Top Topics
On occasion, my AirSense 10 will lose its humidifier seal. I move the water tank in and out of its slot a few times and the seal will return.
Congratulations on your success with PAP therapy. I have been using it for 18 years. The OSCAR program is available free from various online sources. You can view your sleep in many graphs of information and look at individual wave forms that show the quality of single breaths during sleep. It helped me take my AHI down to <2.00 and sometimes < 1.00.
My MD does not set cpap features nor does my DME. It is all up to me and advice I can get from forums like this which is a common state of many. Point is that my median pressures are skewed by a session of apneas that the machine cannot supply therapy to therefore the median and the high pressure are not the optimal setting. I must factor out the large amount of apneas that occur under high pressure to get a realistic figure for min./max. cm. and AHI. What good is an AHI of 10.0 when 97% of those apneas happened during an untreatable session of positional causation?
Discoloration is the only thing I have as an indicator that particulates are captured by a CPAP filter.
A proper filter has been the ResMed brand. No, I do not believe any CPAP filter is made that captures viruses. No MERV rating is given for CPAP filters which would indicate what size particles will be captured.
I have two 20" x 20" MERV 12 air filters running, and at times 3M 18" x 20" filtration running when a window heat pump/ AC is running. Those discolor rapidly showing their particulate capture. I could run 10 of them and the particulates will not be gone. While on my CPAP with a proper filter, I do not get my usual allergy symptoms that can cause no air to pass through my nose.
I have had some tell me my CPAP filter is for machines' protection only. I wonder where that misconception originated.
Your filter brand description includes, "KEEP THE AIR CLEAN - This CPAP filter can easily filter out dust and other particulate matter in the air, keeping you away from the polluted air and making your life healthier and more secure."
You said your filters show evidence of capturing something from room air. That to me is microscopic particulates like pollen/dust/mold spores. The filters in question I claim to be defective show no signs of particulate capture. I think your filters do more than protect the workings of the machine from hair and dust bunnies.
ResMed brand makes standard filters and hypoallergenic filters. Surely the hypoallergenic ones are evidence that filters are not just to protect the machine from hair and dust bunnies. They are to protect the user whose room air will have particulates even with MERV 12+ and/or a HEPA filter running. Unfortunately, ResMed does not give specifications of their filters' particulate removal capabilities, not even for the so-called hypoallergenic type.
I am very allergic to airborne particulates that in my area are continuously present at a high level. I am just now after 18 years of CPAP use discovering that filters can be defective and possibly dangerous. I am attempting to bring the topic to public attention for consideration.
From experience, with my HVAC units, I know that filters have various levels of filtration capabilities and are given a MERV rating to express such. Some filters are rated as being a HEPA filter which is associated with the highest level of particulate removal. Some devices will be damaged if the MERV is too high due to airflow restrictions. I do not expect a CPAP filter to be MERV 12 (removes microfine particles) or HEPA but what good does a filter do if, after a month of use, it shows no sign of filtering by discoloration? The second issue is the stability of a filter's fibers. Can they come loose, pass through the machine, and be inhaled?
Thank you! I see the fiber in these filters is cotton as opposed to polyester. If fibers were to escape to the machine I would rather them be cotton. Unfortunately, the filters are currently not available. The issue of potentially dangerous air filters is something I consider very important and rarely addressed.
It would put me at ease to find a non-fiber filter of any sort. Does this forum allow you to tell me how to find those filters?
