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Not sure if I can help on that one. Leakage could be an issue causing events but remember that normal is less than 5. I still would try lower pressures and see if it helps.. Maybe the leakage is because the pressure is set too high.
Good question. Get a second opinion is the obvious answer but the reason I put the post up is that I could not find anywhere on sites stating that dry mouth was from too high pressure. Your physician may not be aware of it - mine was not. If you machine gives you an AHI score then I suggest you try lower settings yourself and see what happens to your AHI score. Below 5 is normal but I prefer below 1. Whatever level does not give dry mouth and keeps your AHI score below 5 or 1 is the correct setting. My current settings are low of 4 and high of 8. I brought out and old ResMed S9 machine last night which gave me horrendous dry mouth. It was on 12 and 20 so I reduced it to low of 4 and high of 8 and tried it. No dry mouth! Did not need to buy an AirMini at all. -:(
I am a doctor. I realised that what was written about dry mouth was wrong. It is not due to air coming directly into the mouth from mouth breathing. The key to preventing air entering the mouth with nasal CPAP is to do with holding the tongue against the roof of the mouth when the CPAP is on. Putting tape over your mouth helps because the air cannot escape from the mouth but does not solve the actual problem. The secret is that your tongue holds itself against the roof of your mouth when you breathe in through the nose so that the air goes to your lungs. The tongue in the correct position blocks the mouth off from the posterior, nasal airway and prevents the air coming into the mouth from the nose and out through the lips which causes the mouth to dry, just as people who snore have a dry mouth. Humidifcation helps but does not solve the problem - the air coming from the nasal mask and out through the mouth is still drying.
The cause of this problem with CPAP is the pressure you are using is too high and your tongue, when you are asleep, cannot hold its position against the roof of the mouth allowing air to be forced into the mouth from the nose. The solution is to reduce the pressure of the incoming air. My pressures were set years ago at 14 but using the AirMini I have reduced them to 4.4 low and 9.0 high. I have an AHI score of less than 1.0 (total score 96/100) and no dry mouth, without using a humidifier. If you have a dry mouth problem then I strongly recommend that you have your pressure lowered until you have no dry mouth but keep your AHI score at less than 5.0 or preferably less than 1.0.
I have been using CPAP for 15 years and dry mouth has driven me nuts but become much worse since losing weight. It is not surprising that my pressure requirements were also lower with lower weight. What I am saying makes both medical and anatomical sense and worked immediately in my case. Thanks must be given to my friend BM who was the one to suggest this solution as he had tried it and found that it worked for him. I cannot comment on whether this would also work for full face masks as I have never used one, but I suspect on logical grounds that it would. It should also work for nasal pillow type mask.
If you want to test out the logic of this suggestion open your mouth and put your tongue up against the roof of your mouth and then breathe in. Despite your lips/mouth being open the air goes in through the nose. Now do the same thing again but drop your tongue as you breathe in and the air comes in through your mouth. Now try the same thing breathing out. It is the tongue against the roof of the mouth that keeps the air in the nasal air passages and out of the mouth when breathing in and out. Chin straps are still good but the real secret is the pressure you are using is probably unnecessarily high.
Sleep well all you CPAP users by setting the correct pressure to stop the apnea without being too high and causing dry mouth.
