Stuffy nose

[Guest]

When your nose is stuffy and about 50% blocked, does your internal pressure in your nose or just beyond your nose go does the machine maintain your pressure even when your nose is congested?

[oldie]

One functioning nostril works okay.

[khauser]

When your nose is stuffy and about 50% blocked, does your internal pressure in your nose or just beyond your nose go does the machine maintain your pressure even when your nose is congested?

As long as you can breathe through a nostril the mask will work fine. <warning! Gross text is about to follow>

Many people with colds/allergies put the mask on and let it 'blow' the congestion down their throat. When I have a cold and wake up in the morning, I *hate* to take the mask off because I am breathing and feeling great and know that's going to change.

I wonder if we could sell portable CPAP machines as treatments for the cold! LOL

[Sir NoddinOff]

On regular AutoPAP with my PR System One I was bothered by one stuffy nostril at a time, always the one on the side I was sleeping on. With my new ResMed ASV therapy there's still a bit of residual stuffiness from time to time, however my higher therapy pressure seems to blast thru the stuffiness and keep my nostrils open. I'm not recommending ASV for everyone and don't endorse it as a cure for clogged nostrils, but for me it seems to get the job done. I suppose BiLevel with high pressures might do the same thing? Also: nasal pillows seem to help keep ones nostrils open, at least that was my experience when I used them at lower pressures.

[Todzo]

When your nose is stuffy and about 50% blocked, does your internal pressure in your nose or just beyond your nose go does the machine maintain your pressure even when your nose is congested?

This will totally depend upon the amount of air you are attempting to draw into your lungs. Think of it this way, if you are breathing through a 1 inch tube you will probably never have a problem but if someone starts to pinch off the tube then you will have a problem – if - you are trying to move a lot of air.

If you ever look at airflow vs. esophageal pressure (downstream of the nasal obstruction but before the lungs) taken in one with Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome (UARS) you will see kind of a fight develop. The esophageal pressures graph (showing how much the person draws the air pressure down trying to pull air into the lungs) will show more and more negative swings with each breath. But, the airflow graph will show a consistent amount of air drawn with each breath. Apparently the nose is becoming more obstructed but the lung muscles are pulling harder to compensate. The problem is that eventually the respiratory efforts (lung pull) result in arousals breaking the sleep.

What is interesting to me in all of this is that the first symptom I note when I over breath is a stuffy nose. Consistently if I reduce my breathing volume the nose will clear up. So I really wonder if such as UARS may have some of their origins in messed up chemoreflexes.

[louie1961]

I find if I can breath enough to last for 2-3 minutes, my CPAP will force the congestion out of my nose, and I will breath fine. I have to NOT use the ramp feature in order for this to work usually. If I can't breath well enough to last 2-3 minutes, then I will mouth breath and let the machine try to force my airway open. That sometimes works, but then I find I have to turn the machine off and then on again to reset the pressure down from 20, or whatever. If both those tricks don't work, I resort to sudafed or afrin. But 99% of the time, the machine can clear my congestion.

[ekubaskie]

My machine will usually do the job, too, unless I am already significantly stuffed-up. For those times when I need more, I have some Afrin that I dumped out into a larger bottle (surprise, it's a GEL) and then watered down by a 10 or 12 to one ratio and refill the spritz-bottle as needed. Not only does a bottle of Afrin last a LONG time, the low dosage doesn't give me trouble with rebound.