OUCH!!! My nose hurts...

So I've been doing this CPAP for 2 months now. Hard to believe. Within the first week I was on antibiotics for a sinus infection. That seemed to clear up a while back, but I've really been struggling with this thing. I know this is disgusting (Hit your browser's BACK button now), but I'm getting little blood spots when I blow my nose kind of hard. I've also had bouts of congestion, but lately it's just the blood and stinging and dryness. For the stuffiness, I've tried Rhinocort, Nasonex, and Astelin. For the dryness I've been squirting saline spray and I just recently started using the Ayr gel and spray. It's funny, because I seem to feel worse when I turn on the HH at night. Seems to work better when I just add water and use it as a passover, but it's still irritating my nose and sinuses. I finally got a room humidifier setup, so I'll see if that helps.
As for sleeping with the mask on, I'm finding I can actually DO that...it's just that I keep having these nose issues now and it's not good.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!!

In the beginning I needed to do what you've been doing every time I used the nasal prongs (nasal aire II) which are a little diff than what you are using, as the prongs fit insided my nose. I used saline spray AND a generic version of the old fashioned ky jelly (not the warming gel). If I went w/out either for the first couple of months, my nose bothered me, but never had blood spotting. Wondering if you have allergies of some kind that could be aggravating your nasal passages too, or dry air in the house because of wintertime heating. In past yrs I sometimes had a little blood spotting from my nose but it was because of the dry mucus inside pulling away (ok now its YOUR turn to avert your eyes...lol) Now, after having used the prongs since June, I rarely need the spray or gel...kind of weaned myself off of them but I do have a humidifier. When things feel dry because of the winter heated air in our house, I sometimes use the gel because it just makes me feel better not only at night, but during the day too....I've even put a little in my nostrils during the day and found I don't have the same dry nose/sinus problems I used to every time this year becasue of lack of humidity in our home.

Terry

It is possible that just using the humidifier w/ heat can give you trouble.

For the first year, I used a passover humidifier. I had very little problems, that I couldn't handle with some spray that dries me up. (Script)

After all the wonderful posts here about heated humidifiers, I had to try it. I bought one, and immediately started having problems. Finally I quit turning it on, and it worked fine for me. I am now, because of winter here in Michigan, am turning it on 1 and have been kind of half way between good and not so good.

You may have to keep trying things and tweaking things, until they work for you.

Tweaking does seem to be the name of the game! I use a HH all the time, but have noticed that even a .5 change in setting can make a difference. Every time I've increased it even a little, I got more congested. It now sits on 2.5 for winter time and 1.5 summer here in the frozen tundra. There are so many factors that influence how all of this works. I think we all have to find what does the trick for us individually.

I congratulate, what words..., an excellent idea