How can I tell if my mouth is open with a nasal mask while I sleep?

[evenflow]

Unrelated (and sorry to double post) - how can I tell if my minimum setting is too high or too low? It looks like my pressure never goes above 11, so I'd assume I'm close to the max. I'm not sure if there's a risk about going above the "max" pressure needed to keep my airway open

[Rich66]

I have found, that if my humidity setting is too high, it will cause a nostril to plug up. I don't necessarily mean that I have running water in the tube or cushion, but the plugging of the nostril is my body telling me something. It's just something you have to play with and see what works. Leaks wake me up, plugged nostrils wake me up, too high of pressure wakes me up. I once slept through a 7 minutes power outage with the mask on and didn't know it until I looked at the graphs the next day. Thankfully, the machine turned itself back on.

You just have to play with it and see what works. Don't make many changes if you're getting close. Don't make large changes if you're getting close. You have to be able to analyze what works and what does not work. Everyone is different, you have to find what works for you. We all have our own different health issues that can change how to solve the 'lack of sleep' problem.

[SarcasticDave94]

With your setting of 10-20 on the AutoSet, it'll adjust between those numbers according to what it senses is the therapy needed. It won't break if it sits at 10, 11, etc.

[evenflow]

Sorry to clarify, when I got the machine it was set to 4-20. I noticed while full mask that my pressure was always hovering around 10-12 iirc, so I just set the baseline to 10 and never set it. According to Lofta my range is really 4 to 20 and I just changed the clinical setting

[SarcasticDave94]

Changing clinical settings is fine. This is self advocating for your setup. Certainly not against it. It looks like a decent range for you. You can experiment with slightly lower than 10 min if you want. With EPR 3 though, I'd not go lower than min 7 cmH2O.

Just note that those pressures the doctor suggests is off a one night snapshot from a lab where you're not sleeping in your home. Think less than ideal situation.

[stevew168]

The best way to tell if you are mouth breathing is to take an IR video while sleeping. I do this every night, and know that my mouth tape is working.