Learning to stop mouth breathing

Several people have mentioned that they trained themselves to stop mouth breathing so they could successfully use nasal masks.

Can you give some specifics about how your trained yourselves?

I have a Mirage Ultra (small) that is too short, (the medium is too long) that is wearing a sore spot on the bridge of my nose and getting to be a serious problem.

I have a new Breeze and ComfortFit, and using a wide chin strap, but I still breath through my mask when I am testing them during naps. I am afraid to use them at night until I get my breathing situation under control.

Thanks in advance for the advice - this site has been a real life saver for my struggles since I started with CPAP just before Christmas. I have learned LOTS

betty303 wrote:Several people have mentioned that they trained themselves to stop mouth breathing so they could successfully use nasal masks.

Can you give some specifics about how your trained yourselves?

Betty, at first I used a narrow strip of adhesive tape vertically across the middle of my lips, putting it on so it was a bit slack so that I could breath around it need be. Think breathing through CPAP is a bit scary at first, at least for me, so I didn't want to shut off all chance of mouth-breathing.

But after a month or two, instead of using tape, I started focusing on my mouth, tongue and jaw position while waiting to drop off to sleep. I do a few jaw stretches and let my mouth sort of drift closed. Then I focus on tongue position, which for me is more critical than jaw or lip position: Instead of trying to keep my mouth closed, I'd let my lips part slightly and my jaw be sort of slack but rest my tongue slightly forward so that the front of it is against where the top front teeth and the gums meet (in back of the teeth, of course). The tongue is relaxed and the rest of it is resting against top of mouth and top molars.

It's the tongue position, rather than the mouth position, that seems to me to be the key. The tongue forms a seal against the teeth and top of mouth. For me at least, this position is very comfortable, and as far as I know, it stays that way all night (think the sensations of air rushing over my tongue would wake me if it didn't -- I'm a light sleeper). Concentrating on holding mouth shut seems far more difficult.

Hope this helps.

Gracie

Several people have mentioned that they trained themselves to stop mouth breathing so they could successfully use nasal masks.

Can you give some specifics about how your trained yourselves?

Hi Betty,

I was working on eliminating mouth breathing before I started cpap. I tried to always breathe through the nose rather than the mouth. The nose protects the airways by humidifying, warming, cleaning and sterilizing air entering the lungs, but I used to mouth breathe all the time, especially when I was sleeping.

I just tried to eliminate mouth breathing while I was awake, and wore a chinstrap at night to help me when I was sleeping.

I now use a Swift II successfully and no longer mouth breathe.

Good luck,

Peter

I don't mouth breathe, but after seeing all the posts in here regarding mouth breathing, I tried to do it intentionally last night. All I got was a stomach full of air. And I felt like I was choking on it. I don't see how I could ever unintentionally open my mouth at night without waking up, due to the pressure.

It's amazing how many of us experience different things even though we use similar machines.

Just blabbing....................

Hi Betty

Glad to see you here.

Try this experiment. Put your tongue in the position described in the post above. Open your mouth. Now breathe. Air flows nicely in and out your nose, right? (If not, adjust your tongue position until it works.) Now just for a couple seconds, hold your nose shut, keep your tongue in that position, and try to breathe. I can't do it. So, for me, I practiced holding my tongue that way all day whenever I thought of it. Tongues are very strong.

This will only work if you are one of the lucky, very lucky people who manage to sleep like this. Some people have other tissues that relax no matter what they do, and they can't keep the airway open.

I hope you get the hang of it so you can find a more comfortable mask.

Best of luck to you. I know you can do it!

