Dry mouth

[Sleepster]

I could never get the tongue tucking thing to work for me. I had my doubts when I first heard about it. It seems if you could train yourself to keep your tongue tucked you could train yourself to keep your throat open!

Nevertheless I tried it and I thought it was working. Maybe I just didn't try hard enough.

[Dreamless]

Hi all, 

Thanks for all of your input. I should've expanded on my comment about the tongue tucking thing, I thought that was what was implied - not cutting off the air...  I will try that also. 

Meds and dry mouth - Boy, you said it. 

Thank you once again !
Dreamless

[Apnea Infant]

I could never get the tongue tucking thing to work for me. I had my doubts when I first heard about it. It seems if you could train yourself to keep your tongue tucked you could train yourself to keep your throat open!

Nevertheless I tried it and I thought it was working. Maybe I just didn't try hard enough.

My leaks were horrible with the FFM. When I switched to Pillows, together with a soft collar, I commenced the tongue tuck technique. On the whole it has been successful as my leaks are generally below 24 and are not registered as large leaks. The collar helps with preventing chin drooping to close my upper airways and also keeping my mouth closed. At times I do wake up with a bit of whooshing air to feel my tongue dropped-I think this is when I have rolled onto my back. I do that periodically but my numbers have been generally below 1 for the last 5 months or so, so I accept that.

Tongue tucking produces that stopper to stop air leaking through our mouths and closing the oesophagus and has helped with aerophagia too. Have to say, all that was done in association with slow reduction of prescription pressure of 16.8 cm H2O to 11 cm H2O. Think lower pressure has helped with less irritation when leaks occur so less sleep disturbance. For this I am still looking to reduce pressure but will take it real slow now, possibility with .1 cm H2O at a time.

[Dawnstar]

Are you on any prescription or OTC medication that can cause dry mouth? The medical term is Xerostomia.

Older OTC antihistamines like diphenhydramine & doxylamine are infamous for doing this, for example and are often used as sleep aids.

Some prescription anti-Depressants do this, like Trazodone, which is often prescribed as a sleep aid.

If you have reason to suspect this, you can look them up on Wikipedia, and potentially replace the problematic ones.

Good luck!

[st8800]

Only Xylimelts works for me. Chin straps, tapes, cervical collar and Biotene all don't work at all. I have less of an issue when used together with a FFM like F20. Doesn't work as well if I use it with nasal masks.

[Dreamless]

Dawnstar, 

I will have to go over my meds and check with my doc, if there are any that can cause dry mouth, about the possibility of switching to something that may not.

So far, the xylimelts are working better than anything else I've tried.

[Hojo]

I haven't had a dry mouth since I started using Biotene rinse.