Humidification with cpap is for more than just comfort

Well, I owe it to the users here; in the last 4 months I have changed my view about the need for humidification with CPAP. I thought it was only for comfort, but now think otherwise.

I have been using HH at low levels every night for all the first 7 months of my cpap use. Then I decided to experiment with no heating (passover humidification only) for a while and that seemed to be fine. Then I stopped humidification completely, after about a month or so I was happy the therapy result numbers were just as good as before and everything was fine for me without HH. Less work, more convenience, great! I had posted about this in an earlier thread here. This is why I feel obligated to correct that earlier conclusion.

Then I got a bad cold/flu , and sinusitis. I had to use antibiotics cure the bad sinusitis. After a while, I started developing a wound on the inner septum of the nostril. I do not believe the wound had anything to do with the sinusitis. But the wound wont heal, and I started suspecting it was getting worse after cpap use at night. I had to have it cauterized to control the would and eventually heal it. One of the main sub procedure during the healing period was to keep the nose well moistened with nasal saline sprays.

Now I have concluded that it was the drying out by the cpap air without humidification was one of the main, if not the, cause of septal wound. So I am back using HH again, I keep the humidity high enough, but just below the level where condensation starts to happen within the swift LT pillows.

I am careful in observing / measuring my environment; during all this time there was no significant changes in the relative humidity or temperature in my room at night. I will continue to use my HH as an essential component of cpap therapy. The following is not relevant for this discussion, but I am using my own home made HH, where I can control the heat level very finely.

Hi feeling better: I use the HH every night. We burn wood for heat here in Northern Michigan, so humidification is a must. I have a humidifier running in the house a good share of the time, and always use the HH with my cpap. I tried the by pass thing, it didn't work for me, but thats just me..
Thanks, Larry.