Congestion causing mouth breathing

[englandsf]

For the last week I have been getting more congested which is causing me to mouth breathe a fair amount. I am seeing 5-8% large leaks because of this (in 5-7 five minute episodes) but one night in a hotel I hit 17%.

I find my FFM VERY claustrophobic and greatly prefer the P10s. I also use passover humidity only.

Any experiences like this (Texas allergy season) and advice?

[robysue]

Since you strongly prefer the nasal pillows, but you know that your nasal congestion is causing you to mouth breathe, you need to get serious about treating the nasal allergy symptoms.

What's your nasal congestion "hygiene" consist of?

Do you take any medication for treating your allergy symptoms? If so, what? And how effective is it/they?

If you tend to only take oral antihistamines once in a while, you may find that you need to take them daily now. If you've never needed a steroid nasal spray such as Flonase in the past, you may find that starting to use one may help. You might also find using saline nasal sprays as needed during the day will help keep the nose unclogged once you get it unclogged. If you've never used a neti pot or saline rinse bottle, you may find that doing a net pot/saline rinse about 30-60 minutes before going to bed will help.

Also you may want or need to play around with your current humidity setting. You say you're using the humidifier on passover right now. It's possible that your nose wants some additional humidity now that it's also dealing with spring allergies. You might try turning the humidifier up to 1 or 2 for a night or two in order to see if that improves things or makes things worse. Obviously if things get worse, you should go back to passover mode. But if using the humidifer at 1 or 2 improves things, then you know that some additional humidity will help. If bumping up the humdifier to 1 or 2 helps somewhat, but you are still struggling a bit, then increase the humiditiy again.

Finally, you may also want to consider whether the allergies are severe enough that you need to keep the airborne allergens out of your house. It's bummer to not open up the windows on high pollen days, but for some people, that really is a necessity.

[englandsf]

Thanks Robysue.

I use daily nasal rinses and two doses of Veramyst every day. I have not found Zyrtec et al to help much. Austin has heavy (live oak) pollen in Q1.

I have tried the whole range of humidity settings on my H5 and find lower settings clear my nose best. Every time I try more it gets worse.

I think I may have to accept that for a few weeks I will have larger leak rates but I'm still getting 92-95% effective treatment.

[robysue]

I have not found Zyrtec et al to help much.

What does the et al include? It's amazing how one allergy med can work wonders for Person A and do nothing at all for Person B.

Austin has heavy (live oak) pollen in Q1.

My sympathies. The maple, alder, and elm trees are spewing great quantities of pollen here in Buffalo. But that's only started up in the last 2-3 weeks. One nice advantage of a real winter is a break from airborne pollen.

I have tried the whole range of humidity settings on my H5 and find lower settings clear my nose best. Every time I try more it gets worse.

Then keep the humidifier setting where it is.

I think I may have to accept that for a few weeks I will have larger leak rates but I'm still getting 92-95% effective treatment.

Yeah. Sometimes we have to settle for "good enough" instead of "great".

One thought: Are you aware that "Hypoallergenic" filters are available for your machine as well as the standard air filters? The Hypoallergenic filters are designed to filter out smaller, pollen sized particles from the air being sucked into the machine. If you are not using them, changing to Hypoallergenic filters might be of some use.

[Relieved_Rita]

I ditto everything Robysue wrote in her first post.
My sleep specialist emphasizes the saline nasal spray and managing the congestion before it gets so bad that I don't want to use my CPAP.

[englandsf]

Back down to 2-5% just by using two doses of Veramyst a day. The worse might be over as oak season is wrapping up.

[Slats]

After more than 50 years as a mouth breather, i found that using the Airfit P10 pillows, relieved my nasal congestion to such a degree than I finally breathe through my nose. I started and still use surgical paper tape on my mouth at night.

[englandsf]

I can't stand the thought of tape, but this problem appears to be coming to an end. If I have one tough month where I need to crank up the nasal routine then that's not too bad imho. Just a few weeks to go until my first year so maybe I've "seen it all" in a way.