Mixing things with the distilled water... Good or bad?

ChinaRider · Post by **ChinaRider** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:27 am

Hey all... I have a question that I am getting different answers from depending on who I ask.

After I got my unit I've met several people locally (7) that use a CPAP that are in somewhat of a support group. A few have mentioned mixing things with the distilled water in the humidifier to make wearing the mask more pleasant. A few have never tried but say that can't imagine it being a good idea. I have not tried it yet but wanted to see what you all think.

Out of the 7 I know 4 don't mix anything. The other 3.....

- One mixes a dose of Zircam allergy nasal spray every night for his allergies. He claims between that and the HEPA filters his allergies have almost completely gone away.

- One mixes 1/2 a teaspoon of amaretto for taste. I believe it is for taste as I can't imagine getting a buzz off this small amount.

- The last is a hippy type chick and she takes various 'essences' from different flowers that she creates and mixes them in for fragrance.

The ones that do it swear by it, the ones that don't say they will never try it. What do you think?

Stay Kind,
Dana

tomjax · Post by **tomjax** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:31 am

If you do searches, you will find about a billion postings on this subject.
Best aadvice is to use distilled water only.
Medications and anything that is not volatile simply will not be carried in the vapor.
This will never prevent some to use a bit of logic and reason. but as most things based on ignorance, it may sound good, but it worthless.
Same for those who ask about sterilizing their tanks, sounds good, but pathogens cannot be spread in the water tank.

ChinaRider · Post by **ChinaRider** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 7:23 pm

I actually did a search and found many conflicting opinions so I though I would post and see if anyone had anything new. I'm heading over to the girls house tonight that makes the extract for her machine. I'm going to hook up my mask and see if the addition makes things any more pleasant. Both of the two that add stuff for flavor/scent swear by it and have been doing it for a while. The one that put nose spray in may just be feeling the benefits of the hepa filter.

I don't know about sterilizing but both my doctor and my health care provider said to clean the mask, hose, and humidifier tank with baby shampoo at pretty regular intervals.

Sleepy Dog Lover · Post by **Sleepy Dog Lover** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 8:37 pm

If you want something to make the air smell nicer, look at the essential oils thread, or check out http://www.pur-sleep.com. I think that the thread started before SleepGuy redesigned the diffuser, but they have some great smells.

Goofproof · Post by **Goofproof** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 8:51 pm

Best, use distilled water, like the manuel says.

Don't like that, use pond water, it's your body.

If you don't breath it all day, why add it all night? Jim

BTW: You save less than $1.00 a gallon using the pond water, you can save that money to repair the damage being foolish causes.

WillSucceed · Post by **WillSucceed** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 9:15 pm

I think that putting anything into the water is just flat-out unwise. I only use distilled with the exception of when I am away for one or two nights, in which case I used bottled water.

There has been lots of debate about whether or not to dump the water every day or, just top up the distilled in the tank. Strong opinion on both sides of the fence.

I talked with the respiratory medicine folks and the infection control folks at work (I'm in the CCU of a large teaching hospital) and they all said that distilled water is not sterile and, despite all of the discussion about things in water not aerosolizing into vapour, things CAN and DO grow in water that sits stagnant all day, especially if the water is warm (yes, I know, it is not warm during the day). Water in a humidifier tank can grow mold as well as other nasties that you don't want to be breathing all night.

So, do what you think is best. There are people on this forum whose opinion I really respect, who just top up the water every day; I'm glad that this works for them and I hope it keeps working.

Some folk will use the "I've been doing this for years and never had a problem so, it must be OK" argument. I hope that they don't ever have a problem but, to me, this explanation does not hold water (pardon the pun). There was a time when we said that smoking, and breathing second-hand smoke, did no harm. We know better now.

Again, do whatever you think is best. For me, it is to only use distilled water with no additives. Dump the water every morning and let the tank go dry during the day.

m1k2s3 · Post by **m1k2s3** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 9:43 pm

I only use distilled water. As I understand it, the blast of air can create a dry throat/mouth so it's only meant to provide moisture/humidity. I think adding things may not be good for your machine.

I wasn't aware of dumping the water from the tank daily. I refill the tank every other day and it never occured to me that mold could be developing in the tank - I'll have to check that out. Every day I seem to learn about CPAP, sleep apnea and treatment. But I guess the best way to manage this effectively is to arm yourself with knowledge!

ChinaRider · Post by **ChinaRider** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:33 pm

OK... So I am back from my friends house. I hooked up my mask for about 30 min and used her mix the entire time. The flavor/smell of the mix definitely came through and was very soothing and pleasant. That being said plain distilled water does not really bother me that much and if the mix can cause damage to the machine or other issues I don't think that it is worth it. While the mixture was nice I'm not really sure it was worth any possible issues.

Also, Just as a note from some comments above I was told by the doctor to use distilled water every night and empty the remaining contents of the humidifier tank every morning. Considering I can get a 2.5 gallon bottle of distilled water from the supermarket for .99 it's a no brainer to me to empty it every morning and not top it off. I was told to wash the swift mask every week with baby shampoo, the hose and humidifier tank every month.

