Dry Lips - No Dry Mouth

I just got my CPAP about a week ago and the last couple of days I've been waking up with pretty dry lips but my mouth is still fairly moist.

I'm using the AirFit N20 nasal mask with ResMed 11 on auto settings from 4-20. I have a heated hose and humidifier with ramp on. Just using the settings my machine came with. MyAir app says I have 0 leaks.

Any ideas or help as to why I'm having the dry lips? I thought maybe it was me sleeping with my mouth open but if my mouth isn't dry then I'm not sure if that's the case?

Any help or advice is appreciated!

Gla1re wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 01, 2024 7:41 am

I just got my CPAP about a week ago and the last couple of days I've been waking up with pretty dry lips but my mouth is still fairly moist.

I'm using the AirFit N20 nasal mask with ResMed 11 on auto settings from 4-20. I have a heated hose and humidifier with ramp on. Just using the settings my machine came with. MyAir app says I have 0 leaks.

Any ideas or help as to why I'm having the dry lips? I thought maybe it was me sleeping with my mouth open but if my mouth isn't dry then I'm not sure if that's the case?

Any help or advice is appreciated!

Off-topic - Your settings are probably not optimal using a generic 4-20 setting. My doctor also started me on 4-20 years ago. The experience was very poor until I learned how to monitor my sleep (download Oscar if you have a compatible machine), and adjust my pressure settings to levels more appropriate for me which are 12-20.

Gla1re wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 01, 2024 7:41 am

I just got my CPAP about a week ago and the last couple of days I've been waking up with pretty dry lips but my mouth is still fairly moist.

I'm using the AirFit N20 nasal mask with ResMed 11 on auto settings from 4-20. I have a heated hose and humidifier with ramp on. Just using the settings my machine came with. MyAir app says I have 0 leaks.

Any ideas or help as to why I'm having the dry lips? I thought maybe it was me sleeping with my mouth open but if my mouth isn't dry then I'm not sure if that's the case?

Any help or advice is appreciated!

When I first started CPAP many years ago I wound up with the worst case of chapped lips that I've ever had in my life. I am not a mouth breather, and my leak lines were darn near perfect---Looking at them in Rescan and then in Encore and SleepyHead all showed almost no unintended leaks night after night after night. (Rescan and Encore and SleepyHead all predate OSCAR and SleepHQ.)

As near as I could tell, the cause of my problem was that the intentional venting of the mask was blowing right on my lips or bouncing off the bedcovers and right onto my lips and nose.

The fix? Staying well hydrated during the daytime and lots and lots and lots of lip balm and Lansinoh nipple cream for nursing mothers---as in even now I make sure to slather my lips with some kind of lip balm every single night before I go to bed. When my lips were at their worst, the Lansinoh seemed to help encourage healing better than the usual lip balms did. Lansinoh is marketed to nursing mothers with sore breasts; it's made of 100% lanolin, which is supposed to be better for the silicone in the mask seals than the petroleum jelly found in many lip balms. But truth be told, I long ago quit worrying about petroleum jelly somehow prematurely aging my masks. And now? I go for the cheapest unflavored stuff I can find when I need it or spring for something that I particularly like (unflavored Bert's Bees and Badger Balm are two of my favorites) when I'm tired of the cheap stuff. It is important, however, to get unflavored lip balm since the flavored stuff can cause you to lick your lips, which in turn increases the tendency for chapping.

If you want to see just how bad my case of CPAP-chapped lips and nares got, you can read my post Chapped lips and chapped nares from way back when.

Thank you both!!