Swift daily cleaning question

I just finished my sixteenth night on cpap and seem to be making slow progress. This forum is certainly helpful, however, this thread seems to be a little strange. Are some of you trying to discourage the fastidious among us?

I like my socks clean, my underwear clean, my shirt clean, my pants clean, my tie clean and my jacket clean. I sure as heck will do a thorough job cleaning my cpap equipment each morning!! As we say here, “Live Free or Die”, so continue as you please.

The wife and I wash ours daily, in warm soapy water. Washing is really more
like putting the tube, mouthpiece and slide in soapy water. No scrubbing, just
running warm soapy water through it.

Then I rinse it good. Let it dry on a soft towel and use it again. For my
personal tastes, I like to clean it.

If someone doesn't want to clean it...their business. I asked the tech about
"wearing it out" and he said he had never heard of it.

I don't clean my Swift every day, but I have found that cleaning the pillows every couple of days provides a better seal. For me, this may be due to the fact that even at my age (but I'm not telling) I still have oily skin.

Also, some people are unsymptomatic carriers of the Staph germ in their noses. This can be spread to other parts of the body, particularly if there is an open sore or cut. So good handwashing after handling the pillows is a must.

Michael,

I don't think the point is not to encourage or discourage people from cleaning their CPAP and interfaces.

The questions was: do you have to clean and how often. And it seems that there are a number of us that do quite well without doing a daily clean and we have our opinions on it, and a good number who do clean daily, weekly cleaning or otherwise some other interval and also have their opinions.

It was asked on this thread what is necessary. One can read the CYA manufacturers manual and see that they say to clean daily. But why ask the question if the poster just wanted to read the manual and didn't want to know what others are doing?

Since the question was asked, and there are may different opinions, all of us who were interested invoiced our opinions, which is what I think was asked in this thread.

By all means clean yours however much you want in New Hampshire.

And by the way, even though I don't see much point in cleaning my interface daily, I also enjoy clean underware and socks, in fact sometimes in hot weather 2 or 3 times a day (not including the change before I go to bed which is absolutely required. On the other hand, I don't spend a great deal of time washing my kitchen floor. I assume someone will just walk on it with dirty shoes. All personal taste. I know some will be horrified at the kitchen floor but so be it.

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MichaelR NH wrote:Are some of you trying to discourage the fastidious among us?

Sorry, but IMO, that's a really silly question. Why would you care if they were? Be as fastidious as you wish.

Some folks are concerned about wearing out the interface by disassembling and reassembling it frequently.

Other folks are concerned about affecting the flexibility and seal of various components by using various cleaning methods.

I am commenting again because I think this is one of those things that is just different from person to person and there is no "one right way". Whatever works for you - "works for you".

I go back and forth with cleaning. As I said earlier, the seal is much better when I wipe or clean the part of the interface that is responsible for the seal. With the Swift I spray the barrel inside and out with the Vinegar/water mix, wipe the pillows, rinse and let it air dry. It works fine for me. I wash the headgear every 2-3 weeks or so but I don't wear the interface every single night so it probably amounts to about once every 1-2 weeks. I have gone along with RG and others on the humidifier. I am putting distilled water in and it is in a relatively clean environment so it gets topped off every night and it gets cleaned once a week at most. Like Bill, I pull the card on the unit and run it to air dry the heated hose thoroughly about once a week and rinse it every 2-3 weeks. Filter gets washed every week or so. Fine filter gets replaced every month or so.

David

Put me in the super slob column.
There are clear cases of bacteria control being important like hospitals.

There are lots of people who are bacteriophobes like Howard Hughes.

The truth is that in our cases, the problem is virtually nil.
I clean mine every 3 to 4 months or when things start crawling up my nose.

I also do not boil my nose and mouth very often either.
If a person feels better obsessively cleaning masks, that is ok with me.

E- coli if virtually always related to fecal matter. Wash hands thoroughly in bathroom. My mask is rarely in this area.

But then, some peoople need to have things to obsess over.