Well shut my mouth?



 Last week one of my long time patients came in and had a cleaning and exam. He has a history of a extremely high caries rate and apparently his dry mouth has contributed to his problems. He complained that when he sleeps his mouth gets really dry and we reported that he sleeps with his mouth open. 

I find that I too have been sleeping with my mouth open and I wake up multiple times per night with an extremely dry mouth. I asked him if he had some time and we could watch some lessons on Spear Online about "the Seattle Protocol" which is an introduction to "sleep dentistry". He said he did and we watched about 30 minutes of the lessons called Nasal Breathing Therapy . I had remembered watching these awhile ago and there was a mention of taping the mouth shut at night ( Buteyko Mouth Taping ) so that mouth breathing might be discouraged. 

I should add that I have been quite skeptical about sleep dentistry but I have little or no firsthand experience with treating my patients with it. That being said I decided to try taping my mouth shut using paper tape.... surprisingly it worked. The tape stayed in place all night and I woke up feeling more rested. I have used it for three nights now and it seems to work for me. I am not overweight and probably have a mild case of sleep apnea. 

Keep in mind that this taping will not work in all patients who breathe through their mouths at night. Dr.  Rouse, who is a prosthodontist with a practice specializing in treating patients with sleep apnea finds that when a patient try the taping and it doesn't work he routinely recommends then to go get worked up with an ENT or an allergist to see what is causing their breathing problems.





from Ask Dr. Spindel - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/2022/10/well-shut-my-mouth.html - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/

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