Posted by Victor (24.240.219.36) on November 27, 2001 at 10:14:52:
In Reply to: Hello, I tried the Oxygen.... posted by Eric on November 27, 2001 at 01:22:14:
cost $5.25 ea at my local medical supply center and is identified by a larger plastic bag hanging from the full face mask. It has three check valves, one for the bag, and two on each side of the mask. The ones on the side of the mask usually only come with one check valve installed, but I swipe another from another mask and use both, just a white rubber disk that snaps in.The oxygen fills the bag which is a lung full so when you inhale, all the oxygen comes from the bag, inhaling closes the mask valves. Exhaling shuts off the bag check valve where it's filled again with oxygen and outlets through the side check valves.While there appears to be an ungoing debate about the effectiveness of O2 concentrators, after getting a contaminated tank and the pure hell that went with it, I love my Invocare 5. But much can be said about what kind of worn out box you will get from a medical supply house maintained by some high school kid. While my health insurance covers the machine rental, I elected to buy my own with spare parts and maintenance manual. My machine is sugerically clean, uses tripple filtration and is important enough for me to learn how it works and the proper maintainance, such as changin the filters every six months that medical supply houses seem to forget. I also invested in a Bio-Tech % oxygen meter so I can eye it's performance. The activated carbon filters do wear out. I also use micron filters in my home HVAC system to insure the quality of the air going into the machine is clean to start with.I hold the check valve to the bag closed with my fingers to fill the bag, put on the mask and breathe in the full bag and hold it in my lungs for 20 seconds. It takes time for the oxygen to penetrate the lungs, exhale and repeat the sequence. Concentrating on breathing and the flow of oxygen helps a little to take my mind off the pain, and yes, that mean railroad spike hurts like hell. I also have a humifier attached to my machine that I fill only with distilled water, sure in the hell don't want to suck in chlorine fumes from the city water supply.I get 97% O2 set at F lpm, drops to 92% with the flow rate meter pegged, I am guessing at 8 lpm. But as I mentioned with the double check valve in the mask, holding the O2 in your lungs, it works great.I think anyone on this board that thinks they are getting better air from a tank has their heads in the sand, you don't know what the hell they are putting in that tank, how filthy the connecting hoses are, and think if they visited their welding shop, may be in for a strong education. O2 there is used for burning and no medical requirements are met. Been using a concenstrator for 15 years now with excellent results, but have to add that some of the rentals were shit, so don't blame the concenstrator, blame the greediness of the medical supply house.