Dry Mouth and nose WITH humidifier

[cdcm71]

Is this weird?

Allergy season is starting, so my nose is a bit stuffy, and I'm sure I'm sleeping with my mouth even more wide open. My humidifier is set to 4, clearly the water levels are going down. I've felt to make sure it's warm and working.

I wake in the middle of the night, and my mouth is freakishly dry. Not an ounce of saliva. Nose is a bit irritated, but I figure that has to do with allergies.

I'm NOT on any meds that would dry me out.

This just started about 2 weeks ago. I've been on this machine and mask since Jan 2012... Respironics Rem-Start A flex,

Ideas?

[archangle]

Mouth breathing can dry your mouth out, even with humidification.

Check your leak levels. That can make it even worse.

You may need to turn off system one humidification in the provider menu to get more humidity.

[Pugsy]

Sounds like you are mouth breathing more than usual for some reason. Maybe the allergies.
These humidifiers were really designed to add hydration to the nasal cavity and when you add the oral cavity into the mixture then sometimes it just can't add enough moisture to eliminate the drying sensation.
You can try increasing the humidifier to 5 to see if that helps.
You could also maybe try one of the Biotene products which are specifically designed to help with dry mouth.
Also maybe the ambient room humidity is drier now for some reason and that also will impact things.
Even though you aren't losing therapy pressure with the full face mask use the air movement just dries stuff out.
You might also add frequent use of a saline nasal spray to help hydrate the nasal cavity. Especially at bedtime or right before.
Of course any allergy meds have the potential to also dry out the nasal and oral mucosa.

The default humidification system for the System one is the new humidification system that uses less water.
You can turn it off (in the clinical setup menu) and change it to the old fashioned way of adding moisture which was heat only and increase the amount of water going into the air. It will use more water at night in this mode.
It might be enough to keep things better hydrated. This mode also increases chance of rain out.

[cdcm71]

Thanks... will look into these suggestions.

leaks are 0%. Everything else seems good. But yes, nose a bit plugged. I'm sure my mouth is gaping wide.

[Pugsy]

leaks are 0%.

Is that the % number for leaks shown on the machine's LCD screen?
If so that is really only the percent of time in Large Leak. You could still have some significant leaks up close to large leak territory.

[zoocrewphoto]

I find that I sleep with my mouth open wider when I am on my back, so that will make it worse for me. I'm not sure how comparable the numbers are, but I have my Resmed machine set to 5 out of 6. Anything lower, and I automatically have dry mouth even if I sleep on my side most of the night.