Mouth Taping: Is It a Good Idea

Audio Transcript:

Dr. Reddy:

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of We Nose Noses. I’m Dr. Reddy, I’m joined with Dr. Undavia, and today we’re going to discuss a topic that a lot of our patients talk to us about, and that is mouth taping. Mouth taping has become very popular over the past 10 years, and a lot of people who are mouth breathing or snoring are giving it a try.

Dr. Undavia, have you had any experience with patients talking to you about mouth taping?

Dr. Undavia:

A few have brought it up because they’ve looked it up online and they’re wondering if they can cure their snoring problem with that. My brother-in law brought it up to me. I’ve done a little bit of reading about it and I think it seems like a good idea, but this guy is the expert on it.

Dr. Reddy:

No, I’m not an expert at all, but I have some insight into it. I mean, generally speaking, when people are mouth breathing, it’s either due to a anatomic cause or obstruction that’s causing them to not be able to breathe through their nose easily, or it’s a habit, or it’s a combination of those two things. Right. And so mouth taping is certainly not going to help a structural issue with trouble breathing through the nose if you have restriction there. But if you have a habit as part of the problem, then it may be helpful. Do you agree with that?

Dr. Undavia:

Completely. Mouth taping would be a disaster if you couldn’t breathe through your nose and you’re just off both areas.

Dr. Reddy:

But yeah, I mean, there’s different ways of mouth taping. There’s online. If you go online, you can, there’s all sorts of different companies that sell mouth specific tape for mouth taping and they can look a little weird when you look at them. But I mean, the old fashioned way is literally just taking some surgical tape and just putting it over your lips. You don’t necessarily have to buy the mouth tape specific brands out there. But I think the most important thing to do is even if you try before you even try mouth taping, it’s just breathe through your nose, especially when laying flat. After you lay flat, typically the congestion increases in your nose because your nose is at the same level as your heart. And so a little bit more edema develops in your nose. And so if you’re laying flat and you’re trying to breathe through your nose and if you feel like it’s constricted, then I would probably address that first before you mouth tape.

Dr. Undavia:

Yeah. You’re going to really be uncomfortable. You’re not going to like either one.

Dr. Reddy:

Yeah. What are some common causes of obstruction in the nose that would you would potentially address prior to mouth taping?

Dr. Undavia:

Yep, so the first thing that Dr. Reddy alluded to was the fact that you get more edema or swelling inside the nose when you put your nose at the same level as your heart. And that’s because the turbinates can be swollen. So the turbinates are your air filter in your nose. And when you lie down, just like a balloon, they can swell up and then take up space in your nose. The other main thing is a deviated septum. that could, you know, it could get worse as you lie down only because the turbinate swells up a little bit and then gets closer to the deviation of the septum. And you can have trouble breathing that way.

Dr. Reddy:

There’s also chronic sinus disease and polyps that can give you obstruction inside the nose, but those are the main things. And other causes are nasal valve collapse, where the outside of your nose can kind of get sucked in a little bit when you’re breathing because of a lack of resiliency of your cartilage here in your nose something called a contrabalosa, which can take up some room in your nose for breathing and other things that can be picked up on a CAT scan. What are some treatment options that you would suggest to somebody to try first even before they attempt mouth taping?

Dr. Undavia:

I think the simplest thing is just some nasal sprays. Most of the things are over the counter intranasal steroids, the most common one we all know about is nasocor or flow nase. There’s now AstroPro, which is a topical antihistamine. It’s like springs or tachyclarytin into your nose. Those can be very helpful if your turbinate is a big part of the problem.

Dr. Reddy:

And other conservative options are things like just raising the head of your bed a little bit. You can sleep with a little bit of an incline and it’ll help relieve potentially any edema in your nose.

Sometimes changing your sleep position a little bit. you’re a pro, if you sleep supine or on your back, sometimes changing it so that you’re a side sleeper or on your front called the prone position. That might relieve a little bit of congestion. You can try doing a sinus rinse prior to going to bed. That can be helpful.

