Camping out with a CPAP (experience)

What have you found works when Camping out with your CPAP machine.

Well after getting my machine just before Christmas I have become a believer!
I went through the adjustment of my face toughening up to take the mask.
I purchased a hose snuggie in January for my birthday to stop all the rain out and waking up to something like a loud Bong sound.
I couldn't imagine not using it to sleep, so when the Daytona 500 came along and I was headed there to camp out at the state park at a site with electric of course i took my CPAP machine along.
No problem right!?

I purchased a 25 ft orange outdoor heavy duty extension cord.
I made up my North Face VE-25 tent and then broke out my CPAP machine and leveled it out and strapped on and bivied in for a long nights sleep.
Well it was cold out and I did have the tent zip door open a little with the mesh bug screen up.
Can you guess what happens when you use a hummidifier in a nylon tent while it's 35 F ouside.
Well Rain Out in the tube at night was bad, Rain Out in your tent at night is worse!
I woke up with the inside covered in water drops, and everything nice and moist if not damp.
The next night I braved the 34F night with the zippers down and it was a little bit better.
This is Florida and it is not supposed to be near freezing, so I headed down to Key West to camp the rest of the week.
Of course Key west was full of Canadians and sane people escaping from the bitter cold of the North.
So I was without power and my CPAP for the rest of the week. It is amazing to me how hard it is to sleep without the machine now and every time I had a shot of adrenalin wake me up knowing what it was made it just horrific. Ignorance is bliss.
After 8 days off the machine I was back to fatigued, tired, and delirious.
I was so happy to get back to a real bed and I strapped on my machine and slept the first two nights straight thru for the first time in a long time.
Even sleeping in a Rain Out tent with CPAP was better than a night without it.

So how about your camping experiences?

What a great story, but being that I just got mine on the 19 th I would never ever go without him again!!!
I am having too many problems as it is!!

Still a coool story, I would make sure it was warm where I was going, I can't buy one of theses!

Debbie

nursedeborah wrote:What a great story, but being that I just got mine on the 19 th I would never ever go without him again!!!
I am having too many problems as it is!!

Still a coool story, I would make sure it was warm where I was going, I can't buy one of theses!

Debbie

aah hah yours is a HE...lol

JohnnyBSurfing wrote:...
Well it was cold out and I did have the tent zip door open a little with the mesh bug screen up.
Can you guess what happens when you use a hummidifier in a nylon tent while it's 35 F ouside.
Well Rain Out in the tube at night was bad, Rain Out in your tent at night is worse!
I woke up with the inside covered in water drops, and everything nice and moist if not damp.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Wet tents suck! I wonder how it would be to go without a humidifier under similar circumstances. Decent humidification is difficult at that temperature anyway, eh?

JohnnyBSurfing wrote:So how about your camping experiences?

Have cpap, will travel.

viewtopic/t49665/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=43783

carbonman wrote:

JohnnyBSurfing wrote:So how about your camping experiences?

Have cpap, will travel.

viewtopic/t49665/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=43783

It looks like you've changed to an S8 Autoset since then.
How would you compare the noise of the S8 to the M-Series?
Did you get the inverter for it?

DreamDiver wrote: It looks like you've changed to an S8 Autoset since then.
How would you compare the noise of the S8 to the M-Series?
Did you get the inverter for it?

Yes, I came out of the dark side of the closet.
I am now Resmedman.

There is no comparison of noise.
The Mseries is, the Resmed is not.

No inverter, yet. If I need to run on battery, I will
get the Mseries out.....the Brick needs love too....
once in awhile.

I'm an avid whitewater rafter and hang out in hunting camps through the fall for 2-3 weeks. I was also a first night convert and believer in CPAP. By the first float trip I went out and bought a full 24 group dry cell deep cycle battery to support my machine. That's the car sized chunk of lead!! I've carried a smaller battery and solar panel to support camera batteries since a Grand Canyon 21 day trip in 2002. Now all I did was adapt the female cigarette lighter with a fuse to protect my CPAP. I've learned that my old Respironics Pro 2 would run for 4-5 nights with no recharge. Score!! Of course it wouldn't take the humidifier, but that's not the end of the world for me. I look forward to my new M series which runs the humidity on 12V. I'll have to relearn the duration for my battery. I carry the whole works in a 20mm rocket box for durability and water resistance. It does make you set up your "nest" each night as close to the boat as you can. That battery is HEAVY!!! I mastered setting up my cot ON my boat last year. SCORE again!!

Probably my most memorable night was when learning I have way too much woodstove for a tent that is usually a kitchen tent, that I was using for sleeping quarters. I had loaded the stove too heavy late in the evening. After I was in bed, the air got way too hot and hurt my nasal passages. I thought maybe I'd move the box from the head of my cot around to my side, next to the tent wall. The steel ammo box was too hot to touch!!!! It was sitting a foot from the stove. I don't want to think of what could have happened to the battery and subsequently us in the tent.

When I camp without heaters in tents, the same rule applies to people fighting rain out at home in a cool room. I set up my CPAP as close to my head as I can, but lower than my head. I keep as much of the hose in the sleeping bag as I can. In fact, I celebrate my CPAP in cold weather realizing I can bury as far in my bag as I can. You're gonna get the same air whether I'm half way down my oversized bag or my head is sticking out!!

Right now, I can hardly wait to put this all in practice!!!! I'm tired of winter!!
Kelvin