Heated hose settings on PR Dreamstation question

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robysue1
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Heated hose settings on PR Dreamstation question

Post by robysue1 » Mon Oct 10, 2022 12:17 pm

Folks,

My husband and I are traveling right now. I typically don't use the one heated hose I own for my Dreamstation Auto BiPAP, but when packing for the trip, I realized that the heated hose was the only "clean" hose I had---as in, I typically switch out hoses about once a week or so, but I don't always wash the hose until I've accumulated several used hoses and then I wash them all at the same time.

Since I wanted a "clean" hose, I went ahead and just packed the heated hose.

Now here's the problem: When I don't use a heated hose, I have the humidifier set to Classic 5, and yes I do get some rainout, but I deal with it by just lifting the hose and letting the accumulated water run back to the humidifier. My nose seems to want the humidity set to "not quite wet enough to drown"---i.e. switching to "smart" humidification leaves me with a dried out nose on some nights, but not others. My nose also seems to prefer cold moist air to warm moist air. In other words, my nose is happiest when our bedroom is chilly and the humidifier is set to Classic 5 even though those conditions almost guarantee that I will be dealing with some rain out issues.

Well, here's what's happened with the heated hose on this trip: After 3 nights, my nose is almost painfully dry. Because I never liked hot air coming through my nasal pillows mask (that was why I abandoned the heated hose in the first place), I set the hose temp to 0. The humification settings still read "Classic 5". But no water seemed to be used during the first two nights of the trip. So last night I bumped the hose temp up to 1. The air was noticeably warmer, but not noticeably any more humid. Sometime around 6:00 AM I woke up with a really dry nose, and in frustration I simply unplugged the heated hose from the coupling, but left the hose on the place you attach an ordinary hose. I knew this would trigger a leak, but the nose was so tired of being dried out, I decided the potential leak was no worse than the original problem.

So after waking up for good this morning around 10:15, I looked at the data in Oscar. The unintentional leak is there as I expected. It stays under 20 L/min, so I'm not particularly worried about the leak. The air coming through the mask felt more humid and my nose feels a little less dry today than yesterday.

As I recall the whole idea of the heated hose that warmer air holds more water vapor than cold air does. But it seems that when the heated hose is used with a Dreamstation, the relative humidity in the air is pretty much constant regardless of the hose temp you are using. In other words, the air coming through the mask is never saturated with water vapor to the point where it feels "not quite wet enough to drown."

Is that correct?

Or would my nose actually feel less dry if I increased the temperature? And if I increase the temperature, how do I get over feeling like the warm air coming through the hose is making me feel as hot as a hot flash from back when I was going through menopause?
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