I have only been doing this CPAP stuff for about 3 weeks. I have a ResMed C-Flex and use a humidifier set on 3 with pressure set at 12. I had a constantly stuffy nose until I did the nasal irrigation and bumped up the humidifier from 2 to 3. My bedroom is 58-60 degrees, dry climate and I at least start out with the hose under the covers. Haven't seen a huge improvement, but took the mask off last night and wound up with a raging headache, so put it back on after taking some Fiorocet. No headache upon awakening and I think I slept from about 2:30 to 7, which is a miracle in itself - 4-1/2 hours with no wakening.

The reason I took it off is there were constant popping sounds on each inhalation, unless I breathed very, very shallowly. This morning I turned on the CPAP and the noise seemed to be coming from the nasal pillow area. So I took that off and then I had the noises from the end of the hose. So then I took off the short hose and had noises coming from the end of the larger hose along with a fair amount of water. When I looked at the pieces, the nasal pillows didn't seem to be moist, but all the tubing had condensation as did the humidifier.  Is this what is causing the noise? If it's not, what could it be? And...how do I stop the noise because it apparently kept me awake last night. I did take everything apart and washed it, leaving it all to air dry. Except for the humidifier.

Any suggestions?

And while I'm asking for suggestions....I know sometimes it can take a while to see improvments. I am sleeping, for the most part, all night with no nighttime headaches. But I still am yawning all day long and don't feel like "Aha - what a great night of sleep." My DME said they could do a little test at home (which is what I took to see if I needed a sleep study). Should I have one of these done or wait til a little more time has passed.

Thanks,

DD

Hi DD,

This is just a guess, but from what you've said you had the beginning of rainout.  I've had that same funny popping gurgly sound and it's the condensation building up in the hose but from the way I have the hose looped it isn't able to get to my mask.  Well, most times it can't get to my mask.  There are a couple of things you can try.  First is to decrease the setting on your humidifier.  That may or may not help.  Some nights I don't have a problem with a setting of 2 on my humidifier and my room at 60 degrees and other nights I get woken up from gentle droplets going in my nose.  The next item you can try is to make a fleece hose cover for your long hose and if you have a small hose for your nasal pillows.  IF that doesn't work, continue using the hose cover for your nasal pillows and then get the aussie heatead hose.  If you go to google and type that in it will bring up the site.  I've heard lots of raves about the hose.  It is $100 I believe, but many people say it's well worth it.

Good luck,

Melinda

Hey DD,

    Increasing the room temp to 68 degrees pretty well got rid of my rainout problems.  Condesation collecting in my hose used to gurgle.

    It did take a long time for me to catch up on my rest too.  To realize how much better I was doing on CPAP , I purposely slept without it one night.  OMG was I some tired when I got up the next morning.  Some people are lucky to feel immediately better , and some take a while.   Keep at it ...


Z

Hi.  I've got the ResMed S8 Elite and last night was my first night ever with a CPAP machine.  Mine also has a humidifier and was making those popping noises.  I moved my hose around a bit and the popping noises stopped.  I would experiment with that first before anything drastic or expensive.

Hi,
  Yes, you are experiencing condensation in the long hose.  Contact of cooler bedroom air with the hose surface,allows cooling and condensation in the hose.  You can
 1. Decrease the humidifier temp - and/or increase the bedroom temperature
 2. Be sure no fan or vent is blowing directly on the long hose
 3. Insulate the tube with a cloth sleeve.
 4. Purchase an electrically heated hose (google online for "heated cpap tube"

The condensation will form a puddle of water in the lowest bend of the cpap hose, as air is forced thru this puddle of water, it makes the popping sound...I liken the sound to that of a popcorn popper.

PS It is important to only use distilled water in heated humidifiers

Thanks for all the suggestions. I went home last night and there was still a lot of moisture in the tubing so I used a hair dryer on the short tube, emptied the humidifier and let it run thru the long tube for about 5 minutes. Everything was dry and voila, no noise. Slept for about 9 hours with only 1 wake up. So even though I don't jump out of bed, I am sleeping much better than before (up all the time). I am going to wrap the tubing in something as I sleep better in a cooler bedroom.

This morning I checked the tubing and there aren't any little moisture droplets. I had read the stuff about rainout, but didn't realize it would happen with nasal pillows.

Thanks again for all the help.

DD

My husband found if he overfills his Respironics CPAP that it will back up into his hose, causing a popping noise. Once he empties out some of the water and shakes out the hose it is fine.