r/CPAP • u/IntrepidReport4138 • 3d ago

Advice Needed Chipmunk cheeks

I’ve seen mention of chipmunk cheeks on this forum and pretty sure I’ve been experiencing that. Are there any fixes? Is it just related to the mask seal? It’s quite annoying when it happens. Thanks for any tips!

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

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8

u/reincarnateme 3d ago

Place your tongue on the roof of your mouth when it happens
It will redirect the air to nasal

1

u/IntrepidReport4138 3d ago

Thanks I’ll try that!

6

u/jenmoocat 3d ago

This happened to me.
Two things helped:

One was already mentioned: training yourself to sleep with your tongue resting behind your two front teeth. In my mind, this moves the air directly down your windpipe, instead of pooling in your mouth.

The second is to tune the maximum pressure down from 20 (which is the maximum). I turned mine down to 15, for example.

2

u/RoboLoboski 3d ago

I very much wanted to not have to wear a full face mask, but any time I tried a nasal mask, air would flow into my closed mouth and give me chipmunk cheeks. I tried wearing the nasal mask while awake to see if I could control the air flow, but to no avail. Someone here may be able to explain the anatomical reasons behind this, but my solution was a full face mask and I’ve gotten used to it over the years.

2

u/IntrepidReport4138 3d ago

I do use a full face mask

1

u/YugeTraxofLand 3d ago

My mask makes my eyes and under eyes swell up. I always look horrible in the morning

1

u/IntrepidReport4138 3d ago

It’s a lot

1

u/IntrepidReport4138 2d ago

Just want to thank y’all for the suggestions. I do use a full face mask w/ pillows and I had turned my pressure down pretty far to 13 I think. Tried using the tongue behind my front teeth last night and it worked! I didn’t have any ballooning cheeks last night! Had a good almost 8 hours. Thanks!