Not making friends with cpap

[Beth M]

Am I doing something wrong?

Night one on cpap went ok, although I got terrible sinus congestion, which continued throughout the day yesterday. I also had a dry sore throat all day. At least I got some sleep that night and was able to fall asleep again when i did wake up.

Last night, wow. I could barely stand having the mask on. I tried the full face mask, again, complete congestion. I switched to the nasal mask, no go. I switched back to the ffm, I adjusted the humidity up, then down to almost nothing. In the end I tried propping myself up to a sitting position, which helped to relieve some congestion but wasn't that comfortable. I felt like I was suffocating most of the time. I think it was around midnight I gave it up and pulled the mask off for the night.

This morning when i got up I find that I've completely lost my voice, it's a mere croak of it's former self. My head is completely congested. And I'm tired. And a bit cranky! lol

What can I do to make this a more smooth transition to being a good hose head??? What adjustments can I make? There must be something I missed in the Good Hosehead Manual. Any advice?

Thanks! Hope you all have a pleasant day!
Beth

[Slinky]

Its all in the humidity. Get out the nasal sprays and get your sinuses cleared out today. Get some losenges and get your throat healed up and feeling better.

Turn your humidity high. Let the humidifier warm up BEFORE you put your mask on and start your CPAP. Hang your hose above your head or take it under the covers w/you to prevent "rain out" (condensation in the hose reaching your mask).

I have been so plugged up when I laid down that I couldn't breathe thru my nose hardly at all. I would struggle w/as many nose breaths as I could before gasping for air thru my mouth, then go back to struggling to nose breathe until I HAD to take a gasp of breath thru my mouth. It took less than 3 minutes for my sinuses to clear and to be able to nose breathe w/my mask.

Good luck!

[Julie]

Hi - total disagreement here! A lot of people get very congested if the humidifier's on high, and if yours is, turn it right down (or even off) for a couple of nights to see if it helps, then leave it there if you're happy.

[Roman Hokie]

Do NOT use Afrin or anything with the main ingredient in Afrin. Takes me two days to clear up from just one spray of that stuff. It's physically addictive - I took it for over 2 years - in that, after the "effective" use time ends, people need to use it AGAIN.

Get some Rx allergy stuff. I'm on Nasonex and Zyrtec, which I take in the evening. If I fail to take one, I'm screwed.

[cobra4x4]

I'm with Julie on this one ... I think your humidifier setting is probably up too high, you might turn it off but keep water in it so that it is in what is referred to as passover mode. What ever you decide to try needs to be done for the entire night or even 2 before making the next setting change that way your body has a chance to adjust.

Myself I would start in passover mode and if that doesn't work then go up 1 notch at a time until you find what works best for you, We can't specify a specific setting as humidity levels sort of depend on the climate where you live.

This may cause you to have a few restless nights but in the long run you'll get the best setting for your needs.

[Beth M]

I really couldn't tell the difference whether I had the humidifer turned up or when it was down. I expected to feel a warm moist kind of air coming at me when it was on high, but I didn't. How do i know if the humidifier is even working? It doesn't seem to be going through any water to speak of. Is it only on when you push the "on" button for the cpap? How does one go about warming it up as someone indicated? Having said that, when I turned to humidfier down to 1, then to "off", that's when my throat got really sore.

It feels like a really bad cold/sore throat. Is that likely, considering it all came on the minute I strapped that mask to my face? I did clean the equipment and soak it in ivory soap before use, to get rid of that chemical smell.

Sorry, I'm really new to this and I'm afraid I'll be asking some questions that make you I've read through all my manuals but they don't seemt o address these things.

Thanks to everyone for being kind enough to help!

Beth

[snipsnsnails]

When I read your post I wondered if perhaps you had just been so unlucky as to catch a cold at the same time you started therapy.

I have the same machine and humidifier and found myself wondering if the humidifier was even working cause it was using so little water. I originally set it to 1 and felt a little dry and stuffy when I woke. I turned it up to two and after a few nights I started wondering if it worked or not so I cranked it up to 5...heaven. I'm not suggesting that's what will work for you just that you should not be afraid to try adjusting it whichever way you think will help. If 1 or off feels worse than 2 or 3, try 4 or 5.

I don't know of a way to prewarm the system one humidifier without runnng the machine but if somebody knows I'd like to find out how too!

[Slinky]

Ooops. Didn't realize we were talking the PR S1. You can heat your distilled water a bit before putting it in your humidifier tank to start out w/warm (NOT hot) water.

Don't expect to feel WARM air, the humidifiers are designed to provide HUMIDITY not warm air, altho during the warm summer months I sometimes have to turn my humidifier down or even off as I can't breathe comfortably w/warm air. I do live in Michigan which is quite a humid state most of the year.

[Mary Z]

I never feel any humidification. If the humidty is set too high and it's a humid day, there will be water in the tubing. I agree you may have caught a bug when you started cpap. I prefer the FFM due to nasal congestion when I first start out (it clears up) and because of mouth breathing. Experiment with humidity levels from low to high or vice versa. Some folks in a very dry climate need additional humidification in their room. Good luck, hang in there.

[Beth M]

Thank you everyone for your replies. Just my luck that I may have caught a cold at the exact time I got the cpap! I hope things clear up soon so I don't have to worry about meeting the insurance company compliance criteria.

Thanks too for everyone being so friendly and helpful. I don't think I've ever met a friendlier group on a forum before, it's a pleasure to be among you!

Beth

[Roman Hokie]

I don't know about your ins. company, but several use the same model. I think I read that a common compliance model is minimum of 4 hours a night for 70% of the nights. That's an average of 5 nights a week or 21 nights a month. So, if you pretty much have to be sick for 10 days or more a month (average) over the compliance monitoring period (is it 3 months?) to be non-compliant.

I wonder what the impact of "dr. notes" has on compliance waivers.

[Janknitz]

Oooh, you may have a cold. In which case you might want to give yourself a few days before trying CPAP again to get that under control. I can't imagine sleeping without my CPAP anymore, but my sleep clinic says it's OK when you have a cold virus since it's very hard to use a mask with a stuffy or runny nose or sneezing.

I think it's already been said but let me reiterate:
1) The PR S1 humidifier does not HEAT the water, it adjusts for humidity, so you won't get warm moist air from it unless you override the default in the clinician's menu to set it to "classic humidifier" settings which do heat the water. I've been sort of thinking that if I ever do get a cold I would try this as it might help but I've not tried it yet.

2) I'm in that group that gets more congested the higher the humidifier settings are. But some people seem to do better with it set higher. It's an individual thing.

3) I don't think it works to change the settings several times during the night. It doesn't seem to respond that quickly. So once you are tryng it again, leave it at the same setting for the entire night. If that doesn't work, try one up or one down the next night.

Hope you feel better soon and are ready to try this again.

[jdm2857]

For the record, Medicare compliance rules require a minimum of four hours per on day 70% of the days during any consecutive 30 day period during the first 90 days. So you have even more leeway presuming your insurance follows Medicare compliance rules.