Swift FX - What about hose routing?

[jimnsc]

If you're like me, after reading 10 pages of reviews you usually don't care to read 46 more at one sitting. One thing missing from those reviews I read is the lack of even a mention concerning routing the air hose with the Swift FX. I just imagine rolling from one side to the other would tug at this mask and perhaps dislodge it at some point during a night's sleep. The picture shows the mask's hose routed over a shoulder - but what then?? My concern is not the mask's hose but the 6' hose attached to it.

I am returning a highly touted nasal pillows mask, that gives a choice on how to route the mask's hose and I was able to satisfy myself with the big hose routing. The problem for me was that when I turned, the rigid harness on my face would move the pillows around and I'd lose my seal rather quickly. It would seal fine and stay sealed as long as you stayed in one position. I am a side(s) sleeper for the most part.

My attraction to the Swift FX is the absence of a rigid harness. How do most of you FX users find success with the large hose routing? My current FFM does an excellent job but I guess I'll always desire 'less on my face.' I'm sure some of you more experienced folks have eliminated this concern for yourself and I would be most appreciative to know how you did it.

[kempo]

I started enjoying my Swift FX after I bought one of these:

https://www.cpap.com/productpage/HoseBu ... ystem.html

The short hose on the FX is a bit heavy and it's hard to keep it from pulling the nose pillows away from your nose. The hose suspension system took care of the problem for me.

[Slartybartfast]

I have both the Swift FX and the Opus 360. The latter is my primary mask. The Swift is the one I keep at my wife's place amongst the big drippy trees in Washington where there are more banana slugs than people, I'm told.

The Opus 360 has a velcro thingy that takes the short hose up and affixes it to the headgear. As soon as I saw that, I immediately removed it and wrapped it loosely around the end of the cat's tail. Gave him something to think about. The Opus has a great ball valve arrangement that connects the short hose to the nasal pillows and allows it to flop around with great freedom of movement, much greater than with the Swift FX.

I usually place my Intellipap on a short footstool about 12" high right next to the side of the bed. Hose comes up underneath the blankets and I end up sort of hugging it to keep it warm and in one place. One gripe I have with the Intellipap is that the hose is rather rigid compared to the Slimline hose that came with my S9, which I use down South where I live most of the time. With the S9, the hose lies between the top of the pillow and the headboard and it's so flexible it doesn't tend to torque the nasal pillows around as I reposition during the night. And, since it's heated, I don't need to keep it under the blankets at night to prevent rainout. The unheated Slimline hose is just as flexible. With the Intellipap hose, I am aware that I briefly wake, roll over or whatever, reposition the hose, reposition the pillows and then I remember no more. I'm a side sleeper too, but find I spend more time on my back with the Intellipap because of the inflexible hose, than I do with the S9.

FWIW, I have a Slimline hose that I'm not using since I got the Climate Control heated hose for the S9. Since the connectors are compatible with the Intellipap, next time I fly North I'm going to take the Slimline hose with me for use with the Intellipap.

For my money, hose hangers look a little clinical to me. I wouldn't want one in my boud-wa.

[Pugsy]

With the Swift LT and now the Swift FX I just let the hose hang lose and drape it across the pillow. Tried routing the FX over head once and got a snort of water up my nose for the trouble. Winter is worse for me and rain out. Water can't run up hill so condensation went up my nose.

Hose movement or weight has never dislodged mask for me. Once I did a complete 360 in bed and woke up with hose completely wrapped around my neck but pillows still in place.

[Beachmeezer]

I do not like the slinky hose that comes with my Swift FX. I've made it work though by draping the hose over one of the posts on my bed's headboard. It seems to hang high enough so that the slinky hose isn't pulling on the pillows. I'm going back and forth on getting hose management system/hanger. - Kim

[greg-g]

Apart from it appearance I really can't fault my set-up that I've been using for 9 months.
Its detailed in the below post.
viewtopic/t62727/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=53 ... nt#p497422
I'm generally a front sleeper, but toss and turn all night and have very few problems.

[jimnsc]

Some real mechanical genius but what if you are a mechanical Klutz? Just kidding - I see how helpful a hose caddy would be in this case. And Greg-G - you have to be an engineer. I can't get over the pieces of PVC allowing protection for the hose itself. Don't suppose you use that fly rod for fishing any longer, huh? Pure genius! Thanks for the input guys.

[Janknitz]

If you go to my blog at http://www.maskarrayed.wordpress.com, you'll see a few iterations of my homemade hose hangers. I am far from a mechanical whiz, but I'm a good adapter/problem-solver. Fortunately, I'm blessed with a wall-mounted swivel lamp beside the bed (which I mounted too high!) that is sturdy enough to hold my contraptions.

I have a newer version using a clothesline pulley and an elastic hairband and scrunchies, but don't have a post on that one yet--it's the best so far. It's loosely based on the Hoze Boss carried by our hosts--some day I will actually buy one.

But you can go extremely low tech. Mount a Command Hook (the kind with the 3M sticky pads) to the wall behind your bed and find something (hair scrunchies work well) to route your hose through. Viola! Instant hose hanger. And theoretically you can even take it traveling, since Command sticky pads reportedly do not harm the wall surface (I'm not sure I believe that, so do this at your own risk!).

[jimnsc]

Thanks Janknitz - I've bookmarked Masksarrayed. Ya did well in English 101, didn't you? You are enterprising and I enjoyed looking at your solutions to the "way the hose hangs." Strange - - I wonder, I ask. Others get busy, fix it and then share without asking the first question. Great stuff!

[chunkyfrog]

We have matching fishing poles taped to cheap swivel plant hangers.
Elastic cord hangs from whatever ring is more or less above the face; and the hose hangs there, nice and bouncy.
Screws, duct tape and elastic. not exactly rocket science--good thing where we're concerned.

[Janknitz]

Ya did well in English 101, didn't you?

I had this REALLY scary teacher by the name of Lukavich (and yes, we had fun with that name when we were VERY FAR from her hearing). The kind of teacher who would fail you if you made a cutesy little circle over an "i" instead of a dot (in the dark ages, before computers). I did not do well in her class because I was too busy being terrified.

One problem with good CPAP treatment--nightmares in REM sleep. Mrs. Lukavich often popluates those dreams.

She never thought I'd amount to anything, but look at me now!

[jonnybee]

While rummaging through my utility closet, I came across a bag of plastic "things" that look like a curtain rod hook attached to a clothes pin. I thought hmmmm, this may be what I've been looking for to manage the cpap hose.

I attach the gizmo to my top blanket (using the clothes pin end) along side my right knee (I often sleep on my right side) and route the hose thru the hook end. That keeps the hose running parallel to my body and prevents the hose from constantly tugging at my Swift LT mask. The hook is large enough so that the hose can slide back and forth easy enough.

This works great for me using the pillow mask. Apparently this thing is available in stores and is probably designed to hang stuff from a shower curtain rod maybe. It looks just like I said, a plastic clothes pin with a hook on the other end. They apparently come in a plastic bag of a half dozen or so. Try it..you might like it.

[Breathe Jimbo]

rested gal posted links to just about every imaginable solution here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10640

For me, the easiest and cheapest solution was to use a 3M Cord Bundler, Large, 17304, as follows (I later moved it to the left, so that the slack would fall behind the headboard):



The slimline hose slips easily through the Bundler, which I easily found on an endcap at OSH.

Lots of good ideas in the links in rested gal's post.