What to do

[insylem]

Hey,
Not really sure what to do about this.
I just got back from my sister's today. Get things set up for bed
got my machine unpacked and ready to go, and it smells like my sister's apartment air freshener.


I mean really STRONG. So I take the mask seperate from the hose seperate from the humidifier seperate from the machine.
I remembered that when I was sleeping on the sofa at her place, there was an air freshner pluged in near where I had
my machine.

Anyhow, sorry for the scatterbrained ness. I'm kinda tired.
But anyhow, I sniffed arround and seems that the smell is comming from inside the machine.
So I replaced the filters. But the machine still smells.
I'm afraid to use it it's so strong.
So I turned off the Auto-off feature of the machine. so now I have it just blowing the air out. Hopefully this will
disipate the smell so I can use it and get some sleep.

Anyone ever have an issue like this?
Any advice?

[kaiasgram]

insylem, Hi -- I know someone who inherited a cpap machine that had been in the home of a smoker. Even though no smoking occurred in the room where the cpap machine was, the smell nevertheless penetrated the machine inside and out. They set the machine outside (it wasn't winter then!) and let it blow for hours, then repeated for several more days. The smell did start to fade. I imagine it won't take nearly this much time or effort for that air freshener smell to dissipate. I think you're already doing the best thing you can do under the circumstances, changing the filter and "blowing" the smell off. Good luck, I suspect no harm has been done to your machine and the smell will go away soon.

[archangle]

Unless you spilled something into the machine, it's not likely to cause any harm. It should fade over time.

[insylem]

So what do I do in the mean time?

Do I just drink alot of Mt Dew and coffe and stay up all night while the machine blows out and try tomarrow night?

I mean the smell is strong I'm kind of afraid that if I fall asleep i might die from not being enough oxygen.

Or am I just being paranoid and it should be okay to just sleep with a airfreshner strong machine and let it fade?

The smell isn't a bad one. It is an air freshner after all. I just dont want it to be displacing Oxygen and kill me,
like if it was carbon monoxide or Nitrogen or argon xeon or hydrogen or helium ect gas could.

[kaiasgram]

So what do I do in the mean time?
Do I just drink alot of Mt Dew and coffe and stay up all night while the machine blows out and try tomarrow night?
I mean the smell is strong I'm kind of afraid that if I fall asleep i might die from not being enough oxygen.
Or am I just being paranoid and it should be okay to just sleep with a airfreshner strong machine and let it fade?
The smell isn't a bad one. It is an air freshner after all. I just dont want it to be displacing Oxygen and kill me,
like if it was carbon monoxide or Nitrogen or argon xeon or hydrogen or helium ect gas could.

You were sleeping in that apartment with your machine and the air freshener and lived to tell. If I were you I would let the machine keep blowing until bedtime, then use your machine as usual. You said the smell isn't bad. It can only get better from here. If the smell is still there tomorrow, let it blow some more, maybe change the filter again, repeat the drill until the smell is gone. I can't imagine the smell is in any way compromising your PAP therapy -- arch?

[insylem]

I don't reemmber the smell being so strong at her place.
I don't know if maybe something got spilled on it or what. The hose, mask, case don't smell. There no visible evidance of anything being spilled on it.
It's already past the time I wanted to go to bed.
Maybe Ill go read some Sherlock Holmes though, and try in an hour or so and wish for the best.

[archangle]

So what do I do in the mean time?

Do I just drink alot of Mt Dew and coffe and stay up all night while the machine blows out and try tomarrow night?

I mean the smell is strong I'm kind of afraid that if I fall asleep i might die from not being enough oxygen.

Or am I just being paranoid and it should be okay to just sleep with a airfreshner strong machine and let it fade?

The smell isn't a bad one. It is an air freshner after all. I just dont want it to be displacing Oxygen and kill me,
like if it was carbon monoxide or Nitrogen or argon xeon or hydrogen or helium ect gas could.

There is absolutely no way it will displace enough oxygen to matter after you run it for a minute or so. Your machine will probably be blowing 20 liters or more of air per minute. That's about 26 grams of air per minute or roughly one ounce per minute. In order to displace enough oxygen to matter, you'd have to be using up a gram or two every minute of whatever material it is you're concerned about.

There's just not going to be much mass of air freshener chemicals in the CPAP machine unless you poured a bottle of it into the machine somehow.

The only way there would be a problem would be if it was something that causes an allergy, or is toxic or irritating. I doubt anything in an air freshener would be toxic or irritating unless you actually poured it into the machine.

[kaiasgram]

I don't remember the smell being so strong at her place.

I wonder if that's because her whole place smelled like the air freshener. You likely became somewhat desensitized to the smell while you were there. Now that you're home I'd expect your machine would seem to smell stronger but I suspect it just stands out more now because your place does not smell like the air freshener.

This isn't my thing but some people here actually use cpap aromatherapy items to pull certain fragrances into and through their machines. I'm guessing if this was unsafe these products would be off the market by now.

I hope you're able to get some good sleep tonight with no worries about this issue.

[jencat824]

I have a similar problem when I stay at my mother-in-laws. All her kids except my hubby & me, smoke, they don't live there, but after she gets out of hospital everyone comes to see her, smokes & leaves the smell. Then I set up CPAP & sleep there. When I get home my machine smells like smoke. I normally use aromatherapy to get rid of the smell.

Once, when I was out of aromatherapy, I took baking soda, mixed with water & put it behind the intake vent, same place I would put aromatherapy. It worked, smell gone after several minutes of wearing mask, enough that I could stand to sleep with it. I slept with baking soda/water mixture all nite first nite home, the smell was gone after that. Make sure the mixture is wet, you don't want the machine to inhale anything like baking soda particles, but the mixture used like aromatherapy cleared out the smoky/nasty smell from my machine. Smoke is different from air freshner, but I think the general principle is basically the same.

Jen

[cosmo]

So what did you do insylem? Slept or stayed up?