Asking help on stuffed nose at night

I am suffering from clogged nose at sleep for about six years now. I used to sleep on my side, and the side of my nose closest to the pillow would always be stuffed up. Even when I slept on my back, one side or the other would stuff up. It wakes me up now and then and when I sniff there is nothing come out, just dry and stuffed nose. I have such problem about 20 days a month in average. Every time, I wake up with a bad headache, my eyes felt heavy and kind of red (my friends say were you partying yesterday?) And since I don’t have enough oxygen at night I always have a look of tiredness, bad mood not only the look but I feel as if I didn’t sleep enough. I always have to take pain killers on breakfast else the headach is bad which makes me feel nauseated and throw up and have to take lots of cup of coffee to wakeup. I have seen ENT Doctors they say the opening of my nostril is fine and have no problem of sinus and can do nothing about it and just gave me different type of nose spray which doesn’t work on my clogging at night and cause problems during day such as nose bleeding and some others. I really felt hopeless for the past two years and stop spending my time going to doctors who fails to understand my problem and get me help and since I was a student I just relay on pain killers and caffeine drinks to cop up with other students. It really affects my grade and student life much in a way that no one can understand. It is just frustrating, I have no problem during day or when I sit or stand and just can’t get peaceful sleep when I really needed to rest, I dont snore or open my mouth during sleep. I dont know my problem or the cause to it. I am really suffering with no help. Please if you know something that help keep me posted, which type of doctor do I have to see since the ENT Doctor seems not to undertand me, is there anything in the world which can help me, I am from Europe, I really wanna know about CPAP as well or any other alterntetive which can help me, wether it is effective or not, the side effect you expiriance, if I need to be examined to select the type of CAPA. Please write me if there is any helpfull advice you know. Thank you in advance

Hi - I think you should talk to a pharmacist about nasal rinses - they're less harmful than medication, and more effective in taking care of the kind of problems you have. Whatever you do, don't let a doctor put you on Afrin, because you end up needing it more often and it works less and less... hard to get off!

You may or may not have sleep apnea but would need to be formally tested whether in a sleep lab or at home with the proper equipment... it's not something you can just ask for a pill for and the testing would not only confirm that you have it (and not ten other possible reasons for being tired), but also pinpoint the exact type of therapy you need... and only a doctor can do that and prescribe the right equipment, etc, usually a pulmonologist or neurologist who specializes in sleep problems.

If your own doctor is not helping you, you might need to find a new one who will refer you to the appropriate specialists. Have you been tested with bloodwork, etc. to rule out other possible health problems that can cause sleepiness - there are so many?

Cpap does not give you oxygen, but does affect how room air is delivered to your system, helping to open up the airway in your throat so that you breathe more freely and therefore take better advantage of the oxygen in the air.

I have exactly the same problem. With me it is an allergy. I saw an ent and she said nasonex would solve the problem but it doesnt always. I have learned to relax and the machine will make sure you get enough air even through one nostril. You can clear the nose with a spray but you are not supposed to use them all the time.I have tried using different levels of humidity but no luck.
I purchased one of those hybrid masks thinking it might be the answer but so far I have not been able to wear it very long,I will keep trying.
good luck with your problem.

ozze_dollar wrote:I saw an ent and she said nasonex would solve the problem but it doesnt always.

I believe nasonex is one of the nasal sprays that may take a day or two before it helps. It may not help the first night you take it.

Neilmed Sinus Rinse is worth considering. It's just salt water and is fairly inexpensive.

1st- CPAP is not used to unstuff a nose though if you have OSA you may need one. It all depends on what is causing the problem. Are you snoring?

The description of the problem sounds as if you have allergies. During the day the nasal passages are patent so it implies something you come into contact with at night. Do you sleep on a feather pillow? Some are allergic to them. Also be sure and shampoo your hair & remove any dust holding things from the room. Do you notice any difference when you have fresh pillowcases? If this doesn't change you may want to talk to an allergy specialist.

In my case I have enlarged turbinates from long term allergies and a slightly deviated septum. It is apparent even during the day though I feel like I breathe fairly well then. My ENT suggested surgery to reduce the obstruction if sprays and rinses do not work. No fun.

Forget the nose sprays -- like you have found out, long term use is NOT good.

Put a little dab of Vick's Vapo-rub or Mentholatum in each nostril. Problem solved.

Posters on this board are not physicians. An ENT MD should be able to solve it. I know a lady who used daily nose sprays, when she was young, who ruined her nose mucosa for the rest of her life.

Sloop wrote:Forget the nose sprays -- like you have found out, long term use is NOT good.

Put a little dab of Vick's Vapo-rub or Mentholatum in each nostril. Problem solved.

Thanks for your replay. I will try this one.

Posey wrote:1st- CPAP is not used to unstuff a nose though if you have OSA you may need one. It all depends on what is causing the problem. Are you snoring?

