Dental device to keep tongue up in the magic place to seal?

Could some sort of a retainer push my tongue up to where I need it to be for a good seal? Or, am I getting on the wacky side?

Ask your dentist. They may have something like that.

Not all that whacky but I haven't ever run across anything like that.
It would be a big help for people with chipmunk cheeks too...and chipmunk cheek complaints have been around a long time.
I don't remember it ever being discussed though.

The tongue can move, drop or whatever even if teeth are clenched totally shut..so I don't see a mouth guard being much help unless it could force the tongue to stay in the roof of the mouth...and that idea seems like it wouldn't be very comfortable or not. It would need a big hump on it to support and push on the tongue and I bet it wouldn't be very comfy.

The best we can offer at this point is practice, practice, practice the tongue in the roof placement during the day and hope the brain thinks it is a good habit to have at night.
We laugh about it but my tongue is always in "that position" unless I am eating or talking or something like that.
All other times when mouth isn't needing to move....my tongue is in the roof of my mouth and it is just second nature to me.

My tongue sometimes will get lazy and drop down...but I don't get chipmunk cheeks...my mouth just drops open and I do a little mouth breathing or mouth leaking. Sometimes I get a dry mouth and can't even spot a leak but I woke up with dry mouth and mouth open....it doesn't take an episode of an hour of mouth breathing to dry out the mouth. It takes very little in fact. Since I rarely spend much if any time in large leak territory and my dry mouth is rare and I sleep just fine through all this I choose to do nothing. I don't care if my leak line is not so pretty for 30 minutes.

My main goals have always been ....acceptable therapy and it doesn't have to be "perfect" therapy.....and decent sleep both in quantity and quality.
I have been lucky....dry mouth is a rarity for me but I have had it....once really bad and when I looked at the report the leak was ugly for only 10 minutes...so it doesn't take mouth breathing for the entire night to make a desert in your mouth.

Sucking on a sucker/life saver/throat lozenge might help the tongue stay up for a while...at least until the sucker was gone.

My little mouth guards do that.

Stormynights wrote:My little mouth guards do that.

Tell us about your moth guards.
Where you got them and what they cost.
Are they big and bulky like the stop snoring devices the advertise on TV?

Bryansong

I just use 2 boil and bite youth mouth guards and mold one for the top and one for the bottom teeth. I bite down hard so they will stay pretty thin.

My night guard also functions as a retainer. It fits on my upper teeth and while it isn't designed to help keep the tongue stuck to the roof of the mouth, mine does help with creating the suction needed to keep my tongue up there all night. Nights with chipmunk cheeks are pretty rare now.

Jeannh, I don't think you've gone over to the wacky side. What's wacky is this therapy and the things we have to do to make it work!

My mouth guard (for grinding) pushes my skin out so my mask then starts leaking like mad, and I can't use a nasal mask as the thickness of the guard won't allow me to close my mouth properly.

You may have to resort to a full face mask OP

My wacky solution that I got from another member on another forum is to place a stuffed dog toy or pillow under my chin as I lay on my side and position my hands so that my chin has no room to drop down. That coupled with a number of sundry chin straps and practice placing my tongue flat against my teeth has pretty much solved that problem. My problem now is staying asleep longer than 3 or 4 hours without waking up for a stretch and walk about.

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snork1 wrote:I didn't like the hard acrylic one from the dentist. It lasted a long time, but its so hard that I was still getting nerve trauma from grinding. The boil and bite ones are a bit softer and save me the $300.

I can't remember what brand of boil-n-bite I bought, but it was the absolutely most basic one they had. I used a side-cutter (wire cutters) to trim off the excess boiled-n-bit and trimmed again, repeating a few times to get it thin. I trim it pretty much flush at the front of the teeth to avoid interfering with some CPAP interfaces that press on the upper lip area.

Notice the "wings" on the back. Those are used to grab the back teeth, which is a feature I noticed on some photos of guards that I saw. You can dip those separately when you have it all pretty well adjusted and give them a little squeeze for better grip.

I took the trimmings and boiled and smooshed them together to make the tongue guide. Note this guide also tends to GENTLY move the jaw forward when you clench, which helps most people's OSA. Someone has also gotten the material for the tongue guide by boiling the guard until VERY soft, and biting very far forward, shoving most of the material back to make the guide. (I am going to try that myself next)

I have heard that a heated spoon works good for some shaping and smoothing. I use a drimmel tool with drum sander bit at low speed to smooth the rough edges, but sandpaper should also work.

Yah, its a bit of hassle and work, but for ME its worth saving $300 AND getting something that stops mouth leaks, eliminates a chin strap(some people still need a light duty chin strap at first) and with my jaw going forward when I try to grind, my AHI numbers go DOWN.

Your mileage may vary, and all usual disclaimers. make sure you have your dentist check it at your regular checkup.

Lukie wrote:My wacky solution that I got from another member on another forum is to place a stuffed dog toy or pillow under my chin as I lay on my side and position my hands so that my chin has no room to drop down. That coupled with a number of sundry chin straps and practice placing my tongue flat against my teeth has pretty much solved that problem. My problem now is staying asleep longer than 3 or 4 hours without waking up for a stretch and walk about.

pee on the papers?