Air Escaping?

[Rastaman]

Interesting. The wife noticed that air is escaping my mouth. What caught her attention is a sound that I was making with my mouth. Now, I'm using a chin strap. Perhaps it wasn't tight enough? I'm already aware of some of the things people have to do such as tape, strips, and full mouth masks. From listening to many of you full mouth masks have the most problems with leaking AND actually getting full benefits quickly. I guess quickly isn't THAT important as long as things are solved in the end....but my thoughts up until now have been...well, this is working well enough and I'm feeling much better during the day (less tired with less conk outs.) with the swift nasal pillows at night.

I've always been a mouth breather. Usually my nose is hard to breathe through. But I've actually got to the point where I can sit here with my mouth closed most of the time and actually breathe through my nose. Perhaps it's all that AIR from the CPAP at night! Yes, since I've begun wind tunnel therapy...hehe....the old snout is working much better than ever. And taking allergy medication for the first time in my life is helping out quite a bit too.

Here's my big question: Is this air escaping from my mouth a bad thing? I'm still feeling rested in the morning. I feel GREAT by comparison to normal. Could I be feeling better though? I'm a little surprised the sleep clinic technition didn't notice this though. Maybe she tightened it. I know they had me on microphones and camera. So, am I only 80% better instead of 100%? The mouth leaks are usually every couple of minutes my wife said. And she hasn't noticed the sound before last night. Perhaps it was just a loose chin strap?

Also, would I be trading this leak problem for another if I tried a full-mask, only for less benefit?

[Goofproof]

Only you can decide if you want your therapy to give you the most benefit you can get. You know the answer, if you are not retaining enough pressure to keep your air passage open all night, you are loosing valuable treatment time.

Why get 80% when with a little more effort you can get 100%, I'm a PIG, I want it all. Jim P.S. And I got it Low AHI over 8 hours a night 7 Days a week. Sure my FF Mask leaks and is a pain, but I'm better, and that's the bottom line.

[roster]

Rastaman: The chinstraps just did not work for me. Even when they kept my mouth closed, air would leak out the corners of my mouth. Pressure was being lost and the effectiveness of the therapy was not what it needed to be.

I switched to taping which for me is inconvenient but not uncomfortable. Those chinstraps were very uncomfortable and intefered with the Swift headgear.

There are many posts on "how to tape" and here is one of mine: viewtopic.php?t=7952&highlight=one+mans ... +procedure.