I JUST FOUND OUT THE MOST HORRIFIC THING ABOUT MY OLD MACHIN

Could this be any worse??? I just found out from my Medical Supply Company why they could not fix my old machine. They said that it was
INFESTED WTIH COCK ROACHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I screamed and couldnt breath for an hour!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When i called back i asked why they did not tell me?? It has been a year since i gave it to them to fix!!! They said they thought i knew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I screamed and said if i knew there were blank blank in my machine i would have thrown that blank blank out my window!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Can you imagine that i was breathing in cockroaches everynight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am never going to sleep again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We had cockroaches in the old house we rented in 2005. But they were in the kitchen and my room was upstairs. And we moved out two months after we found them!!! We couldnt even eat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I feel like there is bugs crawling all over me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do yu think that is why i have been so ill evey day for a year??????????????????????????
Some one please put me to rest and make me feel better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am not sleeping in my room until i have new furniture, new carpet, new machine, open up and shown me that theres no bugs in it. They probably thought i was a pig because i am on Medicaid.
I cant talk anymore because i cant breath!!!
lots of love,april
cacadd94@yahoo.com

I see why you are so freaked out, cockroaches.......UUUGGGHHH!!!
But you are not the first one to discover that you were spending so much "up close and personal" time with the little buggers! I have known several persons to discover them in the water tank of their coffee maker.
Imagine drinking roach brew every day for months!!!
Bottom line is .....roaches seem to nest in warm, dark places! (Phone bases and wheelchairs are also common nesting areas. Guess no place is off limits to these creatures!)

the question would be how did the cock roach get inside the machine? The filter is on one end and hose or humidifier on the other. I guess they could go in the mask, up the hose, drop inside the humidifier swim across the water doing the back stroke then pull themselves up in the machine.

if you moved, you most likely moved them too. Best stuff to get rid of them rascals is Boric Acid (a white powder substance). Home Depot has it, comes in a bright yellow plastic bottle with a pointed nozzle, you squirt some of the power in every crevice of the kitchen, bathroom or where ever they are.

Cock roaches get the powder on their feet and track it back to the nest, when they clean it off their feet it eats them up from the inside.

I got some roaches once simply buying a large bag of dogfood from Costco. Be aware of a knock at the door and finding a flyer from Clark Pest Control. I opened the door once hearing a noise, it was the local Clark Pest Control salesman removing the No Solicitation sign from my front door. I swear that guy drops a few cock roaches every time he visits.

I would send them to CSI, they can check how old they are. They my just be DME cockroaches. Jim

They don't call them Evil DME's for nothing.
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ugh... that is reaaaallllyyy horrible!

A friend did some ride-alongs with a cable repairman. He kept putting non-working cable boxes in big plastic bags in the houses and then taking them out to his truck. When they got back to the cable office she asked what that was all about -- cockroaches. And I thought that was gross!

I would think that with some types of filters it would be relatively easy for those nasty things to get in there.

A number of people have allergies to cockroaches. I'd suggest that you mention it to your doctor to see if that could be a contributing factor to your illness.

Roaches love the interiors of cpaps. No self respecting roach would turn down such fine digs. All but the big roaches can easily get in cpaps. They like the heat, darkness, and perhaps the magnetic fields or something to do with electrical fields. I counted over 500 once on a slow day while I was trying to salvage something from a $3000 Bipap machine that had failed after a month in a roach infected home. I had to scrap it all. The roaches defecate on everything and that corrodes circuits. They do get into the fan sometimes, which leads to about one second of unhappiness within the general roach community when the machine is turned on.

There must be a bug killing forum on the web somewhere. Maybe we have some bug assassins within our community that can help.

guess what.....you have roaches in your new place. Have the whole place bombed

Ychh!

April,

You said that it had been a year that they've had your CPAP......
Did you have a replacement machine to use in the interim?

Den

Ok, I am horrified.
Thats enough to make me hang up the hose. The stupid foam thing at the back of my machine wouldnt keep anything out. and while we haven't ever seen roaches, they are everywhere why should I believe they haven't found their way in?

La cooka racha
La cooka racha

Hi cacadd94,

All is not lost! In fact, seems to me you have had some very squeamish replys to your post - they should be completely ignored.

Except for Rastaman, at least he seems to be on the right track!

Just check out some major scientific journals, anyone you like in fact. They all espouse the extremely high vitamin and mineral content of cockroaches. Not only that, their tough exo-skeletons provide not only a high protein supplement for bone building (much better than any calcium supplements) but also promote regularity and outright cure diverticulitis. No more colonoscopys for you.

