PurSleep Product Safety

Thank you, Deb. Looks like you're our living spirometer at this point.

O.

So many things to respond to....

The Merck article about environmental lung disease does not mention essential oils as a pollutant which can cause ELD. Furthermore, I've not seen essential oils considered to be pollutants in any documents I've read. Of course, I haven't read everything...so if credible information is out there, I'd like to see it. But this particular article isn't relevant to the issue...

Someone mentioned commercial air fresheners like Glade. Because the formulas for commercially produced air fresheners are considered proprietary, the ingredients are not listed on the packages. I've read about reverse engineering of the products by university researchers. Those researchers have stated that if the ingredients were listed, we would not be allowed to throw them away in normal trash because they contain things that most communities require be disposed of as hazardous waste. I have stayed away from all commercial air fresheners since and my asthma/reactive airway disorder is better for it.

If someone has an allergy to one of the essential oils, of course they shouldn't use it since it will trigger the allergic reaction.

The two issues I can find having to do with safety of essential oils is contact with skin and ingestion. I can find no studies having to do with inhaling essential oils. I did find several safety recommendations for using essential oils as inhalants and those are to keep the oil source about 12 inches from your nose. In keeping with that recommendation, I have placed my lavender oil about a foot away from my xPAP's air intake.

I have been diagnosed with both asthma and reactive airway disorder (although my pulmonologist says it's all considered asthma now, regardless of cause - it used to be that if you had an allergy to something that could be tested for, you had asthma and if you didn't you had reactive airway disorder). Neither PurSleep oils nor other essential oils cause me any lung problems.

There are so many other things to be worried about in the world...I'm not sure this one is really so important as to be high on anyone's list. If you're worried about it, then don't use it and you don't have to worry....

Bert_Mathews wrote: Finally "COMMON SENSE" - - - - Thank You!

I'm sure the FEW that are PARANOID about almost ANYTHING should avoid Computers.... The Electromagnetic Ray produced by the screens is MORE dangerous than NOT using distilled water or AROMA THERAPY
BERT

Well, I'm not too worried anyway....I'm going to get a brain tumor because I leave my bluetooth in my ear all the time...

I love pursleep. I use it every night and I find that the relaxing scents usually dissipate after two to three hours. Just enough to help me relax and fall asleep. I agree with deb that if you have lung/breathing problems use it very sparingly or try it first and if you don't need it, don't use it. Just my two cents. Everyone has to find what works for them. I feel bad for the people that have legitimately been exposed to very toxic chemicals through work etc and are now having permanent problems but I do believe that pursleep is harmless considering everything else that we are exposed to everyday. If you listen to the news, media, health news, you could technically be afraid of everything from the air we breathe to live to whether margarine or butter is worse for you. Hope that helps.

Maria

CorgiGirl wrote:The Merck article about environmental lung disease does not mention essential oils as a pollutant which can cause ELD.

Gas and chemical toxicity.

Rather than searching for the "politically correct" "Essential Oils", research the more scientifically-appropriate "Volatile Oils", as in

Materia Medica Pharmacy, Pharmacology And Therapeutics by W. Hale White

Group VI. Volatile Oils
These, when applied externally, stimulate the skin, and thus cause redness, sometimes even vesication, tingling, and subsequent numbness. Taken internally, they stimulate the gastro-inteslinal tract, increasing its vascularity, the flow of saliva, of gastric juice, and of succus entericus; and they excite its unstriped muscular fibres. Thus in moderate doses they are stomachics and carminatives; in large doses they are gastro-intestinal irritants. Their irritation of the stomach reflexly stimulates the heart and the central nervous system. They are absorbed and excreted by the skin, which they may thus irritate, and by the bronchial mucous membrane, while they consequently stimulate, increasing the amount of secretion from it, its vascularity, the expulsive power of its unstriped muscles, and reflexly this irritation leads to coughing; consequently they are expectorants, although they may later limit the amount of secretion formed.

The concern over long-term and inappropriate use of EO or VO is not because of a "side effect"-- this irritation is the effect by design. Looking at the chemical composition, which includes terpenes, alcohols, esters, aldehydes, ketones and phenols, at least 2 of them (phenols and terpenes) are significant mucous membrane irritants.

