Every CPAP unit I’ve owned for the last decade has had instructions for the daily cleaning of the mask and hose that seemed reasonable and vialbe for about 8 seconds. Ever since that point, I’ve cleaned it about as often as it has seemed really dirty to me, which is to say almost never. I have the mask and hoses rplaced every few months, and I often go the entire period without cleaning it once. I haven’t died yet.
When I do clean it, I immerse all the parts into my bathroom sink, which I fill with hot soapy water which I then rise out and I let it dry out on my shower curtain. This seems moderately unhygienic and messy to me, to say nothing of inefficient, but I can’t find a better method, and certainly not one that I’m prepared to do on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Frankly the whole thing seems to me to be an absurd CYA process in which the mfr. covers his ass against a lawsuit that charges that someone harmed himself by using a unit that wasn’t cleaned according to their ridiculous recommendations and schedule, but maybe it does need to be cleaned more than I’m inclined to.
I had the thought today of putting the mask and hose in the microwave for a minute or two, but suspected that I’d get a gigantic meltdown. It would be a sterile puddle of melted plastic at least. Anyone try this? Anyone try anything that works?
Barring the incredibly unpleasant experience of sneezing while the mask is on my face (in which case the mask and hose get scrubbed as well as I can do them), my sum total of maintenance on my CPAP is to replace the filter insert once a month or so, and replace the mask and hose every six months to a year.
1 to 3 times a month. Mild soapy water and I take all the parts apart. Rinse and then again in 1 to 4 white vinagar & water. (disinfects) and then in plain water again. Let all parts dry and reassemble. Don’t forget the little foam air screen in the main unit. Takes about 5 minutes. Might could do it less often since it is just a ‘over the nose’ unit and I do not exhale much stale breath back into it like happens with a full face mask. I take the hose with nose mask off and the water tank off every morning and hang them on the bedside lamp to dry out. No moisture to just sit there and grow bad bugs thankyouverymuch …
Maybe once every week or two? I use hot slightly soapy water, and a Dobie pad that is ONLY used for this purpose. When on the road, a smidgen of shampoo and lots of hot running water.
If I forget, it starts to smell…swampy. :eek: They tell you to use only distilled water too, and I gotta admit, after about a year of due diligence, I’ve gotten lazy on that score.
I used to pack it in my bag “padded” with clothing. I detest having to manage ANOTHER bag in the airport. They don’t do well when banged around. Now I hand-carry again.
Let’s see, the techs who fitted mine said to wipe off the mask (nasal pillow) daily or it would get oogy. It does, and I do that - generally on the sheet or my pjs.
I’m supposed to soak the hoses/mask weekly for 30 minutes in a 3-1 water/vinegar solution to disinfect it. Follow by rinse with plain water and hang to dry. I manage to actually get that done, oh, once or twice a month. I replace the hoses/mask twice a year.
I’m also supposed to hand-wash the straps weekly; that happens even less often than the disinfecting.
There’s the little filter - I try to remember to shake that out weekly, or not too much over. It gets replaced every couple months.
No one said anything about the humidifier, but I had it growing mold around the rubber insert on the top. So now I vinegar it when I do the rest. Hopefully I’m not hurting it any.
The rest of the machine I may have dusted/wiped off a time or two in the last few years.
I have citrus wipes that I use on the mask when I take it off in the morning (usually every other day or so.) About once a month I’ll clean the mask (without taking it apart) in warm soapy water. I never clean the machine. I change the filter about once a month (buy the filters on eBay, they’re very cheap.) I’ll rinse the humidifier reservoir now and then and had to clean it once when I noticed some black build-up on the bottom. I think I was using non-distilled water for a week or so and it left some residue. It was very hard to reach but I wound up using a brush for cleaning baby bottles.
Thanks for the wipes idea. I, too, find the daily cleaning routine far too time consuming.
I do think if you use a swamp thing (humidifier) you should clean it often. Filling with distilled water might help, but any quantity of standing water becomes a biology experiment in short order, no matter how clean it was to start with. It might help to put one of those bacteria/virus filters in the line upstream of the humidifier, though–I haven’t tried that yet.
In lieu of the humidifier, during allergy season I sometimes fold up some tissue around a dab of Vicks vapo-rub and stuff it in the mask, folded like a saddle over my nose so it doesn’t interfere with my breathing.
BTW: I hate the acronym “CPAP,” but my wife objects to “nose blower” for some reason.