First night with humidifier(?)

[Nita]

My humifidier came yesterday and I couldn't wait for bed time.

Honestly, I couldn't tell the difference. The instructions said to start with a setting of 3 (humidifier type in my profile) but during the night I cranked it up to 6, and still had dry mouth. I was looking forward to at least feeling that the moisture was there. I felt no moisture, and no heated air. I checked water levels this morning, and it had gone down, so it's going somewhere.

I guess it's working, but is this the normal reaction? Thanks, Nita

[Titrator]

Hi Nita,

You need to turn the humidifier up. This will help give you warm moist air in your nose. I would go to 5 and then if you don't have water in your tube, try 6.

Ted the Titrator.

[Nita]

Hi Ted. I guess you missed it, but I said in my post that I'd upped the setting to the highest, which is 6, during the night and felt no difference.

Last night, I started with hot tap water, and it worked better. At least the air was warm. I had a bad waking up night, so maybe tonight will be better.

[joey]

Nita, You should use only distilled water or you will have a real mess soon. Tap water will leave a terrible residue in your humidifier.

[Nita]

Joey, thank you! I didn't know that. I even give distilled water to my dogs. haha I guess getting it for my c-pap machine makes sense. Nita

[snork1]

The dry mouth could be coming from a "mouth leak" problem.

The humidity will help keep your nasal passages moist and will keep your throat comfortable, IF you can keep your mouth shut.

Mouth leaks are NOT a trivial problem and it seems as though more people have problems with mouth leaks than not. Interesting how little interest the sleep docs and DME's have in solving the mouth leak issue, other than throwing a basic (and oftentimes worthless) chin strap at the problem.