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I discovered early on that my Swift FX pillows were deteriorating way early from too frequent, too aggressive cleaning.
High temperature water in the dishwasher may warp hard plastic in masks, cushions, and certain pillows.
It is wisest to follow manufacturers directions, but not as often, unless you are uncomfortable.

chunkyfrog wrote:I discovered early on that my Swift FX pillows were deteriorating way early from too frequent, too aggressive cleaning.
High temperature water in the dishwasher may warp hard plastic in masks, cushions, and certain pillows.
It is wisest to follow manufacturers directions, but not as often, unless you are uncomfortable.

Interesting. My Swift FX, less headgear, goes into the dishwasher every couple of weeks. Regular dishwashing powder, hot water, long cycle, extra heated "sanitize" cycle. Some of them are nearly 3 years old, and none are showing wear, other than one or two where the swivel fell down to the bottom of the dishwasher and got against the heating element. Ditto for several years of ComfortGel and CG blue nasal masks.

Maybe dishwashing is less stressful on the silicone than what your'e using. What cleaning process were you using when you noticed pillows deteriorating?

Edit - now that I think about it, the ComfortGel flaps and cushions did eventually get grungy, but only after a year or so, and many people have to replace those every few months.

I suspect some dishwashers get much hotter than yours;
as the instructions generally specify NOT to use the high heat dry cycle, and to use the top rack only.
I was hand washing every day with the Resmed-specified soap, and the silicone was getting too soft to fit properly.
I took baby wipes when on vacation, and was so pleased with the results, I never went back.

chunkyfrog wrote:I suspect some dishwashers get much hotter than yours;

I doubt it. I have my water heater set as high as it will go, and use the special "NSF Sanitize" setting my dishwasher has that heats the water to 180F (wrong - see correction). I always use the sanitize setting. I try to not use the heated dry, but sometimes I forget.

edit - Correction -

Apparently, NSF sanitize certification only does 150F for residential and 165F for commercial dishwashers. Both require 99.999% reduction in bacteria.

http://www.nsf.org/consumer-resources/h ... ishwasher/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSF_International

archangle wrote:

chunkyfrog wrote:I suspect some dishwashers get much hotter than yours;

I doubt it. I have my water heater set as high as it will go, and use the special "NSF Sanitize" setting my dishwasher has that heats the water to 180F. I always use the sanitize setting. I try to not use the heated dry, but sometimes I forget.

Hi Archangel,

Do you also place the cushion and that sensitive silicone type material inside that 180f? if yes, for how long? Those are the parts that have my concerns as being mostly likely vulnerable to damages as a result of repeated hot water exposures. Once this happens, then they would be useless due to permitting increased air leakages during night time sleep.

Or get a So-Clean. I've had one for more than two years; works great! Love it. Easy on the mask; no soap smell issues; freshens up the whole apparatus every night. Kills germs. Saves water in the dishwasher. What's not to like? (other than the price...). I use scentless baby wipes on the outside of my Swift nasal max every night to remove oils etc.

Contrary to their advertising, So-clean does NOT clean anything--it only "sanitizes";
How much is not specified. (Remember, this is a HOME UNIT--high power is reserved for hospital use.)
Hospitals don't use this device, they have very powerful equipment, CERTIFIED to WORK.
The fact that it is financially successful is because it is NOT NEEDED, and there is one born every minute.

chunkyfrog wrote:Contrary to their advertising, So-clean does NOT clean anything--it only "sanitizes";
How much is not specified. (Remember, this is a HOME UNIT--high power is reserved for hospital use.)
Hospitals don't use this device, they have very powerful equipment, CERTIFIED to WORK.
The fact that it is financially successful is because it is NOT NEEDED, and there is one born every minute.

CF said Contrary to their advertising, So-clean does NOT clean anything--it only "sanitizes" the truth is a little deeper than this, you can not sanitize bio burden (this is the crap you are afraid is in there you want to clean out). If it does not clean (and it doesn't) it can do no more than a low level sanitization. Your dishwasher would do a much better job of cleaning and sanitizing than this thing.

someone else mentioned it smells fresh, that is in the nose of the beholder. I tried one and the smell made me want to puke.

