Turning my humidity fully off - how common is that?

[cpap450]

I realize that no two people are the same, and that sometimes, if something is "right" for me and me alone, that's good enough.

I started CPAP two months ago. Last month I played with the default humidity setting, taking it down to 3 from 4, and my sleep comfort was improved.

A week ago I took it down from 3 to 2, and more improvement.

But a constant I've noticed all the way through:

I usually put in 2-3 nights worth of distilled water and clean the tank when it empties. And the fact is that the most comfortable mornings I have are the mornings when the tank has run out. My nose and lip are not uncomfortably moist, and the presence of the nasal pillow mask is almost unnoticeable.

So I have now turned the humidity to off and I'm going to see how that goes.

Obviously, my CPAP experience has gone pretty well, so the world won't end if zero humidity turns out to be a bad idea and I wind up having to kick it up to 1 or 2.

Anyway, how common or not-unusual are my observations and experiences?

[LSAT]

Humidity is a comfort item..you do what makes you the most comfortable. Keeping water in the tank, even with humidity turned off will make the machine quieter.

[Julie]

If your ambient humidity (in your home, climate, locale, season) is high enough, you don't necessarily need more unless you feel the need of it... and it all may change again depending on those things.

[Miss Emerita]

I've sometimes gone without humidity. It's one of the settings I try when my allergies are bothering me. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. You should definitely try this out and see how it goes. If you like it, you could consider buying a side panel for your machine to cover the place where the water chamber slots in.

[zonker]

now that i'm back in the pacific northwest i'm down to the very lowest setting on my machine, wherein the southwest i had it pretty much cranked against the low humidity found there.

i don't there is a "common" to this. the only time i think about it is when a new user comes in to ask. or when i moved from az to wa.

[Pugsy]

Some time ago I did a poll about humidity usage and humidity settings.
The bulk of the forum members who responded used some sort of added moisture...even if it was just passover humidification.

The number of people using no added water at all was very small.

So to answer your question as to how common to turn it totally off and not use any water....not very common at all.
Even the number of people using only passover humidity was relatively small.

[jsmit86]

I suffer from post nasal drip and a cough, and recently, it had gotten much worse.
I had been keeping my humidity at "4" or Auto back when I was using my ClimateLine hose. My wife had told me I was "gurgling" at night.
I experimented with lower levels, 3,2,1, and even "off", but still having distilled water in the tank.
Bottom line for me, I seem to do the best with a setting of "1" on my unit.
The reason I had tried the higher levels, was to help with dry mouth. As it turns out, the higher humidity levels really did not turn out to help that much with the dry mouth, likely due to my mouth popping open a bit. I use a full face mask, and I'm not strapping my mouth shut!

Anyway, currently a level of "1" seems to work best for me on the Resmed unit.
When I travel with the Z2 Auto, I don't bother with the HME unit, and as it turned out, I did not have a problem even in Arizona and Nevada.

Everyone has different needs. My suggestion is experiment a few nights at each level, and see what works best. If off is the best, that's the way to go for you.

[cpap450]

My two no-humidity nights have been fine.

Weather was unseasonably warm the first of those, so I was a bit warm in bed and had trouble sleeping.

Last night was more typical, and I slept great, and continue to feel that "no humidity" is what's best for me.

My wife has not complained of any extra noise from the machine running with no water in it.