Doing Albuterol 4 x daily with a nebulizer connected to an oxygen tank via the regulator. The RespTech in the hospital said to set the regulator to 8 liters/minute.
With a fresh (Size E) tank, the connector at the Regulator often popsoff under the pressure of the Oxygen flow.
Any tips on securing it better? I hand turn it as tight as I can, but…
I used to work for a Respiratory company but I don’t know the answer to your question, sorry.
8L / minute is pretty high.
Can you contact a respiratory company directly to ask them what they suggest?
Instead, I’ll call my Pulmonolgist’s office tomorrow. He has a tech on the staff, Thanks for the idea!
Good luck!
BTW, what I meant by “8 L/minute is pretty high” was only that 99% of our patients used their oxygen tanks for prescribed O2 flow, not as a nebulizer. If that makes any sense.
Hmmm … maybe my brain needs some extra O2. 
If you find a cool solution, post it here - now I’m curious!
It might take until Monday to be able to reach someone. If I do, I’ll post. I was in the hospital and hooked up to the hospital’s oxygen, getting albuterol through a nebulizer, qid x 5 minutes each time. (You never heard of this?)
I don’t know what the flow rate was, but the connection never popped, as is currently happening at home.
If I can’t reach anyone tomorrow, Ill cut back to 6 L/minute until I can speak to my Pulmo.
Air flow rates need to be in the 8-10 liter/minute range to produce aerosol particles of the proper size to get deep into the lungs, otherwise they produce too many larger particles which will mostly precipitate in the trachea or mainstem bronchi where they do little good.
Most nebulizers provide flow rates in this range.
I’m not sure why yours is popping off at this flow rate; we would run my dad’s nebs off his oxygen tanks at comparable flow rates without having that problem. And I’ve run a few patients on wall oxygen at this rate when we didn’t have working nebulizers in the past without recalling any popoff phenomenon.
However, if I’d had popoff problems which prevented me from delivering the nebs to my patients, I would have reduced the flow rates to the maximum which didn’t cause popoff, because I expect at least some proper-sized particles would get produced by lesser flow rates.
It sounds like you may have a fitting problem. If it is a barb fitting, it can usually be tightened up by cutting off the last inch of tubing, it may be stretched out.
It could also be popping off because of a kink in the hose or a restriction in the nebulizer valve. If it’s the nebulizer, you may need to replace it.
Just a fewminutes ago this morning, I pushed and twisted the connection to the Regulator as far up on the valve as as I could possibly do it, and this time it all went smoothly.
If the popoff problem persists, however, I’ll deal it back to 6 ot 7 L/M until I can see my Pulmo.
Thanks very much for your inputs, Doctor.
Is the oxygen tubing the same on both ends, or different? The nebulizers we use at work have 2 different ends to their oxygen tubing- a rigid end that’s meant to connect to the neb and a softer end that connects to the regulator. If you hook them up backwards, the tubing pops off the regulator at almost any flow rate.
St. Urho
Paramedic
Thank you very much foir the input,but both ends are the same on my tubing.
The popoffs seemed to end when I muscled the connector all the way up on the Regulator valve.