Black hypo-allergenic filter and vent mesh on mask

I will preface this by stating what equipment I am using:

Machine: PR System One Pro w/C-Flex+ and Humudifier
Mask: Resmed Airfit Pro 10 Nasal Pillow System
Tubing: Non-heated regular tubing
Filters: PR Hypo-Allergenic filter (white) and foam black filter

I noticed a strange smell coming from my mask one night, and upon inspection of equipment, I found a nearly-black white filter, and the vents on my mask have a dark-grey tint on them. The previous day I had a nose-bleed in the right nostril but I figured it was due to the dry-cool weather that had just passed by. At first I thought that maybe my nose had been bleeding while I was sleep and got into my mask and caused this dark dis-coloration on my vents after it dried, but I can't seem to explain why my filter was completely black.

I had just changed my filter 2 weeks prior, and sometimes I have stretched it even a little further when I was out of them, but they never had anywhere near this amount of dark debris on them. I put a new filter on last night, thoroughly cleaned my mask, tubing, nasal pillows, black foam filter and humidifier. I was not able to get the vents completely clean, and they still have a slight dark tint to them. I inspected the white filter, and it was still completely white. I have never had this happen before, so I am very concerned as to what may have cause this.

I have attached the pictures below of the filter and mask:









As you can see, the mask and filter are filthy, and I am concerned as to what caused it. I have asthma and other auto-immune disorder, as well as a heart condition, and this worries me deeply. The humidifier had a sour smell to it, and a some-what slimy coating on it when I cleaned it. I have also noticed this before with my humidifier. It smelled like that when I had let forgot to fill it back up with water, but I always made sure it was turned off before I went to sleep when it had no water. I also almost-always use distilled water in it, but I have had to use bottled drinking water a few times, and have even used tap water twice due to not having anything else and could not go anywhere to get some distilled water. The DME tech who came out when I first set up my machine said that in emergency that I could use bottled and tap water and it would be fine, as long as it was for just a couple nights. I also could be a little better about cleaning my equipment, but I do change the filters when they are supposed to be, and I clean the mask at least every 2 or 3 days, and I try to to do it everyday. I clean the humidifier about once every week or 2. I don't think that is anywhere near enough to justify why this occurred to my equipment/filter nearly overnight.

So my questions are, has anyone else ever experienced this? If so, did you ever determine the cause? What could have possibly made this happen? Who should I contact about this? Is it possible that the black foam filter is starting to break down and cause this build-up? Could my machine somehow have overheated and damaged some of the internal hardware/tubing? Could have running my machine with an empty humidifier caused this, even though I made sure it was turned off? If it is possible that this was due to a machine error, could this debris be built up inside my machine? If so, how would I go about clean it internally?

Also, what type of cleaning material is best-suited for clean my equipment? I have heard not to use dish soap, as it can damage the mask and nasal pillows, so I have been using anti-bacterial hand soap (non-tricolsan) for everything, and I use a soft-toothbrush to gently clean the vents on my mask.

I really am at a loss here, and am very worried that this will happen again, and that I could incur some serious health complications from this. I also no longer have the luxury of health coverage, and can not afford to replace the machine at the moment, but I could possibly be able to replace the mask and tubing. I thank anyone in advance who may have any insight on why this event occurred.

Do you wash the black foam filter when you change the white filter? How old is the black foam filter? Do you have a spare foam filter to swap out?
Has the heating system in your house changed...furnace just now being used? Wood stove? Fireplace?
Do you burn candles in your home..especially near bedroom area?

Try taking a toothbrush to the P10 vent areas with some soap/detergent with hot water and give it a good scrubbing with the toothbrush to see if the vent holes will clean up but they may just be discolored beyond removing depending on the cause..do you have a spare frame?

Hi, it's almost always better to use plain tap water if you don't have distilled than other kinds of bottled water that may well have stuff in it that you don't want or need (unless you know for a fact that your tap water is really bad).

As far as the filters go, I wonder if you have some local problem that you're not yet aware of, like mold from somewhere in the building, or something like asbestos that's open to elements (as opposed to sealed in the walls) or a sooty wood fire somewhere. Could some new furniture, mattress, etc. be off gassing badly?

Or else you somehow got hold of some very bad filters, and/or put in the present ones backward (there is a smooth and a wooly side to each that needs to face the right way).

You might want to have your HVAC checked out. Check out this thread. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=102348&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=soot

Pugsy wrote:Do you wash the black foam filter when you change the white filter? How old is the black foam filter? Do you have a spare foam filter to swap out?
Has the heating system in your house changed...furnace just now being used? Wood stove? Fireplace?
Do you burn candles in your home..especially near bedroom area?