I think I may give the essential oils a try. I really liked the fragrance of my friends mix but I don't think it is worth the possible issues. It sounds like the oil solution may be the best of both worlds.

Thanks for all the comments and support. I'm still really new to this (2-3 months in) and am just more than curious of what the possible options out there are.

Stay Kind,
Dana

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 12:08 am

can britta filtered water be used instead of distilled?

tomjax · Post by **tomjax** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 4:45 am

[quote="WillSucceed"]
I talked with the respiratory medicine folks and the infection control folks at work (I'm in the CCU of a large teaching hospital) and they all said that distilled water is not sterile and, despite all of the discussion about things in water not aerosolizing into vapour, things CAN and DO grow in water that sits stagnant all day, especially if the water is warm (yes, I know, it is not warm during the day). Water in a humidifier tank can grow mold as well as other nasties that you don't want to be breathing all night.

So, do what you think is best. There are people on this forum whose opinion I really respect, who just top up the water every day; I'm glad that this works for them and I hope it keeps working.

Some folk will use the "I've been doing this for years and never had a problem so, it must be OK" argument. I hope that they don't ever have a problem but, to me, this explanation does not hold water (pardon the pun). There was a time when we said that smoking, and breathing second-hand smoke, did no harm. We know better now.

Again, do whatever you think is best. For me, it is to only use distilled water with no additives. Dump the water every morning and let the tank go dry during the day.

WillSucceed · Post by **WillSucceed** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 6:02 am

BTW whats a CCU?

Critical Care Unit.

EVEN IF SOMETHING DOES GROW, there is no risk of a pathogen getting from the tank to the lungs.

I'm certainly not a scientist nor in any way physics-minded, this is why I asked the experts. These folk (that I talked to) spend their entire working life dealing with patients who are on ventilators/Bi-pap/CPAP, and their recommendation, without exception, is that just topping up the humidifier water day after day is unwise because stuff can grow in the water and get into your lungs. I'm not sure how you can say "there is NO RISK of a pathogen getting from the tank to the lungs."

As I said before, everybody should do whatever they feel comfortable with. For me, the combination of what the experts say and what is, to me, common sense, is to dump the water every morning so that anything growing in the tank is lessened, and does not find it's way into my lungs. Given the low cost of distilled water, I figure that this is very cheap insurance.

packer · Post by **packer** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 6:33 am

we have a reverse osmosis unit for our drinking water-
perhaps someone out there would have knowledge of how they work etc-

my thought is that RO water is super clean- wouldnt it be just as good as distilled?

thanks-- packer [ 10 days in with aflex- liking it]

higgy · Post by **higgy** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 12:14 pm

Water, a good subject.

First of all, bacteria and viruses can be atomized and inhaled, plain and simple fact.

Second RO water is very good quality water, however it does not remove everything. There are RO systems that will remove most things that can be found in total dissolved solids such as calcium etc, but not at the price or the type that you have at your home.

DI water is not, nor is it intended to be sterile, that would be sterilized water and any type of water can be sterilized by being autoclaved.

DI water is free from things that are present in your water, mostly in an ionic state prior to being distilled such as calcium, iron, mag etc. The water through boiling and being condensed does not bring those things (ions etc) over to where the water is recollected, there for it is free of TDS (total dissolved solids), this is the white or gray really hard to remove stuff left when you boil a pan dry.

You can make DI water yourself with a pan of water, a cold finger for condensing the water and a second clean vessel to catch the condensate. But for a buck a gal is not worth doing.

By the way this is why DI water is not pleasant tasting, it lacks the materials that make the flavor of water.

Keep it fresh and you will be good,

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 2:32 pm

I'll say the same thing here I did on lots of discussion threads about that "essential oil diffuser" designed for xPAP use: Inhaling anything other than air and water vapor in a closed respiration circuit for a third of your life may be a very, very bad idea in the long term. (No, it's not -nearly- the same as briefly smelling something during the day in an open-air environment). Your lungs are the highway to your bloodstream. Wherever possible (meaning aside from the unavoidable tiny amounts of inherent xPAP equipment odors) put ONLY air and water vapor (from distilled water) into your lungs in a closed circuit for a third of your life.

Think about it, and it becomes pretty clear. You don't want the possibility of nasty things happening to you 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now. There is NO long-term data on this sort of thing.

If you disagree, then go right ahead... you might make a nice datapoint for some future long-term study. Just hope that it ends up being happy data, not sad data.

Just my two cents. I'm not a healthcare professional. However, aside from people who absolutely cannot tolerate xPAP -any- other way (and even they should try alternatives other than this!), to me this whole issue appears to be common sense. Don't do it.

higgy · Post by **higgy** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 2:55 pm

Guest,

This is not a closed system, a re-breather is a closed system, this has an input and an out put for the exhaust system.

Water vapor will not carry ions, water mist will. If the humidifier is vapor a very good source of water free of volatile materials will do.

Just my 0.02

Mixing things with the distilled water... Good or bad?

Mixing things with the distilled water... Good or bad?

water

re

RE

reverse osmosis water

Humidifier

Additional Comments: My machine is a ResMed S9 Elite - Pressure is 11