Aromatherapy done appropriately has great potential. But there is a point where the permissable exposure limit (determined by concentration and time) will be exceeded. Given the number of variables, no one knows that answer now. I mean, is it potentially harmful to have the dish in front of the intake, but a foot away is OK? Is lavender safe, but something else creates problems? Do phenol- and terpene-rich EOs have a greater risk? Does heated humidity change EO deposition in the lung? Does driving pressure have an effect?

Again, looking at those test parameters may offer significant insight to these questions.

SAG

rooster wrote:I have never been a fan of EOs. Until now! They kill cats! Good stuff!

Birds are well known for being sensitive to scents and particles in the air, and essential oils are no different. Gillian Willis, a toxicologist in Vancouver, has seen many cases of avian poisoning, including a well-meaning cockatiel owner who, upon seeing an abrasion on her bird's foot, applied a drop of Tea Tree oil. The bird became depressed and even with veterinary intervention, died within 24 hours of respiratory failure. Even diffusing oils around a bird can produce dire consequences.

Birds Go Too!

For those not privy to the inside joke:

The Lavender Cat

(AKA The Terpenoids Strike Again!)

SAG

Since when is the physiology of cats an birds considered the equivalent of human physiology?

You'll notice, it was the bird that died of respiratory failure, and not the human who applied the oil. Those links are irrelevant to the question of how much of Pur-Sleep's oils enters the lungs when used as instructed, and what happens to human beings once those oils have entered their lungs int that amount.

I seems to me that when discussing the human aspect of it, the most SAG can say is

"the permissable exposure limit (determined by concentration and time) will be exceeded. Given the number of variables, no one knows that answer now. I mean, is it potentially harmful to have the dish in front of the intake, but a foot away is OK? Is lavender safe, but something else creates problems? Do phenol- and terpene-rich EOs have a greater risk? Does heated humidity change EO deposition in the lung? Does driving pressure have an effect?"

It seems to me that the number of variables can be cut down by looking at the basics: what is it that goes into the lungs when we breathe Pur-Sleep.
So let's get back to basics: Does anyone know - empirically or analytically how much EOs come of the mask when Pur-Sleep is used as instructed? We've got two members with highly sensitive lungs informing us at this point that they enjoy some of the oils. In other words, some Volatile Oils, breathed in through CPAP do not behave as irritants.

Does anyone have info about lung disease about people who give EO massages? They must be breathing a lot of the stuff, in higher concentration than the few drops we use in Pur-Sleep.

Does anyone know of any grounds to assume the human body cannot metabolize the EO in Pur-Sleep safely and get rid of the metabolites properly?
Suppose you to ask for a research grant in order to check if EO's accumulated in the lung - would knowledgeable people treat the possibility of accumulation seriously? Or would the point out the size of the molecules?

O.
By the way, SAG, Google's spell check says it should be "permissible"...

ozij wrote:It seems to me that the number of variables can be cut down by looking at the basics: what is it that goes into the lungs when we breathe Pur-Sleep. So let's get back to basics: Does anyone know - empirically or analytically how much EOs come of the mask when Pur-Sleep is used as instructed? We've got two members with highly sensitive lungs informing us at this point that they enjoy some of the oils. In other words, some Volatile Oils, breathed in through CPAP do not behave as irritants.

Does anyone have info about lung disease about people who give EO massages? They must be breathing a lot of the stuff, in higher concentration than the few drops we use in Pur-Sleep.

Does anyone know of any grounds to assume the human body cannot metabolize the EO in Pur-Sleep safely and get rid of the metabolites properly?
Suppose you to ask for a research grant in order to check if EO's accumulated in the lung - would knowledgeable people treat the possibility of accumulation seriously? Or would the point out the size of the molecules?

O.

O, you sure know how to get back to the point. One bit of information that you may find helpful was presented by Tisserand:

In general, toxicity is dose-dependent. The greater the amount of essential oil applied, the greater the risk of harm being caused; the less used, the smaller the risk. . . . The degree of toxicity depends, to some extent, on the route of application, and oral administration of essential oils carries the highest practical risk, especially if the oils are taken undiluted.

Tisserand and Balacs, Essential Oil Safety, Churchill Livingstone (1995), p. 11.