Try taking a toothbrush to the P10 vent areas with some soap/detergent with hot water and give it a good scrubbing with the toothbrush to see if the vent holes will clean up but they may just be discolored beyond removing depending on the cause..do you have a spare frame?

Yes, I wash the black foam filter when I change the white filters. The foam filter is about 2 months old I would say. Unfortunately, I do not have a spare one yet to change it out with. I am going to either order some or go to a DME locally and purchase some. The heating system has not changed, there is no furnace or fireplace in my home. The stove is electric, as is everything else. I personally do not burn candles in my room, but my mother occasionally has one burning in the kitchen and/or living room. The living room is right next to my bedroom, but I sleep with my door shut, and there are never any candles burning in the home when I go to sleep. If there is any mold in our house, I am not aware of it.

As far as I know, nothing has changed in our house. Nothing has been burned or created a considerable amount of smoke recently. Also the nasal pillow itself had no residue on it I could see, but it had a weird smell, kinda like burn't plastic or some other chemical. The vents also had this smell to them. The humidifier once developed a weird sour smell, sort of like vinegar, when I had no water in it and had it turned off. But it has not returned to the humidifier since I cleaned it out after noticing the smell, and I always keep at least some water in it, whether I m using it or not.

I currently have the mask soaking in warm, soapy water to see if I can get the discoloration out of the vents. I also checked the white filter this morning, and it still looked like it was brand new. I am leaning towards this being an isolated event for now. I will continue to inspect the white filter after every night, and make sure I clean the black filter/equipment regularly.

If it is possibly mold, where could it be? As far as I can tell, by looking around the house, I do not see any present. Could it be in the air ducts/system with my knowledge? I've never really had to deal with mold, and do not know much about it.

Julie wrote:Hi, it's almost always better to use plain tap water if you don't have distilled than other kinds of bottled water that may well have stuff in it that you don't want or need (unless you know for a fact that your tap water is really bad).

As far as the filters go, I wonder if you have some local problem that you're not yet aware of, like mold from somewhere in the building, or something like asbestos that's open to elements (as opposed to sealed in the walls) or a sooty wood fire somewhere. Could some new furniture, mattress, etc. be off gassing badly?

Or else you somehow got hold of some very bad filters, and/or put in the present ones backward (there is a smooth and a wooly side to each that needs to face the right way).

I have no idea if there is mold, nor where it would be located. I have lived in this house for the last 15 years and have never had an issue with it to my knowledge. All furniture has not changed in at least a year.

As for my filters, I don't think it was a bad batch, because every single one so far has had no issues, and they are all from the same bag. I put the white filter in first, one side is soft and has the Philips logo on it, and the other side is smooth and looks like fiber glass. I put it in with the soft-side with the logo facing out, and the smooth side facing in. I then put in the black filter. I'm pretty sure I am putting it in the correct way, as I remember searching online for which side to put in first for my machine, and my memory is pretty damn good for the most part.

If I am putting it in the wrong way, please let me know.

OkyDoky wrote:You might want to have your HVAC checked out. Check out this thread. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=102348&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=soot

If I have another issues like this one, I may have no choice. I do know that there have been some issues with leaks in the house, particularly the upstairs restroom, which is almost right above my bedroom, and the AC has leaked into the living room, which is right next to my bedroom. These events occurred years ago, but have happened more than once. Maybe mold grew from those leaks and were never taken care of? Like I said, I have no experience with it and know practically nothing about mold/air systems.

That is the correct way to place the filters.
I mention the candle thing because carbon in candle burning can go all over the place even if not burning in the bedroom but one candle is unlikely to produce that much carbon.
I would watch the filter carefully.
I am out of ideas. You covered what I would have looked at in your situation.

I would get a new black foam filter just in case though..while they aren't known to disintegrate like that...I would replace it just in case.

Since the white filter was also black then I wouldn't think that the humidifier with or without water or distilled vs tap or bottled would be the issue.
It most likely came in through the air intake to do that much darkening of the filter.
I have never seen anything like that though...pretty ugly for sure.

Pugsy wrote:That is the correct way to place the filters.
I mention the candle thing because carbon in candle burning can go all over the place even if not burning in the bedroom but one candle is unlikely to produce that much carbon.
I would watch the filter carefully.
I am out of ideas. You covered what I would have looked at in your situation.

I would get a new black foam filter just in case though..while they aren't known to disintegrate like that...I would replace it just in case.

Since the white filter was also black then I wouldn't think that the humidifier with or without water or distilled vs tap or bottled would be the issue.
It most likely came in through the air intake to do that much darkening of the filter.
I have never seen anything like that though...pretty ugly for sure.

Yea, and the part that makes me really worry is the fact that this occurred over a 1-2 period, with no known previous issues like this. And whatever happened, it was severe enough to not only leak through the ultra-fine white filter, but permanently stain my mask vents. For all I know something happened to the machine electrically and some part inside burned up and created particles of god-knows what chemical the parts of the machine are made of, and I was inhaling said particles. Scary thought.

