Chin STraps!!!

Good morning everyone... I have not posted for awhile because my positive attitude about the whole cpap thing had kind of been waning. But the problem was that I had gotten sick and developed some problem in my sinuses and could not wear the dang thing and be able to breath. Went to the Doctor twice and finally have that somewhat fixed. In the last three days have had two pretty darn good days and one bad one yesterday. Well when I woke up yesterday my mouth was very very dry. And my husband said sometimes I am sleeping with my mouth open. Not sure how I can sleep with a tornado coming out my mouth but evidentally I was. Would a chin strap help this??? Or is this maybe just an occasional problem that I might not have to worry about. I would rather not add more to my head at night. any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone.

modistee

It might, it might not. In my opinion chinstraps serve as a reminder to 'keep it shut' and not as a winch to wind it closed. I started needing one about a week after I started therapy. My conclusion was that since I was sleeping more deeply, I relaxed and the jaw just popped open.

You might try improvising a chinstrap for a couple of days before invensing in one. I used the soft belt from a bathrobe. It convinced me that a chinstrap was a good thing for me. A year later, I can sometimes sleep the night without it.

John

Kasae wrote:And my husband said sometimes I am sleeping with my mouth open. Not sure how I can sleep with a tornado coming out my mouth but evidentally I was. Would a chin strap help this??? Or is this maybe just an occasional problem that I might not have to worry about. I would rather not add more to my head at night.

Chin strap might help. You won't know till you try. To be honest, it is doubtful that this is an "occasional" problem.
Unless you can break the habit of opening your mouth you will continue to probably open your mouth when you are asleep.
So your choices are...
Chin strap might help if all you need is a gentle reminder from the slight pressure of the chin strap. It is not a vise and will not prevent opening of the mouth if you really try. You can try a homemade chin strap. Lots of ideas from people here on the forum. Just search for homemade chin straps.
Tape mouth shut or polygrip mouth shut.
If your mouth won't stay shut then you are losing significant pressure and will impact the effectiveness of your treatment.

If you cannot use chin strap with success and cannot stand to tape or glue your mouth shut then you must consider a full face mask of some some sort.

None of us want to add more stuff to our faces but we do what we gotta do to make it work.

We all have different experiences with our cpap journey. I did very well with a nasal mask for a while. Then started loosing air by opening my mouth. I got a chin strap and that worked pretty good for some time, then I started opening my lips and ending up with a dry mouth. Then I began taping my mouth closed and that worked. (Also using the chin strap.) I wanted to try a full face mask to use in case of a cold or nasal congestion. Right now I am using the F&P 431 and it is working quite well. No taping and no chin strap. My AHI is running under 2.
You might find that when the congestion clears up you may go back to sleeping without the need of a chin strap. That would be the ideal. But my experience is that a chin strap doesn't solve all the problem -- I also had to use tape.
All our experiences are so different, you probably will just have to try different solutions and find what works best for you. Best of luck.
BTW -- the DME I use said that about half of his clients use the FFM. If a person can find one that fits, it is really pretty nice.

hello, using a chinstrap seems to help me from opening my mouth more with a fullface mask(Quattro )than a nasal pillow mask.Was trying out the Quattro with and without the chinstrap and without my mouth got really dry.Seems like the pressure from my nasal mask doesn't cause it to shoot thru my mouth when sleeping as much.My two cents that would not buy you a gum drop.

For me, I always mouth breath unless I wear my PapCAP PLUS. It doesn't work for everybody, but for me I wouldn't go to bed without it. Gives me zero leaks 99% of the time. The other 1% are negligible leaks. It also distributes the pressure over your whole head. I don't get any jaw pain or headaches like I did with a standard chinstrap.

For me, it really does winch my jaw closed, comfortably, so it doesn't slack open in deep sleep.

My 2¢.