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Sweet Smell post CPAP use
I am happy to say that after a 2 month wait, I finally got my Respironics System One CPAP and I have used it without problems from day one! I'm set at a pressure of twelve, and though I have ramp available, I don't use it, humidity levels range from 0 to 5 with no noticeable difference and I use a ResMed Swift Fx nasal pillow. Ever since the first morning, when I remove the mask, I notice a sweet smell with first breaths of room air.. This is NOT a complaint...the CPA air seems just fine..just wondering what's going on?? I look at it as a bonus for wearing the system all night :). (BTW I have no air fresheners or candles in the room)
Any ideas?
Any ideas?
Views: 4431
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Dan Lyons on
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Tom, a sweet breath odor may be related to your blood sugar levels. The odor is a common indicator. You may want to discuss the situation with your doctor and have a blood sugar test.
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Permalink Reply by Walt Service on
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Nice pickup Dan!
Tom, I guessing that your cpap machine is in a location where this is fresh air movement...? Your machine isn't placed under the bed or in a closet? Are you cleaning your mask/headgear everyday with any products that have that same "sweet smell"? My gut is leaning towards Dan's ? though... Let us know.
Dan Lyons said:Tom, a sweet breath odor may be related to your blood sugar levels. The odor is a common indicator. You may want to discuss the situation with your doctor and have a blood sugar test.
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Permalink Reply by Tom Frank on
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Walt Service said:Nice pickup Dan!
Tom, I guessing that your cpap machine is in a location where this is fresh air movement...? Your machine isn't placed under the bed or in a closet? Are you cleaning your mask/headgear everyday with any products that have that same "sweet smell"? My gut is leaning towards Dan's ? though... Let us know.
Dan Lyons said:Tom, a sweet breath odor may be related to your blood sugar levels. The odor is a common indicator. You may want to discuss the situation with your doctor and have a blood sugar test.
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The equipment is next to the bed and should have plenty of fresh air. Up until today, have not used any soaps with fragrances when cleaning mask/tubing. Tonight I noticed. Ivory is NOT as fragrant free as I had thought!
Will definitely check into this further and post findings, Thanks for the heads up!
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Thanks Jeff for your reply! This is more in line with what I was thinking. Perhaps "sweet" was a little too strong a term to describe my experience. But what you are saying makes perfect sense, and I was wondering if others had a similar experience.
Tom
j n k said:This is a very common experience that I have read about on the boards.
My conclusion is that it is related to how the brain is wired to notice differences and to ignore constants.
If you have been breathing the smell of the machine (plastic, metal, etc) for 7 hours, the brain registers the removal of the mask as a smell being added, not as a smell being taken away, since the 7-hour constant smell of the machine has been tuned out as normal.
Part of the experience is that you now pick up the smell of soap on your skin, shampoo in your hair (for some), detergent and fabric softener in your PJs and bed linens, etc.--smells that used to be tuned out as constants but now aren't, since you did not smell them while using your machine overnight.
After a while, the brain should learn to register both the smell of the machine and the smell of the bedroom as normal again and tune them both out equally, and you won't have that experience of the sweet smell, if you are like most users I've read about anyway.
Some believe that the decrease in pressure itself is registered as a fragrance. I'm not convinced of that, since the experience seems to dissipate over time for most and the smell is generally described the same way by everyone.
jeff
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Permalink Reply by sherry on
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Hi Tom,
I had forgotten about this, but for the first few months I was on CPAP I had the same sensation..when I would take the mask off in the morning, it smelled so good in my room! I use Ivory to clean my equipment, which I think has a sickly sweet odor, but I think jnk hit the nail on the head when he said fabric softener, as I use Gain detergent and softener on my nightclothes, and that is what I smelled.
I no longer notice any odors now when I take off my mask, even when I am in a hotel room..a good thing...
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I just started on the same machine and was startled my first morning by the STRONG odor of talcum powder in the room when I took off the mask. I had used a little after a shower the night before. I believe it's definitely a case of breathing filtered air all night then suddenly being presented with new air/new odors when the mask came off. I returned to "olfactory normal" in five minutes or so. (BTW, I found this group while specifically looking to see if this phenomenon had been experienced by any other CPAP users).
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