I also just took my mask out of the soapy water I had it soaking in, and even after brushing both sides of the vents for quite some time, the discoloration (or whatever substance is caught in it) will not wash out. Even if it was a huge accumulation of dust, I don't think it would be nearly this hard to wash out, but maybe I'm wrong. I am kinda scared to even use my machine until I get it resolved, but I just can't function without it. I will sleep 12+ hours only to wake up feeling just annihilated, I can't even see or walk straight it is so bad. I really don't know what to do here. And if I do buy a new mask, and this happens again, I just wasted ~$100.

I am not so sure that the problem is internal...if it was internal then the white filter shouldn't have turned black...something got sucked in to cause that.
I think it was external...but I can't swear to it.

You can get specialists to come in and look for mold... if nothing else you could call the city and ask them who does that kind of thing (mold can be hiding behind baseboards, etc. and you won't know it til it's far gone).

Pugsy wrote:I am not so sure that the problem is internal...if it was internal then the white filter shouldn't have turned black...something got sucked in to cause that.
I think it was external...but I can't swear to it.

Yea thats what I figured, wouldn't make sense for it to be an internal issue and have the filter the way it is. Also I noticed a couple things over the last week while I was using the machine. My AHI was nearly double what it was a week ago (1.5 vs. 2.8 average this week), so I went into clinician mode and put it on auto-trial mode, and set the pressure at 13/7 (max/low), with my previous setting being 10. I did a quick 3 day trial, and my 90% pressure after the trial was 11.5, so I set it at that, and initially it lowered my AHI back to the normal 1.5 average I was maintaining. BTW I do understand that these AHI scores are considered excellent, even better than a lot of patients can obtain. But in my case, If my AHI starts to average anything greater than 2.0, I feel a huge difference.

So before I discovered the filter/mask issue, I also noticed that after the auto-trial and pressure change to 11.5, that for a couple nights I noticed the pressure coming from my mask did not seem nearly as high as it was set to. In fact, when I turned on the ramp it barely produced any pressure and once it reached my max it felt like it barely hit the ramp starting pressure. I thought maybe it was just a due to my anxiety levels, which were extremely high the last couple of weeks, as well as an unstable mood (I am Bipolar type 2 and have very bad social anxiety/panic attacks). So I tried to downplay it as much as I could, just telling myself that I am extremely hyper-vigilant to external stimuli, and that nothing was really wrong. Then I discovered the filter and pretty much confirmed my instincts.

After I put new filter on last night, cleaned the black foam one, and cleaned all of my equipment, I could feel a huge difference in the air pressure it was putting out. I actually ending up putting my AHI back down to its normal setting (10.0), and my AHI was only a 0.4 last night! I have never had a score that low, but I have hit 0.9 once before. I am almost starting to question the AHI score's my machine says I'm achieving, because even though it may have said 0.4, I did not feel any better than when it was hitting 1.5+. I am wondering if somehow that since my mask's vents were pretty much clogged, and the overall state my machine was in last night before I checked, if it is producing accurate AHI results. 0.4 just seems way to low compared to my average, and I have not lost any weight, and I also drank some alcohol last night, and took one of my sleeping pills which is a powerful sedative (temazepam). Usually when I take sedatives or drink, my AHI is significantly higher, not lower!

Sorry for rambling on again, I just like to get all my thoughts and ideas out there in-case it flips a switch in someone else's head pertaining to my issue, or maybe they have had a similar experience or just have more knowledge on the issue than I do. Thanks in advance again to anyone who takes their time to read my long posts.

Whatever is causing your mask and filters to clog is in your house air. Unfortunately you are breathing this all day long without a filter. I would definitely get this checked out soon.

I wonder if you ever figured out what the problem was. I have the exact same issue. I have cleaned it all and it happened AGAIN! Ack!

The air in the house must be clean because you breath it all the time, anything that burns with a flame puts bad things in your air plus lowers the O2 in the house. If your heating system is gas, sometimes the heat exchanger fails, but the CO1 is where the danger comes in... Don't light the candles, the 1800's are over. Use electric with Led bulbs not CFL Bulbs.

Clean and change filters more often, the black filter lasts until it starts flaking off material. wash gently with soap, rinse with warm water, dry by squeezing in a dry clean towel, then air dry before installing. have more than one to rotate use. Jim

We have two different machines. Our white filters turned black in less than two days. I believe the filters are defective since we have changed nothing in our routine.

Pugsy wrote:I am not so sure that the problem is internal...if it was internal then the white filter shouldn't have turned black...something got sucked in to cause that.
I think it was external...but I can't swear to it.

Agreed