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Just heard from a sleep tech that her sleep center, located within a  highly prestigious hospital in one of America's largest and most affluent metropolitan centers, fills patients humidifiers with tap water on CPAP titrations.  furthermore, a 7 year-old child contracted Legionnaires Disease and died from being titrated with a CPAP humidifier filled with tap water.

Make sure you insist on distilled or reverse osmosis/ purified bottled water for your CPAP titrations in the sleep center.  The life you save may be your own.

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I use reverse osmosis-filtered water (I have my own RO system). Tap water can contain many 'contaminants' - bacteria, minerals and chlorine among them. There was a comment about UK vs US water - I am from Vancouver, where the water is extremely soft (no minerals) and chlorinated to kill the bugs - but even there the sleep docs told my Mom to use distilled water. I now live in Northern California, and I would never use the tap water directly.

Boiling water for at least 10 minutes - at sea level - will kill most bugs, but does not remove minerals or other non-living contaminants (like the stuff from a local disk drive plant that used to be near my home!). I'm surprised that distilled water is so hard to get int the UK - in the US and Canada it's found in just about every food and drug (chemists) store, but I looked at the Tesco and Boots web sites - nothing!

Water distillers are available on amazon.co.uk, but they aren't cheap (150+ pounds). If I were in the UK, I'd be comparing the cost of electricity for a distiller vs. the cost of water for an RO system - they use extra water to back flush - get a high-efficiency unit to keep these costs down. Decent RO systems are in the same price range as the distillers. I have a four-stage Watts Premiere unit, and recently received the high-efficiency adapter (which I need to install - water isn't cheap here either - and shouldn't be wasted!).

I would not use tap water - even when I go home to Vancouver, I still use distilled of RO water. Considering the health issues, I wouldn't take chances with tap water.

Mike, with all due respect, while your message is a good one, that yes, we should all be using distilled water, not tap, in our humidifier, i can't help but think your story is apocryphal.

Something like this would (should?) have been all over that center's local news and there would be no need to keep the name of this center anonymous. A 7 year old boy contracting Legionnaire's disease because the wrong type of water was used in a sleep study? Forget local news, this would have been national!

But like I said, your message is a good one and that one should be very careful about the quality of water one puts into his/her humidifier.

I had the exact opposite experience. I was told by the DME to use only distilled while sleeping but use tap to wash. Didn't work; the tank built up all sort of gunk in the tank. I sure wouldn't want the "gunk" in my lungs. Now I wash the tank with a few drops of baby shampoo, rinse with tap, and do a final rinse with distilled to get rid of the tap water.

ZolliStar said:

      When a tech came to my home from my DME to teach me how to use my CPAP, he told me that I could use tap water.

      I'm not sure where I found out that I should use distilled water only, but I did. I called the tech and advised him that one should never use tap water.

      I wonder if that tech still tells people that it's acceptable to use tap water....

     

Well, Legionnaires for one is a good reason to use distilled instead of tap.

Rita Butler said:

I never knew you had to use distilled water until I read it here.  As of a week ago, I was using tap water because the tech from my medical product company said I didn't need to use anything else.  I used the tap water for over a month.  Yeech!!

Now that I know better I'm curious to know what is wrong with using regular tap water?
 
Mary Z said:

Yes, during one of my sleep studies the tech used water from the tap.  I was too stupid to comment.  She also wired me up incorrectly  and the sleep center only had one TV remote to share between four patients.  It was owned by my former doctor who was clearly interested in it for the money.  I know better than using tap water and didn't speak up.  Can you imagine what happens with those who do not know any better?  A seven year old died.

So are you saying we should not use tap water in our humidifiers at home? If not, why is it OK to use tap water at home and not in the sleep lab?

Paul R -- you assume the staff at the center didn't cover up their mistake well.  i would think just the opposite.  

Paul R said:

Mike, with all due respect, while your message is a good one, that yes, we should all be using distilled water, not tap, in our humidifier, i can't help but think your story is apocryphal.

Something like this would (should?) have been all over that center's local news and there would be no need to keep the name of this center anonymous. A 7 year old boy contracting Legionnaire's disease because the wrong type of water was used in a sleep study? Forget local news, this would have been national!

But like I said, your message is a good one and that one should be very careful about the quality of water one puts into his/her humidifier.

you should use distilled water wherever you are.  always.  it's as simple as that.

Nunya Bizness said:

So are you saying we should not use tap water in our humidifiers at home? If not, why is it OK to use tap water at home and not in the sleep lab?

Oh my gosh.  I never heard of them doing that.  Appreciate the warning as I plan to ask about a repeat sleep test when I see my NEW doctor tomorrow. 

My DME said to use vinegar to clean the humidifier. By the way, I really hate the way they make these humidifiers so they are almost impossible to clean.Why can't they make a humidifier that can be taken apart so we can clean the darn things with water and cloth?

MZH said:

I had the exact opposite experience. I was told by the DME to use only distilled while sleeping but use tap to wash. Didn't work; the tank built up all sort of gunk in the tank. I sure wouldn't want the "gunk" in my lungs. Now I wash the tank with a few drops of baby shampoo, rinse with tap, and do a final rinse with distilled to get rid of the tap water.

ZolliStar said:

      When a tech came to my home from my DME to teach me how to use my CPAP, he told me that I could use tap water.

      I'm not sure where I found out that I should use distilled water only, but I did. I called the tech and advised him that one should never use tap water.

      I wonder if that tech still tells people that it's acceptable to use tap water....

     

EXACTLY, use ONLY distilled water in your CPAP.  I never dreamed they wouldn't do that at the sleep centers.

Mike said:

you should use distilled water wherever you are.  always.  it's as simple as that.

Nunya Bizness said:

So are you saying we should not use tap water in our humidifiers at home? If not, why is it OK to use tap water at home and not in the sleep lab?

I do wash my tank with tap water, but always follow up with RO water for my last rinse, then wipe it as dry as I can.

I also use a tank that can be dismantled - I don't use the sealed, disposable tanks as they really can't be properly cleaned. I've experimented by trying the standard cleaning procedure without opening my tank - it looks clean when I'm done - and then opened it up and removed the *rest* of the almost invisible gunk. The permanent tanks (for the Resmed H5i and Fisher-Payquel units) also last a lot longer than the disposable ones, so they work out much cheaper if you have to pay for them yourself (I'm lucky enough to have insurance that covers mine - at least for now). Resmed says that they can be put in the dishwasher, but I hand wash my tank to prevent the plastic from deteriorating so quickly.

Which humidifier do you have - many have an optional, dismantle-able tank, but most DMEs push their disposable ones - they make more money replacing them on a regular basis. Look at websites like cpap.com and cpapwholesale.com to find out if you can get a new tank for your unit.

Nunya Bizness said:

My DME said to use vinegar to clean the humidifier. By the way, I really hate the way they make these humidifiers so they are almost impossible to clean.Why can't they make a humidifier that can be taken apart so we can clean the darn things with water and cloth?

    

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