The description of the problem sounds as if you have allergies. During the day the nasal passages are patent so it implies something you come into contact with at night. Do you sleep on a feather pillow? Some are allergic to them. Also be sure and shampoo your hair & remove any dust holding things from the room. Do you notice any difference when you have fresh pillowcases? If this doesn't change you may want to talk to an allergy specialist.

In my case I have enlarged turbinates from long term allergies and a slightly deviated septum. It is apparent even during the day though I feel like I breathe fairly well then. My ENT suggested surgery to reduce the obstruction if sprays and rinses do not work. No fun.

Thanks for your replay. Yes my pillow is made of feather I will try other types just for test.

I'm just going to throw this out there for general consideration. You haven't yet filled out your equipment profile, so I'll just relate what happened in my case. I was experiencing a constant nasal stuffiness with my nasal mask (several masks actually). First one nostril, then the other... some of it was positional and some of it was just the CPAP air irritating my mucus membranes. When I switched to the Swift FX nasal pillows all that immediately went away. I don't know if it's because the pressurized air is directed into each nostril separately or whatever, but now I breath thru each nostril quite evenly all night long. I can't make any claims it'll work for everybody, but somehow the nasal pillows worked for me. One little trick I learned is to kind of 'cock the pillows slightly upwards' using my thumb and forefinger... this aligns them with the nasal passageway. This is shown on the ResMed original packaging but rarely mentioned elsewhere.

Hello, I feel your pain, I have been suffering for more than 20 years and it has been a long journey. I even had a septoplasty for a deviated septum, but it didn't solve the problem. The ENT of course, could only view my nostrils in the day time but in the night time the turbinates would swell so they kept telling me everything is alright, despite me telling them I could not sleep and it was hell.The medical profession really doesn't listen well enough and are not sufficiently curious to solve the problem. Of course, I tried everything else: corticosteroids, allergy injections, sleep apnoea machines, etc. After about 18 years, I discovered that my problem lies in the gut - generally a weakness in the digestive system. A naturopath gave me the best explanation that I have so far come across. Apparently, at night, your digestive system goes into semi slumber because it is not needed, but your liver is at its most active as it cleans out the body during slumber. It is at its most active about 3am (I was always worst at 3am). The back wash of toxins means that the tissue that connects the gut and the brain (and also the nose) becomes inflamed and swells. There is no simple fix. Basically, you have to go dairy free and gluten free and eat foods that best agree with you and generally be very healthy. This means that your body can keep up with the elimination of waste and revert to healing. I did it for a year with a range of healing herbs and it worked but eventually my willpower got the better of me and I keep reverting to using Logicin as a short cut but which I know I shouldn't do. I will go back to it this year. One naturopath told me that if I maintained the treatment that after about 18 months, it would come into balance - but I'm not so sure of it. Then it occurred to me that many others must have a weak gut and a similar problem so surely it would be more high profile than it is and would have found a treatment by now, so the number must be relatively small. So I wondered why only some people suffered this particular problem and put the question to another brilliant naturopath, who suspected that it may also be a combination of restricted airways (I had tried breathing cpap stuff already and it didn't work) but not as a result of sleep apnoea. He often recommended people go to an orthopaedic dentist (I think that was what it was) and have the mouth widened with braces, etc or a more cheap version with something they put in your mouth, and that provides greater room to compensate for the swelling. I hope this helps. If you find out any other information can you please let me know.

This thread is 5 yrs out of date - can you start your own new one so we can all be in at the beginning and not plow thru the old ones? Though I'm not sure now relevant your story is to the forum or others on Cpap with nasal issues.

The original poster does not say if which equipment (s)he uses, what are his(her) pressure settings, or even if (s)he has a sleep apnea diagnosis. It would help to put that in the profile so that you don't have to repeat it in every post.

That being said. and assuming that you are using a CPAP,, I suggest that you clear your sinuses immediately prior to engaging your equipment. At least you'll get started right.

I used to get recurrent nasal infections all the time, and used neti pot with high level anti-biotics per my ENT, nothing ever worked long term, the infections just kept coming back. Then someone ( my mormon telecommunications professor of all things) told us that "his people" had a catalogue of ways to cure long term issues, and to ask him if we had anything going on. I asked and he suggested Hydrogen peroxide rinse - the normal concentration, cut with 1/2 water.... sprayed it up my nose with a bulb, all the snot volcanoed out... my sinus tissues swelled a little for a day, and I haven't had a sinus infection since (5 years). obviously use at your own risk and if you think it's related to latent infection, I was desperate so did it, but follow your own risk aversion of course.

Another thing is that my long term asthmatic friend found out that an L-citrulline supplementation basically cured his asthma. This works for some people (not all) but it's not too expensive to try and very safe. You can try L-citrulline, or an L-citrulline/L-arginine combo.

Thanks for your post! I've been suffering similarly for the last two years. I feel like your post helps get me on the right track to deal with my apnea and nightly nasal congestion!