After a few years of complaining by my wife about my snoring at night, I did a sleep test at home and my Dr. says that I have a mild case of sleep apnea. She recommended I get a CPAP machine which I did.
I use it nightly so that our marriage will continue to be a happy one.
I rinse out my humidifier basin and wash my mask daily. And wash my hose weekly and check the filter.
It’s the latter item, I have questions about. What is the purpose of the filter on a CPAP machine?
Yes, I’ve read the manuals and the online recommendations to keep the machine clean from particulates in the air and to keep the air that I’m breathing from contaminants, etc. etc.
But the machine is just a pump that pressurizes air and blows it at continuous pressure through a hose. I’m not sleeping in a factory with lots of contaminants. The machine should be able to handle the air in my house without breaking down.
And when I wake up and take off the mask, I’m breathing the same unfiltered air throughout the day. My wife breathes the same unfiltered air laying next to me throughout the night. We don’t all walk around with filtered air masks on.
I believe the filter is just one of those consumable items that they can sell continuously, but there is no real tangible purpose.
If you’ve never taken apart a space heater, you’d be amazed how much dust accumulates in them over the course of a few years - even one that just gets used for 30 minutes a day (e.g. while you shower).
A CPAP is no different. For 8 hours a night, it’s moving air through its turbine and down the hose to you. Without filtration, after a few years it will have ingested a lot of dust.
The coarse dust filter is probably enough to protect the machine from internal accumulation, but without it, ISTM you’ll eventually end up with dust in it. You can clean the hose, but the turbine and the machine’s internal passages are much harder to clean.
The fine particulate filter is suitable for removing allergens and irritants like smoke, which can improve sleep quality for allergy/asthma-prone folks, especially if you’re in an area/season with poor air quality. My guess is if you’re not one of those people then your health won’t be affected by the presence/absence of the fine filter.
FWIW I can’t remember the last time I changed the fine filter in my CPAP. It was probably months ago, and I don’t remember noticing a difference in performance that would suggest the old filter was clogged. The DME supplier keeps sending replacements to me, and charging me accordingly. At some point I’ll probably have a lifetime supply, and maybe think about asking them to stop sending them…
I used a CPAP for a while some years ago, but quit mainly because I was never able to get comfortable sleeping with a not-too-flexible hose attached to my face. (ETA: I wish they would invent a device already that wraps around my arm like a blood-pressure cuff and simply infuses the oxygen into my blood.)
One thing that annoyed me, on the subject of those little filters: The supplier wouldn’t even sell me replacement filters without a prescription from the doctor. Seriously? :dubious: I need to call my doctor for a prescription just to get those little filters?
It was worse than that: I belonged (and still belong) to a major well-known HMO, and nobody there seemed to think I should need a Rx for filters, so I had some difficulty getting the matter to the attention of an actual doctor to write the Rx. Eventually, by chance, I got a receptionist on the line who apparently knew that, and knew the right people to ask, and got it done.
You’ve heard the joke: In a real office, the receptionist is God. Yes, so it seems.
Think of a small insect (gnat / fruit fly / drain fly / mosquito) that wanders near the air input of the CPAP machine and gets sucked in, then injected into your nose. Your nose’s normal filtering mechanisms (nose hair, conchae, mucosa) are probably not sufficient to catch an insect when the incoming air is pressurised.
ETA: The filter for my Philips Respironics device is pretty cheap (just a rectangle of open-cell foam), but it’s also washable, so I rarely change it.
I needed an emergency replacement for the water tank on my CPAP. I was traveling and left mine at home. Anyway, I went to the local medical supply to purchase one. They had one but wouldn’t give it to me without a prescription. I told them that I regularly purchased them from Amazon and other online sources without difficulty. I was told that Texas requires a prescription for CPAP supplies but that other states do not. My online orders must be coming from states that do not require prescriptions.
I eventually got the tank (at three times the cost that Amazon sells for). It’s a strange place where I can walk into a Walmart and walk out with a gun with no paperwork (expect for paying for it) but I have to do a mountain of paperwork to get a little piece of plastic that is utterly worthless without the CPAP device and won’t hurt anyone.
Well the FDA is certainly going to be all over my ass for trafficking on the street in prescription-only materials!
I took a friend home from the hospital once after his operation. He was still groggy, and was possibly going to puke. We stopped at a pharmacy to get his pills. While there, I asked if they had any barf-bags we could have.
The clerk gave me a medium-size plastic beaker with milliliter graduations marked on the side of it. It was wrapped in its original wrapper, a sterile looking kind of paper. It said “Rx only” on it. But she gave it to me anyway.
How many laws did she break by giving me that Prescription-only plastic beaker, and how many laws did I break by receiving it, possessing it, transporting it, and giving it to my friend – all without a prescription?
The filer isn’t there to protect your lungs. It’s there to protect the inner workings of the CPAP machine.
Your lungs have evolved to ingest a certain amount of dust and clear themselves out. But with the CPAP machine, any dust that enters is going to stay there. The total amount of dust will build up and eventually clog the machine to the point it stops working. The filter postpones that day.
My current CPAP machine uses 2 filters. One needs to be replaced every 2 weeks and one needs to be rinsed every month and replaced every 6 months. I like this machine a LOT (Philips Dream Station). Between Medicare Part B and my Medicare Supplement Insurance (Plan F) I pay 0.00 USD for filters, masks, and other expendables.
Cat hair and flower pollen. I vacuum mine, it’s home made, every 6 months, then blow with vacuum on reverse. Generally that keeps things clean enough. Tear down motor, regrease or replace bearings every 2 years, and blow out centrifugal fans. That’ll keep the unit trouble free for years.
POLLEN! I used to live in the Carolinas where the trees would have their annual sex orgy in the springtime and everything would turn green. The “HEPA” filter on a CPAP machine will need to be changed fairly often in March and April. The alternate is not just a CPAP machine’s innards coated with pollen, but if you’re the least bit allergic, having pollen injected into your sinuses for eight hours or so a day is awful.
If it gets cold enough, a humidifier will keep your nose from becoming the Sahara. That said, I tried a humidifier for a nasal mask on a BIPAP a couple weeks ago. Damned thing nearly drowned me. It put out so much water at 85F or so that the hose filled and gurgled before the night was half over. Had to turn the heat off, and drain the hose to get any sleep at all. Too hot is worse than no humidity at all.