HELP I have my first COLD!!!

What do I do??? I woke up yesterday with what I thought was the worst hayfever ever, sneezing, itchy mouth/throat etc... took far more meds than I should have but no relief. *cue cold suspicion*. Went to bed last night absolutely tired and managed to sleep but woke up feeling just plain horrible.

I'm worried about sleeping with the CPAP on, it seems to me that it would effectively be pushing the muck down into my chest possibly encouraging a chest infection???

Should I keep using the CPAP? Should I increase the humidifier or decrease it? what will make me feel LESS crappy LOL.

Whenever I have had a cold I have found that I feel and breathe much better at night when I have my cpap on! I do raise the humidity a bit but I seem to breathe better with cpap and a cold than I do during the day when I am up, as I deal with a cold.

I haven't had a cold for a long time and the last one I had was before I started using nasal pillows. I was using a nasal mask then and it was fine. I think I might have trouble with nasal pillows and cold though. I expect I would be using my backup nasal mask.

Some feel the need for a full face mask during a cold. I have been okay with the nasal mask.

Feel better soon!

I agree on the FFM if you have one. You might want to sleep on a wedge or elevated pillows to help with congestion too. Hope you feel better!

I get fewer colds since I am breathing filtered air at night. That said, a stuffy nose don't work well with my mask, since my mask just covers my nose. Mostly I use Vicks vapor rub on my nose, to help relax the airways. Sometimes I will use an antihistamine to dry up my nose, not to be confused with a decongestant that will make your nose runny.

I have much more trouble with power outages.

I'm just beginning to really recover from my first head cold of the season and the first head cold with CPAP therapy.

I found that the nasal pillows seemed to help my congestion at night quite a bit. I also noticed that my AHI numbers went up from the 0.5-1.5 range to more like 1.5--2.5 (and two nights I had AHI's above 3.0). I found I had to play around with the humidity settings a lot and never really sorted out if a humidity setting of 4.5 or 4 or 3.5 was really best. But even with the (slight) increase in AHI's and the fooling around with the humidity, I found that sleeping with the CPAP and the head cold was easier than just sleeping with a head cold had been in the past. I think it was because the CPAP really helps clear out my sinuses. At any rate, pre-CPAP whenever I had a head cold, I'd spend the night tossing and turning because first one nostril would close up because of congestion and I'd have to turn over and then the other nostril would close up due to congestion and I'd have to turn over and ..... That didn't happen with this cold and using CPAP---both nostrils remained more or less open all night long and I didn't need to shift position all night long in order to breathe through my nose.

I also find that ample use of a saline nasal spray during the day helps a lot with congestion. The advantage of a saline spray is that it cannot trigger rebound congestion the way a decongestant nasal spray can. I find that the saline nasal spray also seems to help with the fact that no matter where I seem to set my humidity level, my nose gets dry.

If your congestion is really, really bad and OTC decongestants don't keep you awake at night, you might also try taking an OTC decongestant shortly before bedtime. I can't do this because they key me up way to much to let me sleep though.

On CPAP since February I haven't had my first cold yet (whoo hoo! and knock wood!) but my plan of attack is:
1. Step up the nasal saline spray
2. Turn my humidifier to classic settings for warmer, moister air.
3. Full face mask
4. Sleep in the recliner

Hope I don't have to see if this plan works any time soon!

I agree with using a full face mask (FFM) and nasal saline wash (such as the Neti pot) ONLY if your nasal passages are open and are not completely or even mostly blocked. Be careful with using the spray and forcing congested nasal passage mucous into areas it doesn't belong. A gentle rinse to keep passages open may be OK, but I still say be careful. Also, I do not recommend medicated nasal sprays as they have a nasty rebound effect that could keep you in the FFM longer than you want.

I have also been experiencing my first CPAP cold.
I took some mucinex and switched from my lovely FX to the dreaded quattro.
(The nose just wasn't cooperative)
I looked at my data on screen after a nasty coughing fit--yep, coughing is counted as apneic events.
--But the whole night averaged down fairly low (2.1)
--still got that sinus headache, but I think I'll live.
Tonight, I think I'll avoid a late-night snack--the aerophagia gave me the chance to see it again at 3:00 a.m.

Hi,
I don't have a cold but I'm having another bout with my allergies,sneezing,eyes and nose running all the time. The only time I can get any relief at all is when I'm on my c-pap.I use nasal pillows,get all situated,get my mask on and no more running!
I just got over 3 months of terrible allergies and now they are back again.
good luck to you!

Thanks for the advice everyone. I survived last night, barely LOL My cold wasn't too much of an issue but my daughter crying about an earache sure didn't help me sleep too well!!

I'm finding the nasal mask still working really well so will stick with that since it's all I have! Have been doing the saline nasal spray/rinses and that is helping alot.

*fingers crossed* but I feel a bit better today so hopefully this is rather short lived and i'm back to normal soon.

I was worried about my first cold, but when it happened recently I was still able to use the LT nose pillows. When I first lay down, it took about 2-3 seconds for the pressure to push through, but it did push through the congestion and allow me to breathe through my nose. Imagine that something intended to keep the upper airway open would actually keep the upper airway open!

Have interesting things happening with colds and Apap. The cold doesn't develop like it normally did prior to using my machine. Total congestion (forcing me to mouth-breath at night) has not happened....yet. No trouble keeping those passages open with nasal pillows. I was concerned about driving infection into my ears but that has not happened... yet. It may be possible to do that if my throat was infected.
An even better effect is the cold symptoms are of shorter duration. Before Apap a cold would take nearly 2 weeks to run its course. Now I'm symptom free after 5 to 6 days... half the time. I love it!

boosmum, Wishing you a speedy recovery. Keep track of this cold and see if you find any differences....you may be surprised!
Cindy