CPCP and a cold?

[Lindy]

I will be getting my machine next week. I was wondering what happens when you have a cold and can't breathe through your nose. What happens if the power goes off at the same time you are not breathing? Our power goes off quite frequently due to snow.
a little nervous.

[wading thru the muck!]

If you get a cold, you crank up the heated humidifier.

If the power goes out, use your battery back-up.

If you don't have these two items, but are concerned about those two issues, I would look into getting them ASAP.

[Liam1965]

My take is: What happens when you get a cold depends on what mask you have. If you have a full face, or an Oracle mouth interface, you're fine. If you have a nose-only one, then it's up to you to figure out what works best for you. Heated Humidity doesn't seem to help me, but I seem to be in the minority.

As to what happens if the power goes out, I think you'll find that if you can't breathe, you'll wake up and take the mask off. That's part of why apnea makes us all so tired: We notice we're not getting enough air, and we wake up. In fact, there are a few people on here who have mentioned that they sometimes wake up in the morning having removed their mask and not even realized it, and the speculation is that at some point they either got a stuffy nose or rolled onto the hose or something.

Either way, I don't think your body will let you suffocate without putting up a fight.

Liam, breathing easy, breathing free.

[rested gal]

Lindy, if I get a cold and can't breathe through a stopped up nose, I use a full face mask to allow me to breathe through my mouth. My favorite is the ResMed Ultra Mirage FF.

[Dave Hargett]

I will be getting my machine next week. I was wondering what happens when you have a cold and can't breathe through your nose. What happens if the power goes off at the same time you are not breathing? Our power goes off quite frequently due to snow.
a little nervous.

Gee, with all that air going into the nose, how can it stay stuffed up?

Seriously, once I got over the small initial problems of congestion, it's not been a problem for me. I use a nasal steroid spray (prescription) daily plus an allergy pill. That helps me keep my nose clean (even with a cold) and the air pressure just blows everything else out of my nose!

I think what it is, is that after 10 years on CPAP, my overall health is better and I don't get as many colds as I used to. Plus with just about any cold I get, I can always blow my nose and that helps.


When the power goes off in the middle of the night, I am awake instantly. It's happened a few times over the past decade, including one night last month. Once I'm awake, I figure that's it, I'll just sit up and stay awake. On rare occasion I'll prop myself up more vertical in bed and try to catnap, but I keep waking myself up. Our power lines are underground, so the problem here is not serious enough to have warranted my getting a battery backup.

We had a transformer blow in our back yard once and we weren't sure if the repairs would get done in time for bed, so we were preparing to go to a motel. We went out to dinner and stayed at the restaurant a couple of hours and found the power on when we got back, so that stopped that night out.

I can't imagine, though, what a CPAP user down in Florida this past hurricane season had to do if their area was without power for days or weeks.

Dave

[littlebaddow]

... my overall health is better and I don't get as many colds as I used to.

Dave, you've just made me realise I've not a cold this winter, or even a runny nose, despite the kids coming home from school with the normal ration of sore throats & runny noses. I've only been on the hose for 3 montys, but hopefully that's also a sign of better health and the clearing out effect of the heated humidifier and airflow up the nose!

Lindy, don't be nervous. As others have suggested, a heated humidifier is a must and if you have regular power outages, get a machine that works with battery back up. I've only had one loss of power in three months and it was only for a few minutes, but I was awake quicker than the blink of an eye.

[chrisp]

If I get a cold I turn up the humidifier to max and use the Aussie hose. To clear your nose just put on the mask and ope your mouth (yuk but it works).

If the power goes out I plug into my Backup power supply. A Deep Cycle battery . It will run a PB420E with the 12 volt adaptor (without humidifier) for at least 2 weeks. I also have a portable jump starter that should last a few nights. Its great for camping.

I also have a Resmed Spirit. It requires an Inverter. It wil run off the battery at least 3 days. Perhaps more but its only been tested for 3 days.

You ca charge the battery from your car or take it to work or someplace with power to charge it if needed.

For a one nighter you can always sleep in your car.

Link to backup ower thread http://cpaptalk.com/viewtopic.php?t=542 ... ckup+power

Note : The pure sine wave inverter is required if you are going to use the Resmed H1 heated humidifier. However. It is recomended by inverters are us for medical equipment. Specifically cpaps. Maybe this is "old advice".

Cheers,

Chris