If you have dry nose and you get congested because of dryness, you can try a humidifier. And you can also address any potential allergies you might have, especially indoor allergens. You can see an allergist for allergy testing. You can try allergy medication. Dr. Undavia mentioned Astapro, which is an allergy nasal spray. These are all kind of conservative options. What about procedural and surgical options, just broadly speaking?

Dr. Unadavia:

Yeah. First, if you find that your obstruction is always on the same side, it might lead you to believe, or lead us to believe that you do have a deviated septum or something on that side that’s constantly blocking your nose. fixing your septum, making your turbinates smaller, fixing the nasal valve, those things can absolutely help your breathing at night.

Dr. Reddy:

Yep, and a lot of these things can be done either in the office, under just local anesthesia, without a trip to the operating room without being fully asleep for and avoiding general anesthesia, or it could be done in the operating room in the traditional setting. After a, you know, let’s say you’ve addressed the obstruction in the nose, either with medications or with lifestyle modifications or with a procedure or surgery, and now the obstruction is gone, but a patient is still complaining that they’re mouth breathing. They’re waking up with like a dry mouth.

Their partner might be telling them that they’re still breathing through their mouth. Do you think mouth taping at that point is reasonable to try?

Dr. Undavia:

I think so. I think it is. think it’s first when you keep your mouth open all the time, you’re really evaporating a lot of moisture. It’s pretty significant. so patients are constantly having to wake up just to drink fluids, just to wet their mouth. mean, that alone disturbs your sleep.

Dr. Reddy:

Taping your mouth could help you just preserve the moisture inside your mouth. that also can affect your dentition when your saliva has antibacterial properties and it protects your teeth. And so if you’re constantly having a dry mouth or a mouth breathing, you’re much more prone to get cavities and other teeth issues. There’s a book called Breathe that’s been a New York Times bestseller and really popular with a lot of patients, just talking about a topic that most medical professionals don’t always talk or focus on, which is the importance of just breathing through your nose. From an evolutionary perspective, humans were really designed to breathe through their nose and not through their mouth, not only for the reason that you mentioned with saliva, but is there any other reasons from a medical perspective why breathing through your nose is so important?

Dr. Undavia:

There’s so many good reasons, but the main one is if you think about just being in the jungle and being able to smell a predator or prey, the more volume you smell in your nose, the more likely you are to sense those things, your senses. The nose and especially the turbinates also humidifies the air. So as you breathe it in, you are preparing your lungs by humidifying the oxygen that we breathe in, it makes the oxygenation process much better.

Dr. Reddy:

Yeah. So it also filters the air, like you mentioned before, it warms the air. the air that you’re getting into your lungs is a little bit warmer when it kind of goes through all the capillary or close to the capillaries in your nose. Nitric oxide is released through your nose, well, actually by some of the cells in your sinuses when your nose senses airflow. And nitric oxide is not released when you’re breathing through your mouth. And the reason why nitric oxide is important is it actually helps improve overall oxygenation slightly. And so it can affect all sorts of downstream things, like not, you your cognition, your mentation, your level of alertness, your sleep quality.

And I think we’re just kind of starting to scratch the surface a little bit in terms of how much of a potential downstream effect just breathing through your nose can have compared to not breathing through your nose. And a lot of the data is still kind of coming out. it’s very important.

Dr. Undavia:

Nitric oxide is just a, it’s a vasodilator. So it’s such a potent vasodilator that you put it onto a blood vessel and immediately the blood vessel expands. So if you just think about improving blood flow to any single organ, it will make it function better.

Dr. Reddy:

Great. Anything else to add?

Dr. Undavia:

I was just going to say that mouth taping, one of the things that it’s been known to do besides making you breathe through your nose is it elicits a bunch of reflex arcs in your neck and it causes the muscles to tense up a little bit. And what that does is gives you a better airway from a breathing perspective so that the tissues don’t collapse as strongly as they would without mouth taping.

Dr. Reddy:

Great. Great, I think that’s all we have about mouth taping. And thanks for joining us. We’re looking forward to talking on the next episode. Take care.