Nasal sores and humidity

[Katana]

I have been using my equipment almost three weeks now…my machine is still in the evaluation mode (varying pressure).


Over the last two days, I have developed a sore inside my left nostril. I use a nasal mask (Mirage FX) and this sore is up inside my nose…not on the edge of the nostril but up inside.

I am using the System One humidity controls and have it set at 3. At this setting, I use almost a full tank per night. No large leaks but my Mirage FX does have a high throughput/vent as a base.

I tried a level 4 last week and had to fill the tank during the night…which I do not want to make a habit.

I considered going to manual control or raising the System one setting but that would only raise humidity and I’d still have a supply/tank issue.

My bedroom is very cool. I’m thinking that the ambient RH is so low, that the system is having to add a considerable amount of humidity and I’m legitimately using that much water just to try to maintain a level in the mask/system.

So I have two questions:

1) I thought about adding a room humidifier to raise the general base level of RH in the room…and thus the inlet reading into the machine. This would allow the machine to work less at adding the humidity so I could go with a higher setting that my nasal passages may need and get more from a tank? Does this make sense? Does anyone else have to do this?

2) For the sores, do I continue use of the machine/therapy? Can I use something like lansinoh up inside my nose/nasal passage? If not, what can I use? What other ointments/creams may help.


Thanks in advance for the help…

[robysue]

1) I thought about adding a room humidifier to raise the general base level of RH in the room…and thus the inlet reading into the machine. This would allow the machine to work less at adding the humidity so I could go with a higher setting that my nasal passages may need and get more from a tank? Does this make sense? Does anyone else have to do this?

I think your idea of adding a room humidifier makes sense.

We have a whole house humidifier attached to our forced air heater. Without that humidifier, our inside air's RH would be much, much lower than it currently is. And my guess is that I'd have real problems with running out of water in the System One humidifier tank. I was shocked at how much more water I used at my mother-in-law's house over the Thanksgiving holidays. I was using the machine about the same amount of time, but ran out of water one night and came close on the other nights. She has base board heat, which is not quite as drying as (unhumidified) forced air heat, but it was noticeably drier there than it is here at home.

2) For the sores, do I continue use of the machine/therapy? Can I use something like lansinoh up inside my nose/nasal passage? If not, what can I use? What other ointments/creams may help.

I'd use the lansinoh myself. And I'd continue using the PAP. Use the lansinoh in the daytime as well as at night. If you're still in the newbie stage and adjusting to therapy, I'd also report the problem to the sleep doc's office; they may not have anything intelligent to say about the problem, but they still need to have an accurate picture of what kinds of problems their new PAPers actually face out there in their own beds each night, and many sleep docs and the people working for them seem to be woefully ignorant of the real problems people run into when trying to make this crazy therapy actually work.

[Pugsy]

Only thing I might add to what RobySue has said is that I might use some sort of triple antibiotic ointment in the nostril with the sore during the day. Mainly as a layer of protection for infection prevention purposes.