Catnapper

As a frustrated training-yourself-not-to-mouthbreathe wannabe, I'm curious if you know for a fact you no longer mouth breathe? I really thought I was making progress back when I was attempting to do this, but the data showed otherwise. In my search for a successful method, I came across this:

Nathan/RRT wrote:Understand that when you are in stage 4 sleep, the cerebral cortex is asleep. The cerebral cortex is the thinking part of the brain and is where the control of your voluntary muscles is. This includes the tongue and mouth. So the idea of being able to "train" yourself to keep your mouth closed and maintain a seal while you are sleeping is absurd. You would lose that seal for the SAME reason that your tongue falls back in your throat and causes an obstruction. You may be able to condition yourself to spend less time in deep sleep, but you are then in the same situation/problem that arises from OSA in the first place, the lack of proper amounts of sleep that are so critical.

http://www.talkaboutsleep.com/message-b ... hp?p=84765

which led me to believe it was impossible and I promptly gave up. But, since you are having success with this, maybe I'll give it another go and see what happens. Even though I've adapted to taping and it has completely solved the problem, it sure would be nice not to have to do it!

No matter how much I practice breathing exclusively through the nose, I fold under performance pressure at night and forget everthing I've learned!! My theory is that this happens because I'm asleep. I guess I have zero muscle memory in my tongue. My smartass tongue has gotten me into trouble in the past. I guess I can't rely on it for anything.

Seriously. For whatever reason I can't train myself to not mouth breath. That's why I tape and it works great for me. Don't be afraid to tape or use dental adhesive if it comes to it. Once I have it on and have the mask on, I don't really notice it's there at all.

I use a small piece of polident denture adhesive at night.

I am one of those fortunate few who have been blessed with the ability to use a nasal pillows interface (or a nasal mask) WITHOUT breathing through my mouth and without the use of any aides such as a chin-strap, mouth-taping or Polident strips. But for the life of me, I couldn't begin to tell ya how I did it. As I recollect, it was simply that I found the sensation of rpessurized air rushing out through my mouthy to be SO unpleasant that my body just took over and stopped it. I'm so good at it now, that I can take a sip of water, or yell at my autistic dog all while I have my Swift on and my REMstar is faithfully blowing its 10 cms of pressurized air up my schnozz.

And, in deference and with all due respect to NathanRRT and others who posted here and said that what I and others have accomplished is impossible, I get 8+ hours of sleep every night, wake up refreshed and rested, and I run leaks of about 37L/m on the REMstar and 0.06L/s on my ResMed S8 Vantage, with AHIs running <0.3. My mouth isn't dry when I awaken, and I use about 1/5 of the reservoir of water on the REMstar each night, with the humidifier set at 2. So, I'm pretty confident that I am, in fact, successfully keeping my trap shut all night long.

Now, as Rested Gal has wisely pointed out here, I do believe that my successes may be attributable to the particular architecture of my upper airway, mouth, jaw and tongue. I don't think that mine is unusual in any way, but it has allowed me to successfully refrain from mouth breathing. The point is though, that this may not be true for everybody. So, don't fret if you're unable to stop mouth-breathing on your own. It may just be a matter of facial architecture.

I'd also urge you to correspond with Dreamstalker who has also successfully trained himself not to mouthbreathe, and who is MUCH more articulate than I in explaining how he did it.

Hope this helps you.

Chuck

Well, I’ll do my best to explain my successful experience to avoid chinstrap, tape, or glue when using a nasal interface for PAP treatment.

When I first began PAP treatment, I started off with a nasal interface. I was frequently awakened (as I was during my titration) by bursts of air escaping my mouth. I then read here on this forum how some had trained themselves to stop the leaks (which was much more appealing than taping my mouth or gluing my lips shut at night). The posts I read discussed parking the tongue up on the upper palette of the mouth right before actually falling asleep.

I did more internet research into mouth breathing and discovered that some endurance type athletes (such as marathon runners) teach themselves not to mouth breathe during competition in order to prevent premature dehydration. So I began training to keep my tongue as if I were sucking on a tic-tac mint all day long while awake. After a while, I noticed that I was unconsciously keeping my tongue in the right place. By then my leak values were remaining fairly constant and not showing any brief but large leaks indicative of the air bursts plus I was no longer being awakened by them at night.

