Why the hell would I use a humidifier.
Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:07 pm
The following is a replacement of the original post that wasn't received well (my fault).
1) I started the thread mostly because I couldn’t understand why humidification should be necessary based on a modest scientific understanding of human anatomy, physiology, physics etc. My argument was that CPAP doesn’t dry out the air we breathe or increase the amount of air we breathe and so it shouldn’t be necessary.
2) I took that argument a step further and suggested (for the sake of argument) that we were all being duped, and that humidification shouldn’t in theory (my theory) be necessary.
3) Thirdly, I was experiencing an unpleasant smell in my tube that I couldn’t eradicate. I stopped using humidification and changed the tube and am now enjoying cool fresh air that is like “breathing morning air”. With my modest knowledge of bacteriology and mycology I couldn’t understand why I had been following convention and breathing air that passed over a heated tank of water and through a heated moist tube and was suffering the (in my case) smelly, stuffy consequences.
From the information in this thread and from thinking further and doing some more research I have come up with the following theories and observations:
I) It is clear from this thread that a lot of people do need humidification to prevent dry nose and mouth and other symptoms and are not being duped. I would add, however, that some people may be using it when they don’t need it. A few people on the thread reported that they didn’t use humidification.
II) My theory is that with a nasal mask, mouth leaks are common. A mouth leak will increase the flow of air through the nose and mouth leading to dryness of both. The people who find they need humidification with a nasal mask may be experiencing a degree of mouth leakage. A person using a full-face mask who is often mouth breathing will get a dry mouth just like someone who mouth breathes without using CPAP does. The mouth isn’t really designed for breathing like the nose is. Someone commented that some people require humidification and yet have flat leak rates. It may be that these people, have other nasal conditions such as chronic rhinitis (very common), Sjogren's syndrome (much less common) and that nasal humidification is helping them significantly. These people would benefit regardless of whether they had sleep apnoea or not.
III) Regarding bacteria, fungi and resulting smells. I have learnt from this thread that many people manage their humidification system well and have not encountered issues.
Thank you.
1) I started the thread mostly because I couldn’t understand why humidification should be necessary based on a modest scientific understanding of human anatomy, physiology, physics etc. My argument was that CPAP doesn’t dry out the air we breathe or increase the amount of air we breathe and so it shouldn’t be necessary.
2) I took that argument a step further and suggested (for the sake of argument) that we were all being duped, and that humidification shouldn’t in theory (my theory) be necessary.
3) Thirdly, I was experiencing an unpleasant smell in my tube that I couldn’t eradicate. I stopped using humidification and changed the tube and am now enjoying cool fresh air that is like “breathing morning air”. With my modest knowledge of bacteriology and mycology I couldn’t understand why I had been following convention and breathing air that passed over a heated tank of water and through a heated moist tube and was suffering the (in my case) smelly, stuffy consequences.
From the information in this thread and from thinking further and doing some more research I have come up with the following theories and observations:
I) It is clear from this thread that a lot of people do need humidification to prevent dry nose and mouth and other symptoms and are not being duped. I would add, however, that some people may be using it when they don’t need it. A few people on the thread reported that they didn’t use humidification.
II) My theory is that with a nasal mask, mouth leaks are common. A mouth leak will increase the flow of air through the nose and mouth leading to dryness of both. The people who find they need humidification with a nasal mask may be experiencing a degree of mouth leakage. A person using a full-face mask who is often mouth breathing will get a dry mouth just like someone who mouth breathes without using CPAP does. The mouth isn’t really designed for breathing like the nose is. Someone commented that some people require humidification and yet have flat leak rates. It may be that these people, have other nasal conditions such as chronic rhinitis (very common), Sjogren's syndrome (much less common) and that nasal humidification is helping them significantly. These people would benefit regardless of whether they had sleep apnoea or not.
III) Regarding bacteria, fungi and resulting smells. I have learnt from this thread that many people manage their humidification system well and have not encountered issues.
Thank you.
I tried a lot of fancy gizmos and that's the one.