Chipmunk cheeks and mouth leak, begone!!

[LSAT]

Seems like it would be a lot easier to get a full face mask. Your mouth could be open. Far less confining.

[lazer]

Seems like it would be a lot easier to get a full face mask. Your mouth could be open. Far less confining.

Seems so but my experience or "experiment" didn't go so well with a FFM. It raised my required pressures via my APAP leading to massive leakage and awakenings during the nights.

I'm tempted to try this method described here next with my Swift FX. It's also a little less costly by around $150 or so dollars as opposed to a FFM.

[grillhead]

Seems like it would be a lot easier to get a full face mask. Your mouth could be open. Far less confining.

Tried two of them, didn't work that well at all...

[jnmv1969]

Thanks sooooo much for posting your solution. I have the same issue, and I will give it a try.

Janet

[GeneS]

Hello
I am glad that it works for you. I am not sure it would work for me because it looks like it pushes the lower chin back which also pushes the back of the tongue back in your airway. I need to keep my jaw forward if I can because I think that is where I think my obstruction mainly is.
GeneS

[grillhead]

Hello
I am glad that it works for you. I am not sure it would work for me because it looks like it pushes the lower chin back which also pushes the back of the tongue back in your airway. I need to keep my jaw forward if I can because I think that is where I think my obstruction mainly is.
GeneS

I can see how it might push some people's jaws back enough to cause problems...

Has anyone else tried this out yet?

[teachcsg]

Thanks for posting your solution. Always good to know other tricks and tips that work for others. I bet your RT was impressed-I am an RT and if you showed me that I would be impressed too! A lot of pts give up after only a few nights of trying that whenever anyone really tries and "invents" new solutions it really impresses us. Good job!

[Jeanne64]

Thank you so, so much! I will try this, soon, as I just don't like the full face masks. I have a nice n30i that my husband didn't like, so I will be very grateful if this hack allows me to use it. B

After battling with chipmunk cheeks and mouth leaks, I finally have a solution that works! I love, love, love my Mirage FX nasal mask, but couldn't stop having the puffy cheeks and mouth leaks. My tongue would always relax, cheeks puff, and eventually blow out my lips. Here's what that ended up like:



If you look you can see the gap in my lips, and that drove me nuts! So I tried mouth taping which worked to a degree, but was kind of uncomfortable and was REALLY uncomfortable pulling off of the facial hair! I tried a chinstrap but that didn't help either unless I taped, because the air would still force it's way through my lips. I tried Poligrip strips which didn't work at all, tasted terrible, and was worse trying to get all the sticky off. I looked at other solutions including different chinstraps and saw this one:


This looked familiar to me so I did some checking and sure enough, I found what it reminded me of. Wal-mart carries a Mueller elastic bandage with Velcro which is exactly like that chinstrap except it's tan and doesn't have the backstrap. It also costs less than 5 bucks. I picked it up to give it a try. In the meantime, I also tried an Amara FFM just to see what it would do. It's a good mask, but just not for me. So, after the Amara, the Mirage Quattro FFM, crappy chinstrap, tape, and strips, this is what I came up with:



I love it! I absolutely love it! It is surprisingly comfortable. It doesn't bother my head, nose, ears, or anything! I don't wrap it tightly at all. There is just enough tension between it and my lips that even if my tongue AND jaw relaxes, the lips still won't part. However, if I feel the need to take a deep breath with my mouth I can. Trust me, I tested and tested it. I believe this is a 100% safe way of keeping chipmunk cheeks at bay. With this plus that mask, even though I've only used CPAP for going on three weeks now, I can sleep a full night without taking off the mask, and don't even notice that I'm wearing anything. Oh, and the mask makes a great seal over the bandage as well. No leaks!! This works great for me and hopefully it will work for many others as well!

One last thing. My son thinks I look like a ninja LOL

[Zomby Woof]

NINJA admiration from offspring: PRICELESS

One last thing. My son thinks I look like a ninja LOL

[remstarcpap]

Thanks for this idea. I actually dug through my pile of old equipment and realized that I had the ResMed similar strap. So now I'm very excited about trying this. You are right you can breathe fine through it if you need to. Lately I've been having much more trouble with taping. Either the tape comes off when I sweat and I end up chipmunk King, or if I use other types of tape such as medical tapes, they stay on, but then they take off a little bit of skin when they peel off. It's been a tough balancing act lately. Also, I'm beginning to question using painters tape as I don't really know what chemicals are in the adhesive.

I'll report back after I've tried it for a night or two but I'm very excited to move away from tape. I usually wake up at least once or twice a night with the tape failing, and have to replace it with a new piece, or if I use the 3M medical tape (paper version), I have to be super careful not to peel off skin on the edge of my lips. This seems like a reasonable good solution.

Fingers crossed…

[yrnkrn]

I'll give this a try!