Do the big suppliers (Apria in this case) follow-up with reminders as to when to replace parts?
This one is being rented (great financial thinking, there) by Medicare.
It would seem that a robocall or robo-email would more than pay for itself with increased billing to Medicare. Of course, they just might be billing Medicare for replacement parts without actually supplying them.
I did wake up with a sore throat today after cleaning the tank with warm soapy water and air-drying it. The water sat there for almost 15 hours before I woke up enough to shut it off and remove mask.
Kitty and I will need food in 3 days (I’m retired (was disabled, but got old and am now classified as retired)) - I’ll get the special water then.
There is one sort of a mustiness issue that nobody has mentioned. I find that in humid weather my machine gets a moldy musky smell. After some time I figured out that this was in the hose, and I could immediately get rid of it by running hot tap water through the hose.
Then I hit on the idea that it was leaving the very humid warm air in the hose every morning when I turned it off that was the problem. So, now, every morning, after turning it off but before removing the mask, I pull the humidifier tank partway out and then inhale fully, so that the hot humid air in the hose goes into me and is replaced by relatively dry room air.
Saaay, there’s this other thing I’ve never figured out that somebody might be able to answer. We go to the same rented beach house in the Outer Banks for a week every summer, and when I return to home, I immediately notice that my CPAP machine (which travels with me) has a VERY strong odor that I can’t quite place, but which reminds me strongly of that house. The odor is a bit perfumy and reminds me a little of chlorine. I keep thinking that maybe some brand of laundry detergent smells like that. I always use bottled distilled water that I bring from home to fill the machine, and while we’re there we use unscented laundry detergent. It’s been making me a little bit crazy trying to figure out what is going on, and I know that smell from someplace but can’t quite place it. I spend a week or two afterwards doing things like running the machine wide open for a few minutes before bed to air it out every night, and taking things apart and cleaning them one by one (when it’s disassembled all the parts have a bit of this scent but none of them seem to carry the entire scent). WHAT in the world is this???
You might be lucky. I don’t need to use my CPAP anymore, but when I did my doc explained that if you don’t use the humidifier your gums may recede and leave you with crazy-sensitive teeth. I’m not sure how common that is, though it happened to my mom. The first machine she had for several years didn’t have a humidifier and it did irreparable damage.
Nah, I clean mine once in a blue moon. I do put only the amount of water I use in a typical night, though - with a little practice, you’ll know how much that is. And when I travel, I can’t always get distiller water, nor do I want to get a gallon for one night (!), so just use hotel tap water.
I use bottled water when I travel (not distilled) I have had it 6 months and have never scrubbed it out. No residue is building up on the tank. In theory i rinse it and dry it when i go on a trip becasue I dump out any water and dry it with a papertowel or tissue. I check my mask at night and other than some dried salivia once have never seen anything on the mask, gasket or tubing.
I am finally getting used to wearing one enough so that if I lay down and dont have it on, i am missing something.
Ha, I have never used the reservoir either. As far as dry mouth; it’s never happened to a degree where I thought it was an issue. Were all of you taught, like I was, to basically create suction in my mouth so that it would stay closed during sleeping? Also if my nose is stuffy, I push my lower jaw out to create an under-bite and that helps my sinuses open up. I have since found out that many of the anti snoring mouthpieces you can buy do just that. (i.e. http://www.zyppah.com/) I’ve never used one, but I could definitely see them working quite well.