A nasal cold on CPAP and advice for the newbies

I apologize in advance if this topic has previously been discussed in length.

So I’m now three months into my cpap treatment and I’m now coming down on my first cold. I’m concerned that nasal congestion will harm my ability to use my machine. I love the nasal pillows. I tried a full mask at first and it didn’t go well.

So how do you other nasal breathers handle this? Turn the humidifier up all the way? I have a customer of mine who rubs a small amount of Vick’s Vapor rub in his nostrils to clear up. He swears by it.

By the way, for all you newbies reading... it gets better and it’s so worth it. I remember my second week thinking, “I can’t do this, no way!”. I wanted to smash my cpap machine with a crowbar. Fast forward three months later, and I feel amazing! I haven’t slept like this in years. Now I got to figure out how to deal with issues like colds.

I treat the symptoms like I would normally treat them depending on what they are.
Oral decongestants or whatever...
I find that lots of humidity seems to help. Often I find I wake up with a clearer nose than when I went to bed when I have a cold.
In coming on 10 years on cpap this coming May....had my share of colds and upper respiratory infections and I have never had to resort to changing masks. If I can breathe even a little bit through my nose I can make it work. In an extreme emergency I will use Afrin or similar product to get the air moving ever so little. Once the humidified air starts up the nose clears up even more.

Lots of simply saline...oral meds...crank up the humidity setting (think how the nose feels during a hot steamy shower when we have a cold)...and realize that it doesn't last forever and we probably won't sleep so great but we wouldn't be sleeping so great even if we weren't using cpap when we have a cold.

Some people prefer to switch over to a full face mask....not me. Don't really want to and have never really had to. I have always been able to use my nasal pillows.

I have been known to put something like eucalyptus essential oil on a cotton ball and set it next to the air intake of the machine.
That also helps.

I just do whatever is necessary to open up my nose at night.

real sudafed, afrin (only at night), neti pots, added humidity from the machine. Plus, the pressure from the nasal mask seems to help open up the sinuses too.

I use the generic for Afrin, but I also use the generic of the Breath Right strips, both from Walmart.

A full face mask is difficult to manage but I can’t use decongestants or nasal sprays (other than saline) so a FF mask is a lifesaver during a cold. My nose gets too stuffed and sore and it’s just too gross and gooey to try to stick to nasal pillows or my dreamwear thing (what do you call that???)

I have a love hate relationship with the FF mask. It leaks, it’s heavy, it hurts my nose. But when I’m sick with congestion, it’s comforting to have humidified air and I can sleep so much better on CPAP, especially since it really calms my cough variant asthma/bronchitis.

I’m about 3 weeks into my recovery from pneumonia and I’m still in the FF mask. When my breathing issues were at their worst during the pneumonia I had a lot of air hunger and felt like I needed to open my mouth to breathe and couldn’t do that in my Dreamwear mask so I was having terrible panic attacks (Prednisone was contributing to the panic attacks, too).

But in the FF mask I could feel the airflow and open my mouth to breathe and it calmed me down a lot. I’m feeling a lot better and not having breathing issues anymore but I’m still feeling a little panicky about switching back to the Dreamwear, so I’ll give it a little more time.

Bottom line is it is a good idea to find a FF mask you can tolerate for colds even if it’s not as great as nasal pillows, if it allows you good rest when you’re recovering from a virus, you’ll get well faster and feel better during a cold.

The nice thing is on CPAP I hardly ever get sick anymore. This year being the exception-that respiratory virus going around really smacked me down.

Mucinex nose spray, and breathe right strips.