CPAP-Reviews

Sunday is usually the night that it is most difficult for me to get to sleep. Maybe it’s the stress of the work week ahead, or maybe this light insomnia simply marks the end of a really relaxing weekend. In any event, as I’m slowly drifting off into sleep with my CPAP mask on, I hear a loud squeal or squeak of air shoot out of one of the cracks of the CPAP mask. Of course this loud burst of air was only heard at that oh so special moment of time right when I’m just about to fall to sleep; not a second before. So I just shrug it off and try again. But alas the same sound squeaks out and wakes me up again!

The squeaky sound was familiar-it was the sound that is made when the plastic parts swivel and touch other plastic parts. For some reason this sound is more prevalent at certain times, like right before falling asleep. Thoroughly annoyed, I went over the possible lubricants in my head: oil, cooking spray, or soap. I recently started using Dr. Bronner’s Castile liquid soap to replace my old Dove soap to ease my eczema itching and I noticed that it is very interesting stuff. It is very slippery and soapy so I took a toothpick and put 1-2 drops on each connector of the mask where plastic to plastic action occurs. The difference is immediately apparent since twisting of the CPAP mask connectors before applying the lubrication resulted in a somewhat quieter although similar toned squeak. End result: the sound of air escaping out of the tiny cracks of the mask disappeared and I was off to sleep another night.

I am currently using a Fisher Paykel FlexiFit 405 nasal CPAP mask which is also used for BIPAP. Here are the two spots that I oiled up:

I have used a drop of cooking oil in the past to solve this problem of the sound air escaping out of the plastic connectors of the CPAP mask however I figured since I have this great smelling Dr Bronners Castile soap then I might as well give it a shot. If it didn’t work I could have simply rinsed it off and used another lubricant. More to come on eczema treatment.

Long term CPAP therapy produces numerous benefits for both the Sleep Apnea patient as well as their significant other. While the other person in bed might be sleeping better with the CPAP equipment preventing snoring, they may find the abundance of bedside paraphernalia unsightly. To keep things under control it’s helpful to corral everything into a proper box or container. Here is a shot of the all of the stuff next to the bed: CPAP machine, CPAP mask, CPAP tubing, and additional silicone seals for the mask.

A huge mess indeed. Now let’s dump all of this medical equipment into a box and things are starting to look much better:

This box was a sufficient solution for a few months but when we recently purchased a storage bed we noticed a great benefit: we could just shove everything into one of the drawers. Take a look at it now:

The finished product is a clean bedroom no evidence of any CPAP equipment! Let’s close that drawer:

The storage bed is from West Elm. The cool thing about the full size bed is that you can actually fit a queen mattress on it if space is tight. The West Elm store actually had this queen mattress/full size storage bed on display. The mattress and the edges of the bed end up being flush and the ledge disappears.