sleep apnea / dry mouth

 Since surgery, my mouth has been SEVERELY dry at night while sleeping with my CPAP machine.  I never had an issue with this whatsoever.  I've had a machine for about 14 years now and never even used water in it for moisture.  It just wasn't an issue for me.

Totally different story now though.  My mouth gets so dry that it all gets stuck together and it wakes me in the middle of the night.  I have to keep a bottle of water next to me and take a small sip to get my tissues to pry apart from being so dried out.

I'm having a sleep study tomorrow night to get the pressure lowered down since I've lost 67 lbs I don't need such a high pressure anymore.

Has anyone else had this dry mouth after surgery when sleeping with their machine?  My friend just told me the same thing is happening to him too all the sudden but he didn't loose any weight and didn't have the surgery.

I have dry mouth at night without the sleep apnea machine. I believe it's the low carb diet combined with the fact that I'm a mouth breather.

Using a humidifying machine will probably help. I keep a bottle of water next to my bed and sip on it when I wake up with dry mouth. AND you can count however much you drank overnight into the next day's fluids!

 I don't use my cpap. Never got used to it. However, you can either up the moisture control on your machine, or have an portable room humidifier near your bed, to add some extra moisture to the air. Have you changed your air filter at all? May play a part in the quality of the air flow. Chances are it is just because the air pressure is too high for you now. If your lucky, you won't need it anymore.

 Yeah I turned the control up but too much and water starts forming in the tube and up my nose.  As it is now the thing is dry by morning time having used up all the water in one evening.  I did just change the filter last month and got a new tube and mask.  I'm thinking its because the pressure is high as well.

YES! since I got the sleeve I have had dry mouth. I have been on the cpap since 2000 and just after I started on it, I had drymouth too! But then it went away. It wasnt until I read this thread that I made the connection.



Right about when I got my CPAP I started Atkins! so the low carb culprit suspicion seems, to me, to have merit!



To resolve it, I have a flask of water at my bedside. I take a couple sips and moisten my moutn and then go back to bed.




And to clarify. I am NOT a mouthbreather.

 Well I'm not alone then I guess.  Seems very strange.  Hopefully before long I wont need it at all anymore but we'll see.

I do not have sleep apnea, and I am not a mouth breather... but I have noticed since my surgery, I wake up with my mouth open and my mouth is completely dry. This happens every night, and I wake up a few times at night to find my tongue has dried out. This only happens at night, never problems during the day. I've thought it was super weird, but nice to know there are others out there...

 Oh wow that is interesting.  I wonder what it could be?  Thanks for posting.  I thought it had something to do with the surgery since I was perfectly fine before hand.

Exact same thing happened to me.  I attribute it to the loss of my double/triple chin, which helped to keep my mouth shut.  As I lost weight, I became a mouth breather which cause the air to whoosh out of my mouth.  It was miserable.

I use a nasal pillow mask, but I contemplated buying a hybrid mouth/nose mask.  I finally settled on a simple chin strap from cpap.com for $20 and it fixed the problem.  Back to CPAP happiness for me.

 Thanks for the information.  I am having a sleep study tomorrow night so I'll ask and see if I can get something like that.