CPAP treatment and allergies

First post in the forum. Happy to finally find this place!

I have searched the forum for links between cpap and allergies and not found what I was looking for, so I am going to post my experience and see if there are any others who have had the same situation.

I was diagnosed with apnea about 3 years ago shortly after a corporate move from a coastal city to an inland city. I chose a nasal mask and took to it pretty quick although I had been a mouth breather before this. About the same time as I started my cpap treatments, I also developed nasal allergies. I discussed this with my doc and he did not think there was a linkage between the cpap and the allergies. He told me that many people who moved inland from the coast had the same experience. Doc prescribed some nasal spray. I also tried over the counter allergy meds like Claritin etc. I found that no matter what I did, I only got about 50% relief. My allergies were year round and I just lived that way for about 2 years.

Flash forward to the present day. I decided to try a full face mask because there were times when my nose would be so blocked using the nasal mask was not effective. I thought of it as an in case of emergency only mask. Two weeks ago I started using it every night for some reason and now my allergies have all but disappeared!! Could the nasal mask be causing me to be more sensitive? When using the nasal mask I never sneezed at night, so I assumed it was actually helping alleviate the symptoms, not make them worse. I thought the reliefe from sneezing had to do with the air being filtered. I have now stopped all allergy meds and I don’t sneeze and my nose is clear for the most part.

What is going on here??

I prefer a full face mask . I think it puts more air in around nose without so much irritation and just use it all the time. I have had no sinus infections like in the past. I will get a small cold occasionally and it will be over very fast.

I use a hybrid (combination nasal pillows and mouth cover) My ENT encouraged it because he said it would help. And it has, I am less stuffed then when I used the FF quatro. I also change my filters frequently.

I personally like a lot of humidity but some people find humidity causes congestion so that could be another issue.

I was wondering about that too.. I have had TONS Of nasal problems since starting cpap, nasal passages are extremely swollen..
but I had allergies in the past, and my cpap diagnosis coincided with spring.. I have been wearing the nose pillows for three months,
and trying to tackle avatar mask last few days..
however...
I did find this link, dont know if it will mean anything or its old news..

Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) Induces Early Nasal Inflammation ( rat study) LONG....

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2225550/

I used to have horrible allergies. My nose was literally stuffed up and running for 3 months, then the day I started CPAP, using the Quattro mask my allergies magically went away and I went from having to take Zyrtec-d every day to just one regular 24 hour zyrtec.

So I am actually thankful to my CPAP machine for fixing my allergies. LOL

Edited to say: forgot to say I also have asthma and so I can't totally get rid of my allergy meds as then my asthma flares, but I personally think the humidifier is what helped so much, it allows me to get good clean air into my lungs bypassing having to try to humidify the entire room.

My allergies are better using cpap. I use the headrest. I contribute it to the filtered air at night, little humidity as too much sets off my asthma.

Thanks for all the replies... but I am still confused.

My allergies started when I started my cpap treatment. They went away after 2 years of them being constant when I changed from a nasal to a full face mask. Does this make sense to anyone?

I thought the filtered air was helping me, but somehow breating through my nose was making my allergies worse??

I am so confused. I need to go curl up with my mask.