift hurts my nose as well but the longer I use them without taping my mouth the fewer times I would wake due to my mouth opening during sleep. Yesterday I found an old comfort classic nasal mask so I tried it last night and even though I had to make the headgear tighter than I would have liked to stop the leak I didn't wake because of any leaks and I think I only woke up once or twice with my mouth open.
If I open my mouth during sleep and I don't wake up would it show as a leak on my report? I just can't get over the difference in numbers on the reports between the different masks and especially the last report with the comfort classic. Is it possible that I am training my mouth to stay closed in my sleep?
The first four reports are with the Mirage Liberty and the Oracle and the last is with the Comfort Classic, the two missing nights I forgot to put the card in but I was using the Swift and ComfortLite.

[DavidCarolina]

I have to say that when i was being fitted for a mask, they gave me nasal, and i immediately told them that i was
a mouth breather with a deviated septum.

So i never even considered using nasal.

I hope im not too opinionated here, but it seems to me that you may be swimming upstream on this one.

[nanwilson]

Look up the Respcare/Innomed Hybrid. It is a nasal pillow mask plus mouth piece, its considered a full face mask but is the least invasive of all the ffms. You can put on your glasses, you don't have a forehead piece, no nose bridge sores --- needless to say, I love mine.
Good luck
Nan

[TalonNYC]

Alas, the Mirage Liberty is the ResMed version of the Hybrid, so he's already tried that basic idea =)

[Pugsy]

If I open my mouth during sleep and I don't wake up would it show as a leak on my report? I just can't get over the difference in numbers on the reports between the different masks and especially the last report with the comfort classic. Is it possible that I am training my mouth to stay closed in my sleep?

Sure it's possible. Lots of people have reported learning to keep their mouths closed. I know I did. I think that for some people (who normally breathe just fine through the nose during the day) the mouth breathing may just be habit from gasping for air due to OSA events. Once the body learns that it is okay to keep the mouth closed that it won't suffocate, that habit can be broken. Some people get lucky and break the habit, some don't for whatever reason.

If you had opened your mouth a lot or for extensive periods of time, that last report would have shown it. The leak line would have been much more ragged and all over the place. If that were my report and I didn't want to do the full face mask thing anymore and I wanted to use either nasal pillow or over the nose only mask and not tape, I would just go ahead and do it. If you consistently have reports along the lines of that last report use what you want to use that allows you more comfort. I see no reason to be bound to full face mask if you don't want to be.