Just a rumor at this time, but I heard Martha will soon devote an entire program to the benefits of cockroaches in our daily diet. Probably just an entree to another new cookbook. Can't you just see it now? That slick approach to a new cheap and inexhaustible food supply! My understanding is that she will not be referring to them as simply cockroaches but something a little more palatable with a bit of a French cuisine twist. Sort of like "Cockros Ches" with one of those little accents over the e.

Frankly, I think she is too late. Someone has beat her to it. Have you been watching Emeril lately? He doesn't go BAM for nothing you know! And the audience always cheers when he adds the new ingredient - ever wonder what that really was? Not just flavorful, but nutritious as well.

Anyway, just wanted to advise you that they do not allow advertising on this site. Just because you seem to have a good production line going for you there is no need to flaunt your good fortune here. Many of us Apniacs use our xPAP's for personal consumption only. I can tell you, that if you combine them with garlic, dill, a little pepper, dip them in beer batter - then deep fry them, they are absolutely delicious. And, they still retain their crunchy goodness. You can't beat that!

Have you thought about starting your own fast food chain?

Good luck!

Bob F

Not that this will make you feel any better, but from what I've been told, if what you are calling a cockroach was drawn/attracted to water inside your machine, it is probably in fact a waterbug and not a cockroach. Roaches are attracted to filth, from what I've been told, and waterbugs, which look identical to roaches, are attracted to water. You don't have to have a filthy home to have waterbugs, just a damp location that attracts them. True cockroaches supposedly like dirty conditions.

A bug is a bug is a bug to me, but it is not the same as have a dirty bug, or one that comes as a result of unsanitary conditions, as one that is just a water lover.

Yes, that's what the management of beach resorts will tell you: "Those aren't cockroaches in your room, they are water bugs."

The quote below is from: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Publications/IC406.pdf

“Cockroaches are the most disliked of all household insect pests. They are both annoying and a potential
health threat. They may spread human disease by contaminating food, Snuggle Covers, utensils, cpap machines and countertops with disease organisms carried on their feet and bodies, or regurgitated with small quantities of partially digested food. Regurgitated material will travel through filters, machines, heated humidifiers, hoses, small hoses, masks and …well you get the idea. Although associated with filth and unsanitary conditions, cockroaches can be found in the best-kept cpap machines.

Cockroaches are flat, oval insects up to 2 inches long. They are brown to black in color.

Cockroaches usually are discovered when they are seen searching for food at night and often on hot nights they can be seen cooling off on mask air leaks. They hide in small cracks and crevices during the day unless disturbed or unless a severe infestation exists. A very heavy infestation produces a musty “cockroach odor” sometimes mistaken for aerophagia. Cockroaches will eat almost any organic material, although they prefer sugars and starches. Common foods include human food scraps and crumbs, pet food, and book binding paste.

Their favorite forms of hydration include humidifier water and drool flavored by Polident strips. Jewish cockroaches prefer to drink from Passover humidifiers while Baptist cockroaches dive in to drink. The favorite sport of cockroaches is body surfing in rainout. When Japanese cockroaches catch a good wave they are said to cry “AHI”!

Cockroaches are carried from one location to another in infested materials such as books, cardboard boxes, furniture, nasal pillows and appliances. Invasion of cockroaches into a building by way of the city sewer system is much less common than generally believed. Once inside a building, they spread rapidly on their own, especially in commercial buildings and multifamily dwellings where they can move quickly and easily between adjoining units.

“Waterbug” is a common nickname variously used by DMEs for any kind or size of cockroach found in their rental equipment. Though some people believe (based on past experience) that there is a difference between waterbugs and cockroaches, or that a waterbug is a certain kind of cockroach, there is no consistent use for the nickname “waterbug.””

People who have an aversion to cockroaches may easily repel them by lavish use of petroleum jelly. Cockroaches are well educated and avoid contact with any substance that is certain to cause lipoid pneumonia.

Rooster,
Now besides having me laughing, you've made me very anxious to speak to my husband who took all sorts of courses in Entomology in college and was the person who told me of the difference between the dreaded cockroach and the water bug many years ago, on the first evening of our short stay in a garden apartment that we had rented, after I turned on the kitchen light in the middle of the night and did everything but die from horror. I will definitely clarify the veracity of my post and be back with a response. Unfortunately he is not here at the moment to ask, but I'll be back (said in my best Ah-nold Schwarznegger voice).