In order to provide a degree of safety in their assessment of essential oil safety, Tisserand and Balacs focus on ingestion because that exposure pathway delivers a slug of essential oil molecules right to the body and represents the highest risk scenario. Other methods, such as inhalation, would result in less exposure over a logner period of time, providing the body more time to metabolize the dose. So rather than being a risk factor, the diffusion method (small amounts over a long period of time) actually presents fewer risks than ingestion (from a toxicological standpoint). There is another discussion about inhalation where Tisserand explains quite clearly that essential oils are readily passed into the bloodstream through lung tissue (I'll look for that so I can quote it). Anyway, this might at least answer part of your question.

So much for staying on task: I just went to my local gym and spent about 20 minutes in the steam room, inhaling copious amounts of some kind of Vics-camphor-menthol-eucalyptus kind of stuff--in STEAM--and it made me wonder whether it was damaging my lungs. And then I got to thinking about all of the Vics products. And that reminded me of the Vaseline thread. So with Vics we have a 100 year old product that is nothing more than petroleum jelly mixed with copious amounts of camphor, menthol, and eucalyptus essential oils.

And millions of well-meaning, caring mothers worldwide spread gobs of that stuff all over their babies' noses, faces, and chests when they are sick so their kid can breathe copious amounts of rather strong essential oils AND petroleum jelly right into their lungs ALL NIGHT. And by the way, camphor is very strong stuff--Tisserand has some concerns about its use (and it's not on the GRAS list).

So talk about a quadrouple-whammy: essential oils, including camphor, mixed with hot petroleum jelly slathered all over sick kids' faces, noses, and chests to be inhaled all night. And we're talking about children--not adults. That's pretty close to Tweety Bird if you ask me. Or your cat.

So then I did a search to find whether there was any thread about the safety of VICS products and to my utter amazement, there is nothing.

So it made me wonder, how do those VICS people get away with it?

Thank you for the relevant info, SleepGuy - and I will be glad to read more when you have the time to look for it and post it.

O.

SleepGuy wrote: So talk about a quadrouple-whammy: essential oils, including camphor, mixed with hot petroleum jelly slathered all over sick kids' faces, noses, and chests to be inhaled all night. And we're talking about children--not adults. That's pretty close to Tweety Bird if you ask me. Or your cat.

So then I did a search to find whether there was any thread about the safety of VICS products and to my utter amazement, there is nothing.

So it made me wonder, how do those VICS people get away with it?

AHH, good old Vicks Vapor Rub.....wonderful stuff....strong fumes.....had it slathered on me often....I slathered it on MY kids.......I still use it once in a while.....AND
I'm still alive and kicking.

what about Bengay?? It's pretty strong, too. Lots of other stuff we use gives off lots and lots of molecules. I'd be more concerned about breathing the fumes from exhaust pipes, factories, etc. I have COPD, didn't get that from Vicks or Bengay. I smoke.

PurSleep is great, I like it, I use it, I'm gonna keep using it. There are many other more pressing things to worry about than some good smellin' oils, folks.

My 2 cents. Sleep well, I will.

Nancy in AZ

That's it.

I've got the best idea yet.

Forget all of the fancy diffusion devices and the pure essential oils.

I'm going to redesign the WHOLE product line and COPY Vics:

Three percent essential oil in a petroleum jelly base that the CPAP patient slathers on his or her upper lip prior to using CPAP.

With crude oil at $40 a barrel, petrolatum is practically FREE and only three percent essential oil (maybe I could get away with 1.5 percent?)--the margins make my head spin! I could sell a whole bottle of that stuff for $10 and still make a fortune.

Of course people who use nasal pillows might have problems . . . unless . . . yes, that's it . . . I could claim that the petroleum jelly actually helps keep things sealed up. That's the ticket. Aromatic CPAP Seal Ointment. Stops leaks and makes your CPAP smell good--at the same time. I could probably get a patent on that, too.

Folks, come right on up here and take a looksie at my brand new, PATENTED Aromatic CPAP Seal Ointment . . . . It will cure almost anything that ails ya. Just don't put any on Tweety Bird or let the cat eat it.

ozij wrote:By the way, SAG, Google's spell check says it should be "permissible"...

Good find there o., you old (I mean "young") detective you.

However, I did say, "run Spell Check", not "spell it correctly", and the Spell Check let it slide.

ozij wrote:Since when is the physiology of cats an birds considered the equivalent of human physiology?

