Humidity - up or down?

[lytepole]

Hi all - Happy Monday -

I'm having nose problems (and I'm only about 5 nights into treatment). This weekend when I went in to the DME for a new mask, I mentioned that I had woken up feeling stuffy, and the tech I was talking to suggested that my humidity might be too high, thus leaving me feeling congested. He suggested backing off the humidity some. I pumped it down .5, but turned up the heat to somewhere between 65-70 on the tubing.

Today, the inside of my nose is sore. I didn't have that congestion feeling this morning, but I did wake up with a runny nose.

This is the same area of my nose that was hurting with the small Swift FX Nano, so it could be related?

Thoughts on which direction to play with humidity now? Or should I stick with current settings a few nights to see how it plays out?

Thanks!

[Pugsy]

How much difference did you change the temperature of the air...what was it set at before you changed both the humidity setting and the hose air temp? Was it at 60 degrees and you changed it to something between 65 and 70 but closer to 65 ...or was it at 64 and you changed it to closer to 70...or did you go from 60 to 70?

What was the humidity set at before you reduced it by 0.5?

[Pugsy]

Have you ever tried the automatic setting for humidity (80%) which is the default setting and then just tried changing the air temp? If you had been using a setting of 5 with the climateline and a low temp...your humidity may have actually been higher than 80% and a 0.5 reduction to 4.5 might still be a bit high for your nose.

Has the runny nose stopped now? If so, how long do you think it lasted?

[raftergirl]

I'm in Utah, so I know about the dry western air. I had similar problems at first. I got some advice here and made some adjustments. I have my humidity level middle of the road, but lowered the temperature. My nose is so much happier with cool moist air instead of warm. I do saline nasal rinse a few times a day, and use daily OTC Nasacort spray. I still get a little bit stuffy, but not bad.

[lytepole]

I'm back I wish adjusting to CPAP could be my full time job for a couple weeks!

My nose is still runny now - its been about 6 hours since I got out of bed.

Last night, my settings were 3.0 humidity and 68 degrees for temp.

The first tech I met with at DME set me up at 2.5 (with no heat on). I bumped it up to 3.5 originally and woke up stuffy on Saturday, so moved it back down to 3.0 on Sat night. Then last night I did the 3.0 + 68 degrees (started messing with temp as I was waking up with a very cold nose)

FYI on my nose in general - I'm on Patanase, Nasonex, and Singulair for allergies. Plus I typically do a sinus rinse the first half of the day with warm distilled water, premixed sinus rinse packets, and the Neilmed Sinugator (can't do second half as it seems like it takes awhile for my sinuses to drain).

The tech I talked to on Saturday was surprised I hadn't been set up with the auto settings for humidity and hose heat, so I may switch my settings to that.

Thoughts on where I might want to start my settings if I move it over? Glad to have some help with this! You people are life savers in adjusting to this!!

[Pugsy]

With the nights getting cooler (depending on where you live of course) if the temperature at 68 last night didn't give you cold nose syndrome I would leave it alone and just switch to automatic and give it a try. There is a reason that it is the default setting. The majority of cpap users do well with it.

When you change 2 things at one time and don't get good results it's hard to decide which one it might have been...or even if it was one of them.

On my S9 last night...automatic with temp at 72....no ice cube nose but slept with the window open and it got a bit cold last night and I had a bit of condensation in the nasal pillows this morning...so time to increase the temp. I will probably end up with 80 degrees when it gets really cold because my bedroom gets so cold..
80 degrees feels great in the winter but not so great in the summer but my nose likes consistent humidity.

Don't know what to make of the runny nose after 6 hours of being awake.
Especially if you have done the nasal rinse already this morning which should have helped if the runny nose was from humidity.

It's hard to know which way to go. A setting of 3 is middle of the road but since it was down from 3.5 and you didn't have the runny nose at 3.5 but you did have a bit of congestion (but with all your nasal meds...I bet you had congestion issues before cpap therapy so we probably can't blame all of it on cpap therapy)..

I don't know how much humidity you got at a setting of 3 at 68 degrees...your ambient room humidity is a factor also.

If you were okay with the 68 degrees last night I would keep it at that temp and switch over to automatic and see how it goes. If your nose was a bit cold...Maybe try 70 degrees or so depending on how cold it is going to get where you live.

[lytepole]

Swapped to auto and 70 - I did have a little condensation in the connector to the hose this morning, so I will watch that and report back tomorrow if I'm still not quite right

Re: allergy meds, I honestly think half of what I thought was allergies was actually OSA this whole time. My major complaints were post nasal drip (which I understand is often misconstrued by OSA patients) and morning headaches. Add a Vitamin D deficiency that causes allergies to be worse, and you have the hot mess I am today

Coming to the realization that I've been looking for help with fatigue and headaches for 5 years and just now am finding out I have OSA has really opened my eyes to how many people are probably out there undiagnosed. For me, I also don't think its the *only* answer for the medical issues I have now either, so continue to look at everything I have going on.

It seems like most doctors see a problem and just want to hit us with whatever their standard tools are in their toolbelt... I've been through food allergy tests, gone gluten free for awhile (with a naturopath with a passion for food allergies), done the trifecta of allergy meds and allergy shots for about a year and a half (with my allergist who told me I was not actually allergic to any foods), only to find out I have other problems likely causing/increasing these issues that no one had bothered to put together or test for.

I love finding a community where people are all about taking charge of their own health and not relying on the doctors for everything. It is very much in line with where I am at right now.