I bought a cool mist humidifier last week to help with dry air in my bedroom, and I've been running it every night. The past few days my throat has been feeling really scratchy and irritated, which is weird because I thought humidifiers were supposed to help with that. Could the humidifier itself be causing this?
Clean your humidifier thoroughly and switch to distilled water instead of tap water. Cool mist humidifiers can actually make things worse if they're not maintained properly. Tap water contains minerals that get aerosolized when the mist is produced, and these particles irritate your throat and airways. You're basically breathing in mineral dust all night, which explains why your throat feels scratchy instead of better. Over time, the humidifier can also develop mold and bacteria if you're not emptying and cleaning it regularly, which adds another layer of irritation.
Run it through a full clean right now - empty any standing water, wipe down the tank and mist outlet, and refill with distilled water. If you don't have distilled water on hand, tap water filtered through a basic pitcher filter is better than nothing, though distilled is the real solution. After cleaning, give it a few nights and your throat should improve. Make sure you're also not running it constantly at maximum output - humidity should stay somewhere in the 40-60% range. Too much moisture can actually breed mold in your room and make respiratory irritation worse.
If you clean it properly and switch to distilled water but your throat still feels bad after a week or so, the humidifier itself might be defective or your room might just not need one. Some people's airways are sensitive to any kind of fine mist, but that's less common than the mineral dust issue.
mineral buildup and bacteria love sitting in cool mist tanks, so if yours hasn't been cleaned since you got it that's almost certainly the culprit - i had the same thing happen when i first set mine up and didn't realize the water was getting funky after a few days. switch to distilled water going forward and run a vinegar cycle through the tank every couple days, should clear it up pretty fast once you're not aerosolizing whatever's been growing in there.
Check if you're running it too high or too long - oversaturating your bedroom can actually irritate your throat and sinuses instead of helping. Since you just got it last week, try dropping the humidity level to somewhere between 30-50% and giving it breaks during the night rather than running it constantly all night. One thing that gets overlooked is the humidifier's output nozzle direction - if it's pointing straight at your face or bed, you're basically getting blasted with moisture and whatever particles are in that mist, so angle it toward a wall or corner instead and see if that helps.
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