Also fish:

Fish cannot tolerate oils or floral waters. The oils, not being water-soluble, would end up sticking to the fish, causing a host of problems, up to and many times, including death.

Nature News

osij wrote:You'll notice, it was the bird that died of respiratory failure, and not the human who applied the oil. Those links are irrelevant to the question of how much of Pur-Sleep's oils enters the lungs when used as instructed, and what happens to human beings once those oils have entered their lungs int that amount.

You're a hard woman, there, o.! Me, I'd get a little concerned if, after leaving a "PurSleep Sampler Pak" open in the Pet Shoppe overnight, I came back in the morning and it looked like the Battle of Armageddon!

ozij wrote:Does anyone know of any grounds to assume the human body cannot metabolize the EO in Pur-Sleep safely and get rid of the metabolites properly? Suppose you to ask for a research grant in order to check if EO's accumulated in the lung - would knowledgeable people treat the possibility of accumulation seriously? Or would the point out the size of the molecules?

The issue with EO inhalation in this manner, as I see it, is not the same as exogenous lipoid pneumonia, namely particle deposition, but rather reaction to a chemical (terpenes, alcohols, esters, aldehydes, ketones and/or phenols).

ozij wrote:We've got two members with highly sensitive lungs informing us at this point that they enjoy some of the oils. In other words, some Volatile Oils, breathed in through CPAP do not behave as irritants.

C'mon o., I know you're a better scientist than that. While some patients may have allergies (immediate effect) or develop sensitivities (days, weeks, etc.), l said:

SAG wrote:How long do you think it will take for interstitial lung changes to appear?
That's hard to say, but I think I'd be looking at about 5 years. It would be very helpful to get baseline Complete Pulmonary Function Tests (with Diffusion) and Chest X-Ray to accurately monitor this.

Since this thread kinda started in the middle of things, let me repost comment from the other thread:

SAG wrote:I have been in discussion with an Integrative Medicine Health Care Professional who is Certified in Aromatherapy. I asked them if they considered the PurSleep System as discussed on this board represented a safe route of administration and dosage approach to aromatherapy. They in turn posed the question to their mentors and contacts. The answer that I received was that it was not a recommended nor appropriate approach to aromatherapy. However, at least some of that reply is simply based on the lack of current evidence, pro- or con-, of the long term use of inhalational oils.

While it has been noted before that many of these essential oils have been used for years in alternative medicine, it should also be noted that the route of administration and duration of exposure of the PurSleep system has not been examined carefully for the possibility of untoward side effects. For instance, in the oft-quoted Goel study on the effect of inhaled lavender on sleep, study participants only had 8 minutes of contact time. Should Goel then be used to justify used EO inhalation of 400+ minutes?

At this point, given that there are a number of members who may be considered "long-term" users (12 to 18 months) of this product representing "prolonged exposure", I would like to know if anyone has pre- and post-EO exposure data on the following.

1. Change in oximetry trend (mean reading during night, spot check during day). Baseline and follow-ups may be obtained from original PSGs, serial PSGs and/or self-monitoring.
2. Change in screening spirometry values.
3. Change in complete Pulmonary Function Testing (PFT) values, particularly diffusion.
4. Symptomatic change in pulmonary function, as in decreased ability of aerobic exercise or increased shortness of breath on exertion.
5. Change in Liver Function Testing (LFT) results.
6. Unexplained significant illness or death of a pet that may have been exposed to essential oils, especially Liver Failure in Cats because no matter what that boy says about safety it ain't:

EO administration in this manner wasn't tested for safety by the FDA because it didn't need to be. If we can get data from frequent users over a period of time, this will help answer the safety question. Also, because of the wide variability of the composition of EOs, some may be more harmful than others. All EOs are not safe:

A Brief Safety Guidance

and at this point, no one can say the list is complete, especially if you add the confounding factor of concentrated EO under pressure.

SleepGuy wrote:Three percent essential oil in a petroleum jelly base that the CPAP patient slathers on his or her upper lip prior to using CPAP.

Great idea! Do that for 5 years, and we'll have documentation of the long-term incidence of inhalational lung injury and exogenous lipoid pneumonia!

SAG

PS: If there are EO users out there who have experienced untoward effects using EOs, but are afraid to post for fear of reprisal, they should at least report it to NAHA using the following form:

Essential Oil Reaction Report Form

Aromatherapy can be very beneficial, but again, must be done safely and properly.

