[david-gpu]

> However, I was strongly advised against doing this when I mentioned this to my sleep specialist. It’s possible for your nose to get obstructed and you can risk suffocating

CPAP user here. I tape my mouth. The risk of suffocating due to a blocked nose seems low to me, for two reasons. First, because I can simply do a one-sided smile and breathe normally through my mouth -- I've tried many times for funsies and it's never failed. Second, because you should always fold the two bottom corners of the tape to facilitate its quick removal in the morning anyway.

The real risk of taping your mouth at night, in my opinion, is if there's any chance of vomiting. Without any other way to go, you would aspirate the vomit and that's bad. What I do to reduce that risk is not eating for three hours before using the CPAP.

So why go through all that effort when one could simply use a full face CPAP mask? That's because it is difficult to produce an airtight seal around your whole face, which is necessary for CPAP therapy to work. Creating a seal around your nose is much easier and the smaller size of a nasal nask allows you to sleep on your side, which for most people means you can get away with using lower pressures, which in turn are more comfortable.

[m_a_g]

Vomitting without waking up is next to impossible unless you are blackout drunk.

[david-gpu]

The concern is not having enough time to remove the tape from your mouth.

Among other reasons this can happen because CPAP therapy can cause you to swallow air unwittingly while you sleep due to the pressure it places on your epiglottis. The subsequent burps can contain a mixture of swallowed air and the contents of your stomach.

[m_a_g]

You seem to be misinformed. You don’t wake up vomiting out of nowhere. That is not how it works unless you are using sedatives. You’d be wide awake once your body wants to vomit and you’ll have plenty of time to remove that tape five times. But you do you.

[david-gpu]

> You seem to be misinformed

Or, you know, I may be speaking from personal experience.

[smeej]

I can't even almost vomit without waking up. I was wondering how anyone could sleep through actually doing it!

[david-gpu]

The problem is not whether you wake up, but whether you have enough time and presence of mind to remove the tape from your mouth before stuff starts coming out of your stomach and enters your lungs.