dry mouth on the one hand, rain out on the other.

[ozij]

UPDATE-

wanted to post this, though. night before last, i went to bed with auto climate set to a temp of 81 and hose cover on. woke up at 3 with rain out in mask only. neither the heated hose nor the short hose showed condensation.

With or without the barrel cozy?

decided to try last night with barrel cozy and climate control with temp at 79. woke at 4(i think) with rain out from heated hose to mask. switched out everything. left settings the same. got out of bed at my usual time (8) with no rain out and slight dry mouth.

With or without the hose cover?

[zonker]

Menopause makes me want to keep ambient temp in apt at 58 degrees.

how does the old song go? "i enjoy being a girl". um, yeah.

tried your suggestion and got rain out.

oh well, onward and upward.

[zonker]

UPDATE-

wanted to post this, though. night before last, i went to bed with auto climate set to a temp of 81 and hose cover on. woke up at 3 with rain out in mask only. neither the heated hose nor the short hose showed condensation.

With or without the barrel cozy?

without.

decided to try last night with barrel cozy and climate control with temp at 79. woke at 4(i think) with rain out from heated hose to mask. switched out everything. left settings the same. got out of bed at my usual time (8) with no rain out and slight dry mouth.

With or without the hose cover?

with.

maybe i should start taking pics of my notes and posting here, seeing how i can't seem to type it in without leaving out details.

any suggestions or just keep on?

i'm going to get some "vet" tape today to insure my mouth is sealed properly. i also have the "ultimate" chin strap ordered. i'm not interested in the chin strap itself. it has a portion that wraps around the mouth and i want to test that part to see if that helps keep my lips together.

[Pugsy]

tried your suggestion and got rain out.

58 degrees ambient room temp....I should have bet my last dollar what would happen if you tried reducing the ambient temp when you get rain out at temps in the mid 60s. More condensation is pretty much a given when the ambient room temp is cooler. Just because someone else doesn't get rain out at those

I do think a potential factor that is being ignored here is the moisture in your own exhaled breaths and going into the nasal pillows and also condensing. I know people living in the high desert WITHOUT any added moisture from the cpap machine that get lots of rain out and that moisture has to be coming from somewhere and if they aren't using the humidifier to add moisture then the ONLY place that moisture can come from is our own exhaled breaths.
Unfortunately we have zero way to measure that exhaled breath moisture.

Condensation from anything is simply Physics in action and you can't fool Physics.
Warmer air holds onto the moisture better than cooler air. That's the way the Physics works.

[Dog Slobber]

Radical suggestion here buddy.

I know how much you love your beard, but chop the damn thing off and tape properly.

When I first started CPAP and then adjusted to it, I used a nasal mask and never had any mouth-breathing or leak problems.

Then about a year and a half ago, my leaks started creeping up, got bad and I learned I had started mouth breathing. No idea why, and no idea how to stop mouth breathing.

So I ordered some Cover-roll Stretch, but with a beard, there simply wasn't enough surface area for the tape to stick.

So off came the beard. Luckily for me, I am extremely handsome both with a beard and without.

But,... every morning my leaks were back, and the Cover-roll Stretch was barely hanging on. I soon learned that using the xylimelts/drool was leaking and reducing the efficiency of the tape.

I stop using the xyliments and the Cover-roll sticks well every night.

This past Movember was the first one I stayed relatively clean shaven.

I'm lazy about shaving, rarely wet-shave, and use an electric every few days, but now if I let the stubble accumulate for a few days, I'll get some leaks.

[zonker]

Radical suggestion here buddy.

I know how much you love your beard, but chop the damn thing off and tape properly.

"Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity."

my dear friend, thank you for saying it. but...no. this moss, in one form or another, has decorated my gob for the better part of fifty years. it's not likely to come off any time soon.

i'm not saying never. never say never. but i'm going to be trying everything i can first.

why did you think to give up the xylimelts? seems kinda of contradictory to me.

[zonker]

As a matter of fact, I only experience dry mouth when I have a mouth leak - and it doesn't have to be a big one.
Is it possible that some of your "anti-leak" system gets loose from the rainout or the tossing?
Can you try simple taping for a night or two? A new tape may easier to put on if you wake up with a loose one than all those things you're using.

