How does cervical collar work to keep mouth shut?????

Okay, been mouth breathing alot lately , so went out a bought a collar. I am sitting here wearing it and I can open my big yap and breath through my mouth just as easily as not wearing it. My mouth breathing is not into large leak territory but still there. I have a short neck and this collar just scrunches up my face...am I wearing it wrong......? am I supposed to wear it with the collar just under my chin or throat? ? For those of you that can wear one of these torcher chambers successfully, please HELP.
Cheers
Nan

Nan, I don't think a collar will prevent you from breathing through your mouth, but it may keep your jaw from dropping when you go to sleep, which could result in less mouth breathing. Another thing it does is prevent your head from tipping forward (chin to your chest) which helps keep your airway open. It sounds to me as if the one you bought was too tall. That was the mistake I made at first. The first one I ordered was 4'' which seemed reasonable, but it was too uncomfortable. I subsequently ordered a 2.5 inch one which worked quite nicely. When I wore mine, I noted a big reduction in flow limitation which I attributed to the collar keeping my head/airway in a better position.
I wore mine with a full face mask which I had to give up because the headgear became too uncomfortable. I have not tried it with my nasal pillows (P10).
This is the one I ended up with, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FZ ... detailpage. I wore it just snug around my neck with the "v" in front under my chin. I wore it to prevent my jaw from dropping out of my mask - which it did.
I don't breath (inhale) through my mouth, but I lose the seal at the back of my throat which results in leaks. This was remedied by a full face mask. However, as I mentioned, I had to give it up and I've been "learning" to keep the seal intact while using the pillows. I don't know that the collar would help prevent my throat leaks, but it might.

Maybe you got the wrong size, type, or it's not fitted properly?

Nan,
If you went to a local DME or pharmacy to get your collar like I did when I forgot to pack mine on a trip, you likely got one that is much to stiff. Jay's link to Amazon is exactly the one I use. It is soft and very comfortable.

The function is to keep the jaw from dropping while the facial muscles relax with sleep. That is important when using a FFM or oral mask like I use. With either of these, the jaw movement can cause a displacement of the mask and leaks because of that. Mouth breathing is the main reason for a FFM or Oracle mask although there may be personal reasons as well.

I'm not sure it will be particularly helpful when using a nasal mask of any type.

JDS74 wrote:The function is to keep the jaw from dropping while the facial muscles relax with sleep.

Jay Aitchsee wrote:it may keep your jaw from dropping when you go to sleep,

I have heard this many times and remain skeptical. It would seem you would have to adjust the collar very uncomfortably tight to stop the jaw from dropping when the muscles relax during REM sleep.

Jay Aitchsee wrote:prevent your head from tipping forward (chin to your chest) which helps keep your airway open

That, to me, is the real value of a cervical collar. It allows my machine to operate at lower pressures while controlling my apnea.

I think it is creating too high of an expectation to claim a cervical collar will prevent mouthbreathing.

Jay Aitchsee wrote:prevent your head from tipping forward (chin to your chest) which helps keep your airway open

Sheffey wrote:That, to me, is the real value of a cervical collar. It allows my machine to operate at lower pressures while controlling my apnea.I think it is creating too high of an expectation to claim a cervical collar will prevent mouthbreathing.

Agree; however, it doesn't take much to keep the jaw closed - if it is only gravity causing it to open. On the other hand, if one is actively opening the mouth to breathe (a true mouth breather), I also agree that a collar probably won't prevent it, as I said above:

Jay Aitchsee wrote:Nan, I don't think a collar will prevent you from breathing through your mouth

Jay Aitchsee wrote: I don't think a collar will prevent you from breathing through your mouth, but it may keep your jaw from dropping when you go to sleep, which could result in less mouth breathing. Another thing it does is prevent your head from tipping forward (chin to your chest) which helps keep your airway open.

I think you hit the nail on the head, Jay. A collar does a couple of things very well like you mentioned above, just like a chinstrap does some things very well, however if your lips can still open therapy air can potentially get out. Taping the lips or a full face mask are the most common solutions... oh yeah, and some people like denture adhesive tho I don't know how that seals one's lips. I guess they apply it to their lips and not their gums?

Thanks everyone, I did some checking with both sleepyhead and encore and decided I really did not need to use a collar. Since the collar doesn't stop me from opening my mouth and my average ahi is 0.2 and I only mouth breathe sporadically during the night..... I am over thinking things with my therapy . I sleep just fine as I am and rarely wake during the night.
I also read some of the older comments on the forum and like Pugsy says "If you are sleeping through the night and you feel good, why worry about a few instances of mouth breathing".
Pugsy is of course the queen of this forum and what she says goes...... THANKS!!!!!!!
Cheers
Nan

nanwilson wrote:"If you are sleeping through the night and you feel good, why worry about a few instances of mouth breathing".

I learned a long time ago that sometimes the cure is worse than the disease at least in terms of the effect on my sleep quality in general. My leak lines aren't real pretty but it's extremely rare that leaks wake me up.
My sleep is already fragile enough with the arthritis and pain issues and I just found out that for me to attain a perfectly pretty leak line using some sort of means (tape, chin strap, whatever) usually meant that I had more awakenings due to the annoyance of the whatever means I was using.
With the pain awakenings I sure didn't need any more because of fiddling with a chin strap or tape.
It's a compromise that I knowingly and willingly made. Sleep quality is of huge importance to me and having a nice pretty leak line is way down the list of priorities.

We all have to make our own list of priorities and go with what we feel works best for each of us.
I never hit large leak territory with Respironics machines...I sometime barely make it into large leak territory with ResMed machines. Part of it I think is ResMed's rather stringent and conservative line in the sand which maybe is a little bit too conservative (at least IMHO) and leads people to think that "OMG I went 2 L/min into large leak territory for 10 minutes so my whole night's therapy is in the toilet" and that's simply not the case.

Again....any leak that wakes us up and disturbs our sleep needs to be worked on no matter how big or how small it is but if we are sleeping soundly and feeling good...short term excursions into large leak territory (from either mouth breathing or mask movement) aren't the end of the world and sometimes trying to attain a more perfect leak line or number means we sacrifice sleeping soundly and feeling good and to me that just doesn't make good sense.