Going dry before end of night, what to lower first?

[satsumass]

Hi , I have a system one with humidifier and heated tube. The heated tube really helped when we added it in the winter to increase humidity levels, make it more comfortable, and allow lower pressures. My nasal pasaages didnt stuff up and generate mouth breathign and leaks.

Now however in may, I find that i'm frequently running out of water before end of the night, and it usually wakes me up early with a dry mouth. Or, recently, I woke up in the middle of the night, also with a feeling of a dry mouth, even with higher humidity settings and higher heated tube and plenty of water in the tank, which confused me.

It's been pretty dry out here in CA (i'm in san franciso so we DO get the fog) lately.

I also find I always seem to sleep much better near the ocean, regardless...and if I have a few drinks the night before. But thats probably not related.

IN any event my question is, if i'm trying to reduce water consumption to last me through the whole night, which setting should I change first? With the heated tube, now the dial on the System One I'm pretty sure sets the TUBE temperature, not the humidyt level, which if I want to change I have to go to settings. Right? So now I have settings 1,2,3 for humidyt level and 1-5 for heated tube. I was doing well at 3, and 5 for a few months, but I guess thats too much now. Will reducing heated tube temp lower moisture consumption? What is the best stratergy here besides just "playing around"? Is going from 3 to 2 a bigger reduction than say going from 5 to 4 or 3 on heated tube temp?

[SusieG]

Good morning!

First, it would be benificial if you would list all of your equipment so those in the know (not very often me!) can better help you.

Second,your leak rate would be one of the things that I would look at first. I was also having a problem runnng out of water and was told by my sleep tech (at the doctor's office) that it was probably because of leaks so they changed me to a different mask and the problem was solved!

Hope this helps!

[Pugsy]

Reducing the temperature on the heated hose shouldn't make any great deal of difference in water consumption.
Reducing the level of humidification delivered should reduce the amount of water consumption since it will be delivering less added moisture.
That said...those levels you have chosen shouldn't be using all the water each night unless you lived in the high desert.

You mention dry mouth but not which mask you use. If you are using a nasal mask with mouth uncovered you very well could be mouth breathing creating significant leaks.
Big leaks will also consume a lot of water. I would be evaluating the leak reports first if it was me.
So either mask leaks in general or maybe mouth breathing leaks need to be considered.

[satsumass]

Well odd thing is that this has been happening with leaks totally controlled now with my Swift FX (i posted a while back on here and you gave some very helpful responses), and at a lower pressure. Full face mask is like low 40s leaks. When I use nasal pillows, I do get a bit more leaking due to open mouth despite chin strap.

SO if heated tube doesn't affect water consumption what is the purpose of having it so high? Like, should I try for the minimum heated tube that doesn't cause condensation? I think I breath more comfortably with lower temperature but high humidity (understand though that that's the point of the heated tube to get higher humidity in there).

Just seems odd to have no appreciable leaks on my swift fx and to run out of water.

[bryansong]

Maybe you have already mention it in an earlier post but if so I missed it, what do you have your humidifier setting set to?

I have the remstar 560 with the heated hose and I have only had it a few weeks now as it's new. Since its's Spring time
and the nights aren't cold enough for me to worry about rainout I have never turned the heated hose on, I will use it next winter.

I have been running my humidifier set at 2 as the manual mentioned and I don't haven't ran out of water yet.
If you are running it all the way up I could see you would run out of water, that's a pretty small tank.

Bryansong

[Janknitz]

Sounds like you are mouth breathing, and that needs to be controlled. You may be a good candidate for taping. Do a search here to see how. Once the mouth breathing is under control, your water consumption and dry mouth should stop. I live in the Northbay, and it's been plenty foggy this week, so my water consumption is down.

[Pugsy]

SO if heated tube doesn't affect water consumption what is the purpose of having it so high?

2 main reasons...comfort and ability to hold the moisture in the warmer air.
Warm air holds more moisture and cooler air releases moisture in the form of condensation in the hose....rain out.
Comfort part comes in also when bedroom temps are rather cold. Cold nose is uncomfortable and will wake a person up...been there and done that. Not fun.

Ideally with the 60 series heated hose settings you should be able to get whatever humidity your nose likes and whatever temperature your nose likes with a nice balance so you don't get rain out. I have a hard time wrapping my brain around how a setting of 1 (coolest temp) can maintain a setting of 3 (humidity highest level delivered) can do the same job as a temp setting of 5...and not have condensation form...but that's what they say they can do. It's the same way with the Climateline in the ResMed machine and the automatic setting for 80% delivery at whatever temp.

I recently got a 60 series machine and the heated hose. I was able to use my preferred high humidity setting (3 is the max) at my preferred temp setting (4 for right now as we have had some cold nights recently) and I didn't use all the water and slept 7 hours plus. I am in SW Missouri so not a very humid area generally but not dry either.
I also use a nasal pillow mask. So I did max out the humidity delivered and I did NOT run out of water...came no where close to it.

So for you to use up all the water at your settings...is extremely odd. It shouldn't unless you lived in a very arid environment. So this does not compute or go with the logic of how things are supposed to go.
In the past the max settings of 3 humidity and 5 temp worked well....now it is using more water...has your ambient humidity changed? Got dryer for some reason or another?
Temperature in theory shouldn't make any difference with water consumption but all too often theories don't hold up in real life. If you are okay with cooler temps then try it. If you think your nose would be okay with less humidity..try the 2 setting.
Typically these new PR S1 machines use a lot less water than the previous models and most often we get concerns about water not seeming to be used...this is rare to have someone have a problem with all the water being used up. It's not normal at all.

Mouth breathing with the Swift FX...well, it takes very little mouth breathing to dry the mouth out so it is very possible that the leaks lines aren't all that exciting. If you aren't seeing big spikes on the leak graph then we can't blame mouth breathing.

[SleepWellCPAP]

Hello satsumass,

I agree with SusieG and others about possibility of a leak issue.

Over the years I've found leak level to be directly related to water consumption. Small leaks 5 to 12 liters per minute, you're not likely to hear, place extra demand on your humidifier as the plate warming the water continues to heat trying to keep up. With large leaks, 15 lpm or more, the current to the plate heating the water is reduced. In both cases the result is being dried out. In the first one, all the waters gone. In the second, very little is used.

Hope that helps!

Jim

[Pugsy]

When evaluating leak numbers...remember your machine is reporting total leaks so you won't ever have a 0.0 leak number..you will always have a vent rate included so you can't have a 0.0 average leak number.

[Todzo]

What to lower first?

Your breathing rate. Learn to breath quietly. Practice during the day.