need help deciding if the I should try a full face msk

I've been on cpap just over a year now and for about three to four months I wake up with a dry mouth. My nose is fine but my lips are glued together and my tounge is stuck to the roof of my mouth. My doctor prescribed a full face mask. But if my mouth is not coming open how would a full face mask help?? I was under the impression that the full face is for mouth breathers. My therapist told me she thinks it could be a medication that I'm taking..........please help. I don't want to spend the money if it's not going to help........Thanks!!

There is no way that we could tell you whether it would help or not. Maybe it's a humidifier problem.

When you wear a FF mask (like I do) you can breathe with your mouth open but not lose therapy air that way... it will go down your airway to keep it open. That's the whole point of a FF mask.

denise@thrifthomecare.com wrote:I've been on cpap just over a year now and for about three to four months I wake up with a dry mouth. My nose is fine but my lips are glued together and my tounge is stuck to the roof of my mouth. My doctor prescribed a full face mask. But if my mouth is not coming open how would a full face mask help?? I was under the impression that the full face is for mouth breathers. My therapist told me she thinks it could be a medication that I'm taking..........please help. I don't want to spend the money if it's not going to help........Thanks!!

Please add your machine/mask/humidifier info. There could be several things to try to address a dry mouth. For me, I just needed to increase my humidifier pressure. Also, or me, I tend to get a dryer mouth with a full mask.

Maybe it's just me, but isn't a FFM much easier and better than having to tape your mouth shut nightly?

denise@thrifthomecare.com wrote:I've been on cpap just over a year now and for about three to four months I wake up with a dry mouth. My nose is fine but my lips are glued together and my tounge is stuck to the roof of my mouth. My doctor prescribed a full face mask. But if my mouth is not coming open how would a full face mask help?? I was under the impression that the full face is for mouth breathers. My therapist told me she thinks it could be a medication that I'm taking..........please help. I don't want to spend the money if it's not going to help........Thanks!!

Hi,

I would play around with the humidification setting to see if that would help. Many times, not having the right setting causes me to have a dry mouth even when my leak line is good. This happens with nasal pillow and full face masks.

What medication are you taking?

Do you have a data capable machine that would enable you check software so you could see what your leak level looked like? If it is too excessive, you could be losing therapy which also could be causing a dry mouth.

Finally, if you could fill out the equipment profile, that would be extremely helpful so members could better target their advice to your situation.

maybe I'm over looking it but where do I add my equipment information??

*4408 wrote:maybe I'm over looking it but where do I add my equipment information??

Click on the User Control Panel link near the left top corner(under search screen). Then go into your profile, and it will give you the choices to set up your profile.

ok I've added my equipment....

*4408 wrote:ok I've added my equipment....

good job. Are you comfortable with the nasal mask? What do you have your humidity set at?

Unfortunately if you have chosen the correct equipment in your profile that machine doesn't record any leak data which might help decide if there is/was mouth breathing going.

Look on the bottom of the blower unit for model number..a 3 digit number...your chosen machine at the moment is model 260 and that machine doesn't collect anything but hours of use...you would need 460 or higher if you have a 60 series machine to be able to use the software available to evaluate leaks or mouth breathing.

I can tell you from past experience that dry mouth can come about from as little as only 10 minutes of mouth breathing....so dry mouth doesn't always mean mouth breathing the entire night.
Using a full face mask won't eliminate dry mouth in most cases. It does eliminate loss of therapy pressure if there is large amount of mouth breathing going on.

It might be your meds? What med is it?
It might be either long term mouth breathing/leaking/opening or it might be short term.
Without data to backup or confirm just how much mouth breathing is going on we have to assume the worst though.
You could try a one night trial with taping your lips just to see if the dry mouth goes away if you for sure keep lips and mouth closed and then those results may help you with your decision on going down the full face mask road.