good numbers, but lip flutter

my wife has a pressure of 6-11. her pressure seldom goes above 8. she uses an optilife nasal pillow setup. her leaks are usually on the low side. the problem is not that she breathes thru her mouth, but that her lips flutter and let air out. part of the problem with chin straps and other things to keep her mouth closed is no teeth. the upper and lower jaws don't touch. she's tried lansinoh which didn't really help. after her wake up panic attack, tape is out of the question. she seems to do better on nasal than full face. as you can see by my screenshot, on paper she looks good. my question is, if the numbers look good and she is feeling somewhat better, how important is this lip flutter thing? i know about maintaining pressure, etc, but the machine isn't really raising to compensate and she's nowhere near large leak territory that would compromise treatment. is anybody else in this situation? the very first big leak was the machine running with the hose disconnected.

From the leak plot (looks like total leak), it looks like her lip flutter leakage is very minimal. The OptiLife intentional leak rate at 6 cm-H2O is around 20 L/min. See page 17 in http://www.healthcare.philips.com/pwc_h ... ifeOIS.pdf.

I have to tape to prevent lip flutter. But mine is more than lip flutter.

Someone, more knowledgeable than I am, will soon give some useful advice. Earl

I see worse leaks than that pretty much every night and I choose to ignore it.
It doesn't wake me up and if it does go to large leak territory it doesn't stay there long. My numbers are good and I feel quite decent.

Looks like the lip flutters are really rather minor and not impacting therapy because we can't even see a tiny bit of it on the report, not impacting her quality of sleep...I wouldn't worry about them.

Pugsy wrote:...

At one time I was able to enter the intentional leak value for my mask. Now, I can't find how to either set, or change, that value in SleepyHead.

My leak plots still show both intentional and total leaks.

How did I do that? Thanks, Earl

poppi2 wrote:At one time I was able to enter the intentional leak value for my mask. Now, I can't find how to either set, or change, that value in SleepyHead.

My leak plots still show both intentional and total leaks.

How did I do that? Thanks, Earl

I think it is in Edit Profile section but I don't think it works as designed.
My unintentional leak line disappeared a long time ago and I don't know why it quit working..others still have the dual lines but I don't.

thank you for the flutter replies. her leak line is a total leak line.



this is for respironics. resmed may be different.

in sleepyhead - file - preferences - cpap -cpap information - leak mode. choose unintentional or total leaks.

i had both leak lines before i ran the update and was given the above choice and the dual lines went away. this is a beta version so unexpected problems are expected. i understand that some people see the dual lines after updating.

You can zoom into the waveforms to see if expiratory mouth breathing is taking place during apnea events. In my case there is very little correlation.

the problem is not that she breathes thru her mouth, but that her lips flutter and let air out.

Exhalation of air through the lips is breathing through the mouth.

Exhalation of air through the lips is breathing through the mouth.

Tis true...it is a bit of mouth breathing but there are different levels of how bad mouth breathing is in relation to possible impact on therapy. Little lip flutters that we can't even spot a blip of a significant leak on the graphs, along with good numbers and resting well...we don't worry about them. The number one goal is to sleep good and feel better.

I know for a fact that I sometimes do some mouth breathing because I wake up during the night with open mouth and dry mouth. Usually on my back and usually during a time frame where I likely am in REM sleep.
Most of the time the leak line doesn't show anything of great excitement but sometimes it does..like maybe 15 minutes of leak pushing into large leak territory or very close. It isn't the end of the world to have a wee bit of leak show up if it doesn't disturb sleep.

Sometimes people put undue stress on themselves trying to attain that "perfect" leak line or make sure that there is zero way any air can escape from the mouth. The added stress ends up being more problematic than the wee bit of leaks that might happen from time to time. The machine can and will compensate for some leaks.

Good points Pugsy. The ones to worry are CPAPers who use nasal interfaces and mouthbreathe for long periods during the night. Most people do not have the software to notice the leaks. cpaptalk active members are still a small minority of users.