How long does a mouth breathing event last?

Hi, new to CPAP here, been on the machine for eight nights now. I'm pleased with what's happening, as is my wife, but I'm curious about the mouth breathing phenomenon. On three nights she's observed me doing that, for between five and twenty minutes at a time. On a night that it happens, she's seen it occur between three and seven times. The noise seems to wake her up.

At what sort of duration should I start getting concerned about it? Naturally I'm concerned about it waking her up, her sleep's important too, but I've been waking up feeling well rested without any dry mouth problems. Last night she didn't notice anything, slept right through, perhaps because some of what I'd found on this excellent board was some suggestions about forming the habit of putting the tongue back in the mouth to block the air flow. Tried that last night, and it may have started working already. I'm going to keep at it.

I've been wondering if my sleep studies never noticed it, because so far mouth breathing only seems to have happened three nights out of eight. The studies did show AHI of 11.5, O2 sat down to 80%, and the titration came out at 10cm CPAP.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts,
Jeff

Mouth breathing starts when you open your mouth and continues until you close it.

If you are mouth breathing you are not getting the treatment, you have to use a full face mask or find a way to stop it or tape it shut. The pressure coming out of your mouth stops the treatment from being effective. There are lots of posts here dealing with this problem.

I didn't know if I was a mouth breather, but I started out with a full face mask from the start just in case. ( I am not use to anything being easy so I jump in the deep end first)