BINGO! or at least, that seems to be the case after one night-



putting on the veterinary wrap seemed to do the trick. i don't think this is the permanent fix. 1. it's kind of hard to get on, though i'm sure repeated applications would give me muscle memory to help do it right the first time. 2. it's not the cheapest option as i can't re-use it 3. i had it on much too tightly last night. kind of hurt. but same caveat as 1. as to 2., i'll look for a new stock of scuncis and see if they are tighter. all of mine have been through the wash so many times that they probably aren't shrinking as the used to.

i had just the slightest bit of condensation in the short hose, even though it was covered. no barrel cozy. i've made a note to change only the temp from 79 to 80. we shall see how that goes.

i want to thank you so very much for pointing out mask leak as a possible culprit!

OH! and i used the vet wrap on top of my usual method so that it wouldn't feel "odd" while i was trying to sleep.

[Pugsy]

I forget....do you use any sort of hose hangar system where the hose goes upwards at any time in the route?

[zonker]

I forget....do you use any sort of hose hangar system where the hose goes upwards at any time in the route?

i hang it off of a wee hook above the bed. and yeah it goes above my head. now, in the course of this last month or so, i've had it down and under the covers a few times. but it didn't seem to make any difference.

why do you ask?

[Pugsy]

why do you ask?

Because water can't run uphill. Especially water in the nasal pillows from either exhaled breath moisture condensing or simply moisturized air in the hose condensing. When any water pools in the base of nasal pillows it's really hard to get it out because of the uphill thing or even just nasal pillow position not allowing the water to drain down into the hose.
This is why I don't promote the "machine lower than the bed" as much help for dealing with rain out at the mask level.

But now you say you haven't been routing it uphill lately.
What have you been doing with the hose? On top of the bed covers or under the covers?

I have been quietly sitting here reading your struggles and trying to come up with something productive to offer.
I have pretty much exhausted all my ideas but every now and then I come up with a maybe something.

I do think you need to add back into the mix the barrel cozy.
Or maybe do like RobySue did....she put 2 of them on the nasal pillows.
I think some or part of your condensation is from exhaled breath moisture condensing in the pillows themselves.

[zonker]

why do you ask?

Because water can't run uphill. Especially water in the nasal pillows from either exhaled breath moisture condensing or simply moisturized air in the hose condensing. When any water pools in the base of nasal pillows it's really hard to get it out because of the uphill thing or even just nasal pillow position not allowing the water to drain down into the hose.
This is why I don't promote the "machine lower than the bed" as much help for dealing with rain out at the mask level.

But now you say you haven't been routing it uphill lately.
What have you been doing with the hose? On top of the bed covers or under the covers?

I have been quietly sitting here reading your struggles and trying to come up with something productive to offer.
I have pretty much exhausted all my ideas but every now and then I come up with a maybe something.

I do think you need to add back into the mix the barrel cozy.
Or maybe do like RobySue did....she put 2 of them on the nasal pillows.
I think some or part of your condensation is from exhaled breath moisture condensing in the pillows themselves.

no, no! look again. i said i've had it under the covers a few times but it didn't seem to make much difference.

TWO on the mask? crazy, man, crazy!!! okay, i'll try the hose under the covers. and i'll put the cozy back on the barrel.

will come back tomorrow with the results!

[zonker]

well, excuse meeee. i forgot to update. hose under covers didn't stop the rain out.

and to just talk about what is happening now-i'm trying using manual, setting the temp at 86 and then trying various humidity settings. last night, set humidity at 1. woke up at four with slightly dry mouth, so bumped to 2. still a bit dry in the morning, so will do humidity at 3 tonight.

in the meantime, it's definitely mouth leaks that were causing the bigger dry mouth issues. using vet tape has cut that back. again, want to thank ozij for coming up with the notion of mouth leaks causing the dryness.

still want to find that "just right" settings combo that will get me through the night without waking up parched or drowning.

excelsior!

[zonker]

still a bit dry, but decreasing.

everything will stay the same and will increase humidity to 3.

and away we go....

[ozij]

Good luck, Zonker!
And I mean it in the good way.

[zonker]

Good luck, Zonker!
And I mean it in the good way.

now you've got me scratching my head, trying to figure out the BAD way!