I figured I’d share a few tips on what I am doing to maintain the mouthpiece I am using to stop my snoring. Believe it or not, I really don’t think it is really very healthy to pop it in my mouth every night without at least a little TLC. What I do isn’t really a lot of work, but I do think it makes a difference.

The main thing I religiously do before and after using it is always rinse it off. I don’t use extremely hot or cold water, just a mildly warm temperature. I think if the water is too hot, it may have the chance of deforming it slightly and we want to keep it in a shape that holds the lower jaw forward the best. In fact, one or two days I was in a big rush and I noticed that if I did not rinse it off immediately after use in the morning, it had a funky smell. My guess is that this is due to the natural bacterias in the saliva in your mouth… and it would smell a bit even if after just a few hours.

The other thing I try to do at least ever other or every third day is to spread toothpaste over the entire mouthpiece, especially in the area where the embedded teethmarks are. I try to rub it thoroughly into all the crevices and then use a toothbrush to scrub it with the toothbrush. Then I rinse all the toothpaste off. I have found that after it is rinsed off there is no longer a slickness to the mouthpiece but has a nice clean “grippy” feel. Best of all, the mouthpiece still has a pleasing minty flavor to it! Oddly enough I almost look forward to putting it in for the night.

During the day, I do place the mouthpiece in the plastic container which it came with when it was shipped to me. I don’t close the container on it fully though and I leave it open partially in order to allow the air to circulate around it better and dry more quickly.

I am not sure about the amount of bacteria toothpaste can kill, so I also have been performing a little rinse with mouthwash over it so the alcohol can kill off any baddie bacteria that just may be hanging around. Some brands like Listerine seem to have their flavor linger a few days longer than I would expect, so maybe it is getting slightly absorbed by the silicon/plastic-like material that the mouthpiece is made from.

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