I see ads for these devices and the possibility of suffocating in your sleep just terrifies me. Sure most of the time you might wake up but still :/
Fortunately CPAP therapy works fantastically for me, and the CPAP masks have anti asphyxia valves to prevent you rebreathing your CO2 in the event the machine stops working (I wondered about that for a bit).
They say "could" a lot, and then say that there's no research/evidence to support it - but that's probably just because no one has done and yet. If there was any evidence against it, presumably they'd cite it?
Not a refutation, but then the article doesn't really offer any evidence to be refuted.
Afaik, "mouth taping" is just putting a little strip of fairly low tack surgical tape across your mouth, vertically, to encourage your body to keep it closed and breathe through your nose while you sleep. I've tried this just to see and it seems to work - but if you open your mouth or move your jaw even a little, it just peels off.
As long as you're sensible, it doesn't seem like it's going to do any harm?
Refute what? It's just a random doctor giving some general caveats about side effects. Anything we currently use to great effect, from aspirin to chemo, and from leg casts to band aids will have such generic caveats.
"Skin irritation" from some allergic reaction to the adhesive or fastening the mouth tap too hard? Sure.
"hampered breathing" sure, if you tie it wrongly, or have other issues.
It's more like a random physician's advice for caution than some voice of science. Also, they write:
"Our study provided a simple and effective treatment modality using 3M mouth tape for mild OSA patients with open-mouth-breathing. The AHI and SI were reduced by nearly half after mouth-taping during sleep; the more severe the baseline AHI and SI, the greater the improvement after mouth-taping. For mild OSA mouth-breathers, mouth-taping could be an alternative treatment before CPAP therapy or surgical intervention are tried."
Novel porous oral patches for patients with mild obstructive sleep apnea and mouth breathing: a pilot study. Conclusion: The POP is a useful device to treat patients with mild OSA and habitual OMB.
Mouth Closing to Improve the Efficacy of Mandibular Advancement Devices in Sleep Apnea. A combination of an adhesive mouthpiece and MAD is a more effective therapy than MAD alone. These findings may help improve clinical decision making in sleep apnea.
That's irrefutable by design. It _could_ lead to all those things. But it could also _not_ lead to them. Depends on the person. Besides, it's not like people with obstructive sleep apnea are having great sleep to begin with. FWIW I have facial hair so I did not use the tape. For me merely breathing through my nose during the day turned out to be sufficient to be able to comfortably do so at night.
