Humidifier in Passover mode--Less congestion--Yea !

[DannyPh]

Having been fighting severe nasal congestion with Nasal pillows I set the HH in Passover mode and slept very well awaking this morning with very little nasal congestion. I guess I can live without the comfort of warm air in the nares comapered to extreme Nasal congestion.

[BernieRay]

I'm actually planning to try this myself soon. I've run the gambit with heated mode and haven't been able to find a sweet spot. I used cold passive humidity for over a decade on CPAP with little trouble, so I'm hoping it will work for me as well on APAP.

Glad you found some relief!

[Janknitz]

It's amazing to me that it doesn't seem like it would work--you'd think, nice warm, humid air would help, but I get the WORST sinus headaches when my humidity is too high! Yay for passover mode!

(I started reading this board about April last year and thought for a while that everyone was talking about something Jewish )

[Bones]

I don't actually run passover most of the time, but I do use the minimum heat setting. It really does help me with nasal congestion. I have run in passover during power outages when I had to use my battery pack and inverter. I was quite surprised that I found it comfortable.

Hope it keeps working for you Danny.

[Lizistired]

Agreed! So much forthe bells and whistles. After 8 weeks I've turned off the humidifier, EPR, and Smartstart. Much lower AHI now too.

[DoriC]

Ain't that the truth! I fought so hard to get all the bells and whistles and now no auto, no ramp, no flex,no HH! But I love the software!

[Big S]

You are all blessed!

[BernieRay]

I don't want to jinx myself, but I went ahead and turned CC off last night. I had very little stuffiness this morning, woke up actually wanting to get up, and, as an added bonus, I used only 30 ml of water instead of the usual 120-150. I had my doubts about HH when I got the S9, but I try to keep an open mind. Besides...

3 years ago, when I had a septoplasty and a turbinate resection done, my ENT told me that he was going to be very conservative with the resection due to several reasons which boiled down to reducing the likelihood of complications, including losing too much moisture. Although the surgery was a great success, my sinuses have tended to be more dry since.

I saw him about 5 months ago for stuffiness in the mornings and we discussed doing another resection, primarily for my left side. At first, he considered another resection as elective, until I reminded him about my OSA. At that point, he told me that he recommended doing the surgery because xPAP can cause some inflammation of the sinuses. He said that typically, if this happens, you wake up feeling stuffy but that it can clear up as the day goes on. He said the best way to avoid this is to have nice and clear sinuses to start with.

When I got my S9 in November, I thought that having CC and more humidity would help some with the dryness. That's the main reason I really gave CC and heat a chance. After last night, though, I strongly suspect that, at least in my case, the additional humidity and heat was actually causing even more infllammation.

As soon as some things slow down at work, I'm going to go ahead with the second resection. I wasn't completely clear this morning, but it was 90% better than it has been while on the S9.

I also think it's time to switch to the SlimLine tubing. With my old setup, I only had rainout maybe a half-dozen times during the 13 years that I used it. It never really bothered me, so that's another benefit of CC that I can do without.

Although I've been feeling much better using the S9 in auto mode with EPR set to 3, as compared to straight CPAP, this morning was only the 3rd one out of almost 90 on the S9 when I woke up and truly felt like getting up. That makes the work of finding the right setup worth it.

DannyPh, thanks again for the original post. I was planning on trying this, but you gave me the push to go ahead now.

[DannyPh]

Bernie, with the Minimal congestion that I have in the mornings with the HH in passover mode I quickly gt rid of it with a couple sprays of Simply Saline and I am good for most of the Day. You might want to try the simply Saline. It is good stuff and not addictive like Nasal sprays.

[BernieRay]

Appreciation the suggestion - I do keep Ocean spray around, but It won't help. I need to have the surgery done.

[webbie73]

Hi, I am coming into this conversation late so I need some clarifications. First are you all saying that the HH can cause more congestion and that using the passover mode helps. OK what is passover mode? How do you set it? Is it on all humidifiers? I am using nasal pillows with a Resmed Elite 8 machine and I get congestion every night. I have yet to find the balance between dryness and rainout.Thanks for any answers.

[DoriC]

Fill chamber with distilled water but keep HH set to OFF.