Hi All....Last night I went to bed and just couldn't get the mask to work right....I keep fiddling with it. The night before I slept like a log with no problems. Anyway, I no sooner was asleep when I woke up in a panic and with my mask so full of water that when I quickly took it off and it fell on my bed and got my sheets all wet. I have had the odd night that I have had moisture in my mask and tube but not like this. I didn't change the number on my humidifier so it wasn't that. I do usually warm up my humidifier for about 1/2 hour before sleep and last night I didn't...could that have been the reason? It was also a rainy / foggy / cool night here where I live so could that have something to do with it. I am trying to remember if the weather was like that when I had moisture before. I ended up not putting the mask on after that because even the tube was full of water....so I am cranky and tied today...    . I looked at the mask this morning and it has a lot of water laying in it. Any ideas on how to solve this? Should I turn the humidifier down on wet damp nights? I hate to do that because my throat dries out. A number 3 seems to be right for me. Anyway, please let me know. And a big thank you from me.....


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*** Linda ***

lindas88 wrote:

Hi All....Last night I went to bed and just couldn't get the mask to work right....I keep fiddling with it. The night before I slept like a log with no problems. Anyway, I no sooner was asleep when I woke up in a panic and with my mask so full of water that when I quickly took it off and it fell on my bed and got my sheets all wet. I have had the odd night that I have had moisture in my mask and tube but not like this. I didn't change the number on my humidifier so it wasn't that. I do usually warm up my humidifier for about 1/2 hour before sleep and last night I didn't...could that have been the reason? It was also a rainy / foggy / cool night here where I live so could that have something to do with it. I am trying to remember if the weather was like that when I had moisture before. I ended up not putting the mask on after that because even the tube was full of water....so I am cranky and tied today...    . I looked at the mask this morning and it has a lot of water laying in it. Any ideas on how to solve this? Should I turn the humidifier down on wet damp nights? I hate to do that because my throat dries out. A number 3 seems to be right for me. Anyway, please let me know. And a big thank you from me.....

Does your device sit higher then your head while laying down? Not sure if this can happen, but maybe you siphoned water from your tank?

How soon after falling asleep did you notice the mask full of water? Maybe overfilled the water tank? What was the humidity level of the house?

I have a temp and humidity gauge sitting in the bedroom -- 72 degrees and <50 humidity...


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My Kinda town Chicago is



Nothing in life is guaranteed, not even taxes -- you have to make money to get money back

Thanks for the reply....My device was much lower then the bed....I'm positive I didn't overfill the tank....and the humidity of my house I have no idea....Yesterday was warm and sunny and last night was clear and I had a great night sleep and no water at all in the hose so I think it has to do with the dampness outside. I also forgot to mention that I had a window fan on all night when that happened and last night didn't...that might have helped. I appreciate your reply.


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*** Linda ***

[quote="lindas88"]Thanks for the reply....My device was much lower then the bed....I'm positive I didn't overfill the tank....and the humidity of my house I have no idea....Yesterday was warm and sunny and last night was clear and I had a great night sleep and no water at all in the hose so I think it has to do with the dampness outside. I also forgot to mention that I had a window fan on all night when that happened and last night didn't...that might have helped. I appreciate your reply.[/quote]

Good evening Linda!  The temperature both inside and outside of your house can effect the amount of humidity that you receive when on your CPAP.  Because most of the CPAP tubing that people receive from their DME's doesn't have a heated wire inside of it, we must create our our warming systems for our tubes.  Let me try to explain....

The hot plate on your humidifier is set at a certain temperature.  The number that you set your humidifier to is, to my understanding (but I could be wrong), the amount of degrees celsius that you anticipate the temperature to drop between the humidifier base until the humidity reaches your mask.  Basically, I had this explained to me when using the fisher and paykel stand alone heaters and integrated ones.  They likened it to the meteorologist and his explaination of the dew point.

If the outside temperature is 90 degrees and 100% humidity.  The weatherman says that the dew point will occur at 72 degrees.  These are just random numbers for all of you weather nuts out there!    When the hot air is full of moisture, if there were any more moisture added, it wouldn't fit and then it would rain.  Just like an ice cube, when the temperature cools off the water molecules shrink.  If the temperature cools off too quickly, the water in the air doesn't have time to shrink quick enough and some of it doesn't stay vaporized.  Hence the dew!  I know that is a very random explaination, but it helped me understand it.

So if the temperature of you heated humidifier is always set at the same number, but the temperature of your room varies, you could have potentially more 'rain out' on cooler nights.  You could alleviate this several ways.  I'm sure others have wonderful suggestions to add, but here are a few.  If you knew that it was going to be cooler in your room, you could leave your number at 3, but try keeping just your tubing warmer.  That way, the room temperature won't affect the tubing temperature and the amount of humidity that you are used to getting will remain constant.  Some people have suggested wrapping a couple of ace bandages around the tubing or sleeping with it under your blankets to pick up your body temperature.  Or you could change the number a little if you know that the temperature is going to drop that night.

I hope that this made sense and I hope that it helps!

CPAPsetupRT,
Great explanation... I was trying to figure that one out, but that makes perfect sense.  I have had water in my mask on a few occasions, but nothing like that described in the opening post of this thread.   I'll just add that water molecules don't actually shrink...  only the spaces in between the water molecules.  I think that this is what you meant to say, but I just wanted to clarify.   As water cools, the distances between the molecules decrease.  

Interesting side note...
The water molecules, which are highly susceptible to hydrogen bonding, begin to form a matrix during cooling.  However, water is most dense at 39.2 F.  As the temperature drops below 39, it continues to form hydrogen bonds and form a matrix (approaching a solid form); the water must then get less dense to form the solid matrix due to the extreme polarity of the molecule.   What does all this mean?  â€¦.   It means that ice floats!  If water were most dense in the solid form (as many compounds are), then ice would sink!   Icebergs would sink to the bottoms of oceans...  and lakes would freeze from the bottom instead of from the top in winter time.  Crazy?!?!?  Huh?

Density of water at various temperatures:
35 C (95 F) -- 994.063 kg/m3
25 C (77 F) -- 997.075 kg/m3
10 C (50 F) -- 999.728 kg/m3
5 C (41 F) -- 999.992 kg/m3
4 C (39.2 F) -- 1000.000 kg/m3  --- most dense, still liquid
3 C (37.4 F) -- 999.992 kg/m3
2 C (35.6 F) -- 999.968 kg/m3
1 C (33.8 F) -- 999.927 kg/m3
0 C (32 F) -- 999.868 kg/m3  --- ICE forms


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mesocosm

OSA / PLMD / Atrial Fibrillation

CPAPsetupRT and mesocosm...I am trying to understand and right now I wish I was a weatherwoman... . The last three nights I have stopped using my window fan which really makes it cool in my room and that seems to have really helped. We have a lot of cool damp nights where I live. I think I will look into getting a cover made for my hose...that sounds like it will help. And the next wet foggy day we have I'll see if I start getting water built up again and then will try turning down the humidifier. I'm wondering how I will make out in our cold long winters. Will winter be a different story again? Having wetness in my mask seems to be the worse thing to make me have a terrible sleep. Thank you so much for your replys...I appreciate it very much.  


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*** Linda ***

Linda -
I have heard from other forums that there is a company in Australia that sells heated hoses.  This is supposed to help prevent "rainout".  I don't remember the name of the company, but I bet you can find it using an internet search.

merlin....I am thinking of something like that...and will look into it if I still have problems. I am worried about winter coming....we have bitter cold winters here and this will be my first winter having it. I will check that out for sure....thanks.


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*** Linda ***