Nose stuffing and APAP

Has nose getting stuffed everv fooled your APAP.

I think that happens to me every now and then.

During the night my nose gets stuffed little by little and the breathing airflow decreases.
It just happens so slowly that APAP does not recognise it,but the estimation of "normal"
breathing airflow gets adjusted.

Like, if the flow decreases by 1% each 5 minutes, the flow will be down to zero in about 8 1/3 hours.

For me it's not getting that bad (I'm still alive), but the headache in the morning tells me that the
AHI shown by the machine is misleading, and I can feel how breathing through the nose is like
breathing though straws.

I don't know if stuffy nose is "fooling" my machine as I can't use the software until my card reader arrives. For now I'm just looking at 7 day AHI averages.

I'm a nose breather and stuffy nights are bad. I do not do well if I have to breathe through my mouth at all. Can't handle the dry throat.

I know a stuffy nose does make it hard to use the machine. This was my biggest problem and on about the third day I was afraid I might not even be able to do the treatment.

Through trial and error and the advice of friends I've found on stuffy nights I can get better results from the following:
1) Increase my "nasal pillow" size up from small to medium for better flow
2) Increase my minimum slightly (+1 or 2) on the APAP machine to help overcome the stuffy nose
3) switch to my nasal mask
(Because I am on the PRS1, I need to remember change between X1 - X3 depending on which mask or pillow size I am using.)

Per my Ear, Nose, Throat doc I've been using neilmed saline Sinus wash (available at Costco) twice a day which seems to help. I use the 8 oz squeeze bottle; some people use the neti-pot version.

I've also been using fluticusone/flonase daily on my ENT doctor's advice for any underlying allergy component of the stuffiness. Normally I only have hayfever for a couple of months, so I'm going to try backing off the flonase after I've been on the CPAP for a few more months.

When all else fails, I do occasionally use generic Afrin as my emergency backup, but I was cautioned not to use it more than 3 days in a row as it can lose it's effectiveness and cause another set of problems.

Hope some of this helps the stuffy nose. I know how bad that can be.

Have you tried just turning down the humidifier? It often works wonder for stuffiness caused by too much humidity.

I agree with Julie, adjusting the humidity was also a big help to me. They sent me home and told me to use the max setting of 5 humidity at first.

I eventually ended up finding the low to mid-range of 2 or 3 usually helps me more for stuffiness. I do live in the wet Pacific Northwest, so that may also mean I don't need quite as much humidity.

My humidifier setting is zero (I don't have a humidifier).

Maybe you need one. Some of us need a humidifier to keep everything from drying out too much. I agree that too much humidity is a bad thing, but for some none is even worse. I don't always need to keep the humidifier turned on, but even with it off I get some extra humidity(pass over mode).

Brenda