I then discovered the practice of nasal irrigation for maintaining sinus health and mitigating the potential for nasal congestion (thanks to the great members of this forum). It was about this time that I realized that there are muscles in the back of your throat that route air either through your nose or your mouth (like duh … that should have been obvious). I then began practicing to breathe strictly through my nose while keeping my mouth open -- just try holding your index finger across your open mouth without making a seal and breathe through your nose … you should feel no air flowing across your finger from your mouth. Furthermore, I noticed that I did not even have to park my tongue up on the upper palette of the mouth.

For practice, I started opening my mouth on purpose while hosed up and under pressure and was able to breathe through my nasal interface without losing any air from my mouth. I am even able to control the pressurized air and talk all hooked up and under pressure. I don’t plan to try singing though since I can’t do that under normal circumstances either.

Anyway, I think some people may be able to train themselves not to leak air from their mouths and avoid the tape and glue. I think that using or training the tongue may help but it is not necessary. However, my guess is that it may become increasingly more difficult for those with higher Rx pressures and/or for those not fortunate enough to have the appropriate physiologic throat structure to train themselves not to leak air from the mouth while asleep. So give it a try! ... what have you got to lose except a roll of tape or some Polidnent glue?

Best of luck

GoofyUT wrote: .... As I recollect, it was simply that I found the sensation of rpessurized air rushing out through my mouthy to be SO unpleasant that my body just took over and stopped it. ...

Ha! For me, the pressure of 18 literally sucks my lips shut! So I can certainly relate to that. A sleep tech friend of mine told me that many people who mouth breathe find it is controlled once they use cpap, probably for the same reason Chuck mentioned. But for many it does not, so I would imagine it's difficult dealing with that.


Linda

Hi everyone...

Thanks for all the great advice! I have started my tongue exercise as often as I can remember (and my memory seems to be increasing!) during the day.

Dreamstalker - I am going to try what you suggested to see if I can develop the ability to breath through my nose with my mouth open too. Sounds like it could take some time.

So Onward....to get all my ducks in a row...

1. Talk my DME into giving me a nasal mask (actually I got two - Breeze w/ pillows and ComfortFit w/ DreamSeal.) DONE

2. Ask cpaptalk how to control breathing through my mouth DONE - getting some great answers, and I will keep watching for additional ideas.

3. Practice tongue on top of mouth and Dreamstalker's suggestion to develop skill of nose breathing with mouth fulling open IN PROGRESS

4. Talk my doc into a prescription for an APAP (on MONDAY if my car will start in this cold!)

5. Set up APAP and learn more about software.

6. Learn how to "get the numbers".

7. Learn how to read the numbers

8. Adjust plan as necessary

9. See this as a FUN project, and ask for help when I need it! IN PROGRESS

To train my tongue, I've been trying to breathe solely through my nose when trying to exercise on the treadmill and on my jog-walks.

It's not easy as I feel I am not getting enough oxygen and begin to mouth breathe or I'll get light headed. Perhaps this is what is happening on xPAP subconciously?

If your nasal passages are subject to being blocked, you will mouth breathe more readily. I'm going to focus on keeping those nasal passages wide open. I don't have airborne allergies, but I do think I have some food allergies (beer, breads, white flour, sugar). I'm going to look into that.

GoofyUT wrote:So, don't fret if you're unable to stop mouth-breathing on your own. It may just be a matter of facial architecture.

I guess I'll have to accept that, because I've tried all the suggestions. I realize it's not a big deal to have to tape, but hearing others have verifiable proof they've been successful in training themselves not to mouthbreathe (and not being able to do it myself) is frustrating.

I guess I am in the unfortunate category as well. I spent months trying to make it work. I really can't seal my mouth with my tongue. No matter where I plant it, it still leaks. I can only use the base of my tongue and throat to close off my mouth. I finally gave up and went to the hybrid. I noticed after a month plus that I no longer found myself drooling (my sure clue that I was mouth breathing. So last night I broke out the swift and gave it a try. No go. So I got up and taped. Still no go. As soon as I start to drift to sleep, my cheeks puff out and Im' back awake. So back to the Hybrid. I'm pretty sure it is the pressure being the same on the outside of my lips, but I don't even get blow fish at all with the hybrid. So I think I am stuck with some type of full face mask.