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Waking up after 3-5 hours with dry nasal passage

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pvfkb +0 points · almost 6 years ago Original Poster

Hi All,

I've had great success with my APAP for 5 years but started struggling about 6 weeks ago where I would constantly wake up after 3-5 hours of sleep having (sometimes painfully) dry nasal passage. Sometimes if I'm lucky I'm able to go back to sleep but more often then not I'm unable to and unrested during the day.

It happens literally every night and this long stretch of disrupted sleep is weighing heavily on me.

After a couple weeks of this I suspected my machine which was an older H5I S9, I noticed the humidifier wasn't as well sealed when I closed it as it used to be so I bought a new humidifier, gave it a few days and still struggled. So I switched out everything else: hose, pillows, filter... everything. Still struggled.

I finally went to a sleep doctor and asked for an Rx for a new machine as mine was out of warranty and thought it might just be busted (I'd only replaced the humidifier). The doc wanted to do a sleep study but I was desperate for relief and using APAP felt I wasn't in need of new pressure settings and pressed the Dr who gave me the Rx and off I went excited to get a nice brand new Airsense 10 and put my troubles behind me.

Got the new machine! Still struggled.

I've tried a range of different settings. Different humidity, temp, pressures, CPAP vs APAP... everything. Still struggled.

Somewhere in the midst of all of this I found this board and learned how to use Sleepyhead but all my numbers (from what I can tell) seem nominal.

I have a sleep study setup for this week but I'm doubtful since I feel that I've really tried everything except a chin strap or a full face mask. I use pillows and loved them until this started happening. Is there a way to assess from the data if I'm mouth breathing?

Has anyone encountered or heard of others encountering this type of issue after such a long stretch of success?

I'm starting to feel hopeless...

Sleepyhead screenshots for anyone interested:

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