Wait a minute, an idea just hit me....

Essential oils and toxicity to birds...

SAG and his woodpecker problem...

I wonder if that woodpecker is on CPAP...

SAG

StillAnotherGuest wrote:Wait a minute, an idea just hit me....

Essential oils and toxicity to birds...

SAG and his woodpecker problem...

I wonder if that woodpecker is on CPAP...

SAG

Put it in the bird bath.
Or on the food.
But be careful when you handle it...

SAG wrote: Also, because of the wide variability of the composition of EOs, some may be more harmful than others. All EOs are not safe:

No argument about that from anyone:

Pur-Sleep wrote: http://www.pur-sleep.com/content/?page=3&pg=1#cp_3_1
We use only those essential oils that are found on the essential oil “Generally Recognized as Safe” for human consumption (“GRAS”) list maintained by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found in the official Code of Federal Regulations, 21 C.F.R. Section 582.20.

I don't have pets to worry about, SAG. But even if I did, my health would come first.
As I noted on that other thread:
Mainstream medication is dose dependent. And the dosage depends on your weight. No sane person would give their year old granddaughter their own antibiotics - and that in and of itself does not mean antibiotics should not be taken.

You're a hard woman, there, o.! Me, I'd get a little concerned if, after leaving a "PurSleep Sampler Pak" open in the Pet Shoppe overnight, I came back in the morning and it looked like the Battle of Armageddon!

Well, SAG, I pretty sure that when you have a medicine bottle - or cleaning liquid, or bleach - that says "keep of the reach children" you do just that, and do not leave the stuff lying about to see what happens. Kids drinking what they shouldn't are in great danger, same for taking grandpa's medicine... I get very concerned when people ignore "keep out the reach of children" warnings. I get concerned for the kids - and I have no doubt you're very careful. Why not do the same for pets?

We are discussing 2-5 drops, of specific EO (not all of them) that get soaked into the pad, and are then picked up by the cpap.

As for allergies: some people can develop them to some things - does that mean others should not use them?

...but rather reaction to a chemical (terpenes, alcohols, esters, aldehydes, ketones and/or phenols).

Ok. Which of these chemical exists only in EO's and in nothing else we may inhale? What is the known dangerous percentage of them - and what is their percentage in the air supplied by a CPAP machine with Pur-Sleep used according to instructions? What is the percentage after 2 hours? 4 hours? 6 hours?

I'm sure you know that some people are given the recommendation to drink a glass of red wine daily (that's alcohol, and some of those other chemicals) while others develop liver cirrhosis because they drink too much alcohol.

O.

I see several things being brought up in this thread.

Some people are trying to compare petrochemical “scents” with natural oil “scents”. The glade products are petrochemicals and are very toxic.

Deb, it sounds like you have Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (aka Environmental Illness). I found that further exposures to things made me even sicker over time and I was never able to recover completely for a “big” exposure. My list of things I can react to is more than just petrochemicals.

When I bought this house 5 years ago I had propane taken out of it in part because of the “odor” they put in propane to make people aware of leaks. I also was on oxygen at the time and felt that having an open flame and O2 in the house at the same time wasn’t a great idea. There was a vent less propane fireplace here.

Maria, yes we are exposed to things everyday. What you are exposed to would probably kill me. I live as close to the ocean as I could afford to get clean air. Even then, I have problems here.

Exposures at work to all kinds of things led to other demises so that I was no longer able to work and they gave up on ADA accommodations and said, bye bye. Of course, they weren’t good at implementing what they said they would do anyhow.

A “safe” mosquito spray by the city landed me in the hospital for 5 days one summer. I asked my doc how sick I was, he answered very sick. So I had to rephrase the question to “how close to death was I?” He answered about half a day.

My liver isn’t very great; it never was with my first round of hepatitis as a toddler. I can’t detox a lot of things very well. I am probably the extreme case, but I can’t handle the petrochemicals and I sure can’t handle a lot of essential oil exposure either.

If someone wants to take the risk and expose themselves to things, they are free to do so, but they need to be aware that they can end up pretty bad off. It might be safe for the masses; might not. Just don’t tell me this stuff is safe because you so far have found it safe.