Water overload

[Liserhart]

I woke up at 4am this morning to my tubing making a screeching noise. I had a lot of water in the tube and in my mask. I took it off and went back to sleep. Now looking at what went on, there is a large amount of water deposited in the air way and the mask. My lungs hurt from breathing this in. Checking my water level on the machine I see that it was set to 4 (Thank you to my beautiful 4 year old daughter, I'm sure.) It is painful to take deep breaths today. Is there anything that I can do to help this?

[Sheriff Buford]

What you have is called rain out and the noise you heard is called water hammer. It is caused by the water vapor condensing in the hose or mask. Make sure your humidifier setting is not too high. Also try and keep your machine below the level of your head. Try and route the hose above your head. Water cannot travel up hill. A hose cover can also help reduce condensation.

Sheriff

[Liserhart]

Thank you Sheriff for the information. Its funny, I can search Google and not get an answer on this, but you know exactly what I am talking about. I'm going to make sure that setting is low tonight and see about re-routing the tubing to be above me. My machine is on my bedside table which is at the height as my head. Now I have to work at coughing all this water out of my lungs. I feel like I took a breath under water!

[Sheriff Buford]

Your welcome... Lots of people here flinch when I ask this (Pugsy.... look the other way!!! ), but do you need the humidifier? I know its a personal issue and most folks do need it... but I'm askin' you, Liz, do you need it? If so, you can work at resolving the rain out. If not... chunk it....

Everybody... stand-down.... just askin'

Sheriff

[n0hardmask]

Thank you Sheriff for the information. Its funny, I can search Google and not get an answer on this, but you know exactly what I am talking about. I'm going to make sure that setting is low tonight and see about re-routing the tubing to be above me. My machine is on my bedside table which is at the height as my head. Now I have to work at coughing all this water out of my lungs. I feel like I took a breath under water!

Congrats on having a normally BUSY 4-yr-old! Perhaps you should pretend you're staying at a hotel, and put your unit in the drawer, covered with a handtowel? If she persists, you might need to secure the drawer with a child safety lock.. yeah, it's a bother.

On the water in the lungs, I'd lie with my head off side of bead and lean back.. you might drain a tiny bit out, or you might just slip off the bed and entertain the world.

[Liserhart]

Your welcome... Lots of people here flinch when I ask this (Pugsy.... look the other way!!! ), but do you need the humidifier? I know its a personal issue and most folks do need it... but I'm askin' you, Liz, do you need it? If so, you can work at resolving the rain out. If not... chunk it....

Everybody... stand-down.... just askin'

Sheriff

Good question. I'm so new with my machine, I haven't tried to use it without the humidifier. When I was set up with it, they said to leave it on at 2 and then adjust as needed. The humidifier is built in to the machine, how would I go about not using it?

[Liserhart]

Thank you Sheriff for the information. Its funny, I can search Google and not get an answer on this, but you know exactly what I am talking about. I'm going to make sure that setting is low tonight and see about re-routing the tubing to be above me. My machine is on my bedside table which is at the height as my head. Now I have to work at coughing all this water out of my lungs. I feel like I took a breath under water!

Congrats on having a normally BUSY 4-yr-old! Perhaps you should pretend you're staying at a hotel, and put your unit in the drawer, covered with a handtowel? If she persists, you might need to secure the drawer with a child safety lock.. yeah, it's a bother.

On the water in the lungs, I'd lie with my head off side of bead and lean back.. you might drain a tiny bit out, or you might just slip off the bed and entertain the world.

I will clear out a drawer today and give it a try. Anything I can do to keep her attention off of it is good. As for the circus trick suggestions, I'm over here standing on my head and its not helping. Ah well.

[chunkyfrog]

Sheriff may be right.
In sunny SoCal, the humidity might be high enough to get by without added humidity-for a while.
But, if you are using A.C., it might be too dry in the house to be comfy without it.
If you need the water to keep a moist air passage, you may notice some dryness, scratchiness.
With most of us it's a like a visit from Goldilocks--keep adjusting until we hit the sweet spot;
and keep the hose warm--or up.

[Liserhart]

Sheriff may be right.
In sunny SoCal, the humidity might be high enough to get by without added humidity-for a while.
But, if you are using A.C., it might be too dry in the house to be comfy without it.
If you need the water to keep a moist air passage, you may notice some dryness, scratchiness.
With most of us it's a like a visit from Goldilocks--keep adjusting until we hit the sweet spot;
and keep the hose warm--or up.

Thank you for the suggestions, I will try it out tonight with no humidity. No air conditioner here yet at night, just fans on and its been pretty cool lately. The tech who set me up advised me to put cold distilled water in the tank. She said it would be better and easier to breath cold water rather than warm water, so that is what I have done. Maybe I need to get the hose covered up to help this out. Its going to take me days to find out what works best, so I have some adjusting to do.

[archangle]

The tech who set me up advised me to put cold distilled water in the tank. She said it would be better and easier to breath cold water rather than warm water, so that is what I have done.

It's a heated humidifier. It will heat up the water as soon as you turn it on. I don't see any benefit from putting in cold water.

[Liserhart]

The tech who set me up advised me to put cold distilled water in the tank. She said it would be better and easier to breath cold water rather than warm water, so that is what I have done.

It's a heated humidifier. It will heat up the water as soon as you turn it on. I don't see any benefit from putting in cold water.

I feel pretty dumb starting out with these questions, but its a learned process. Tonight I am keeping the humidifier off and seeing how that will do. I will stop with the cold water if I need the humidifier on in the future. I wonder why the setup tech's advise you to do things that don't help in the long run?

[chunkyfrog]

There are no dumb questions; only dumb answers.
Those you can get from the DME. (dummy)