Which causes more mouth breathing cpap, apap or bipap?

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allend wrote:Which causes more mouth breathing cpap, apap or bipap?

Allen,

As one of those who have used BiPAP and APAP, I'll relate my experience.

With BiPAP I had essentially continuous mouth-breathing difficulty. My charts usually showed ten to twenty spikes in "leak" data throughout the night indicating that my mouth had been open for a little while, usually for five to ten minutes at a time. I tried Poligrip strips and they seemed to help for a while, but then the mouth breathing came back with a vengeance, so I finally quit using the strips altogether.

When my BiPAP-auto broke, I went back to APAP and was surprised to discover that my mouth breathing with the APAP was considerably less than it had been with the BiPAP-auto, and also less than it been previously when I first used APAP, usually just a couple of short spikes during the night, and sometimes none at all.

So, in summary, my experience was that mouth-breathing got worse with BiPAP but that reverting back to APAP, although it didn't eliminate mouth-breathing, allowed me to at least keep mouth-breathing under control.

Just my experience, of course.

Regards,
Bill

To my knowledge, I don't really mouth breath at all unless I am wearing a full face mask. When I have a nasal interface on, I must jam my mouth into the pillow (side sleeper) enough so that my mouth stays shut. With a full face mask, I can't do this so my mouth sometimes falls open. Regardless of the interface, if I am on my back, my mouth will drop open.

Kimberly

XPAP machines don't cause Mouthbreathing. Your body causes Mouthbreathing. Jim