If you have the extra bucks, don't mind throwing them away and are willing to clean before you sanitize, it will probably do an OK job of sanitizing. They say this is what hospitals use. Ozone is an outlier in hospitals. There is a device from Canada that some hospitals use (although I am in different hospitals everyday and I have yet to see one so they are certainly not a standard of care). They are also very limited in that they can process. I just did a google search of the device used in hospitals and it appears they have given up on ozone by it self and now combine with vaporized hydrogen peroxide. I would not touch the soclean

Hi flightco,

Thank you for the your insightful feedbacks. The many rich diverse view points from different posters here does a great and useful job of informing and educating all of us in such a way that individuals like me can better make an informed decision based on those views. By the way, other than a dishwasher machine, baby wipes, is there a similarly competing machine up there in the market that does the job like the 'SoClean 2 CPAP Cleaner and Sanitizer'? I wish sum sung can make one if we directly contact them.

pxm0675 wrote:Thank you archangle for sharing this lifelong experience of cleaning cpap parts. I really liked that part where you say "I've been doing it for over 10 years now, with very good life on my CPAP parts". I am gong to seriously think about dishwashing the cpap parts to sanitize them. I was think that the cpap cushions are way fragile and could easily be weakened and their life shortened as a result of repeated exposure to hot water. Now I know this was a thinking based on no sound experiences. Thank you again.

Hmmm.. I've been using CPAP now for 10 years, and I rarely clean my CPAP equipment at all.

I wipe the mask daily, but never clean the hose. I empty or clean the humidity tank (only use Distilled Water), just top off every night and clean the mask and rinse out the tank perhaps every 3-4 weeks.

The ONLY germs on the the CPAP came from me, I get exposed to more germs just leaving the house. I think the SoClean is a joke and just steals money from people who would to putting it to better purposes. IMHO...

hegel wrote:Or get a So-Clean.Kills germs.\.

more accurate so-clean advertising jingle:

SO CLEAN! KILLS GERMS, LEAVES THE DIRT!

pxm0675 wrote:

archangle wrote:

chunkyfrog wrote:I suspect some dishwashers get much hotter than yours;

I doubt it. I have my water heater set as high as it will go, and use the special "NSF Sanitize" setting my dishwasher has that heats the water to 180F. I always use the sanitize setting. I try to not use the heated dry, but sometimes I forget.

Hi Archangel,

Do you also place the cushion and that sensitive silicone type material inside that 180f? if yes, for how long? Those are the parts that have my concerns as being mostly likely vulnerable to damages as a result of repeated hot water exposures. Once this happens, then they would be useless due to permitting increased air leakages during night time sleep.

Silicone is very heat resistant, not delicate at all. They make baking mats out of it that are good to 250C/485F. You can bake cookies on them. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01799K3S8/ref ... baking+mat

Note that not all silicone is the same, but most types are pretty heat resistant.

Many people put their silicone nasal pillows into boiling water with baking soda and boil for a while to rejuvinate them when they get sort of hard and yucky.

Someone claimed their mask had silicone parts that had some sort of other plastic embedded in them as part of the frame and that plastic could melt. I'd appreciate it if that person would post that info again. I've had no problem with Swift FX and ComfortGel Blue mask parts. Don't try it on anything you don't have a spare for.

archangle wrote: Someone claimed their mask had silicone parts that had some sort of other plastic embedded in them as part of the frame and that plastic could melt. I'd appreciate it if that person would post that info again.

resmed x10 series, resmed air, series for starters.

Also Wisp; someone mentioned that they boiled a cushion and the hard part warped enough
it could not be reattached. It wasn't me, but I can learn by the mistakes of others.

palerider wrote:

archangle wrote: Someone claimed their mask had silicone parts that had some sort of other plastic embedded in them as part of the frame and that plastic could melt. I'd appreciate it if that person would post that info again.

resmed x10 series, resmed air, series for starters.

Thanks. Those would bear watching. Are you saying they have embedded plastic, or that someone has reported melting them?