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What’s your oxygen set up?
I wanted to make a post about my dad’s oxygen setup as I think it can be helpful for a lot of people on here. When I was looking for information, it was a bit difficult to find.
Oxygen Concentrator Setup:
My dad’s on 12L at rest and we increase it to 14-15L whenever he gets up to do anything. We’ve hooked up two 10L machines with a “Y-connector” and run both at equal rates because if one is a way higher rate than the other, it causes back pressure in the machine at lower rate.The maximum capacity is 20L with this setup, but with another “Y-connector” we can set up 3 oxygen concentrators if we need to.
Fun fact: Glassworkers use oxygen concentrators (sometimes 3 or more in tandem) for their work!!
Oxygen Delivery Setup:
- Nasal canula is recommended from 1-6L
- Simple face mask is recommended from 6-12L
- Non-rebreather mask is recommended for 10-15L
Excellent youtube video explaining these three methods of oxygen delivery:
My dad has used all three of the above as his oxygen needs have increased. He is now on the partial non-rebreather mask. CAVEAT: You have to let the bag fill with oxygen before placing it on the patient for use!! I didn’t know this at first and couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working.
Challenges:
1) The main challenge with oxgyen supplementation has been drying of the nasal passages. The nasal cannula was especially awful – it would dry out my dad’s nose and cause nosebleeds, which would scab over and cause him a lot of discomfort and trouble breathing. To alleviate this, we did the following:- Attached humidifier bottles to both oxygen concentrators
- Use nasal cream
- Drink more water
As we switched to the simple face mask and non-rebreather mask, the nasal dryness went away for the most part. Now he’s complaining more of mouth/throat dryness. So, in addition to the above, we’ve started using Spry Xylitol moisturizing mouth spray and chew sugar-free gum that causes his mouth to salivate. All of this has helped a lot but the dryness continues to be an issue.
2) Another thing I’ve read about is that full non-rebreather masks are meant to provide high % of oxygen for a short amount of time only. Such high levels of Oxygen % can cause a lot of oxidative damage to the body. I’m going to ask our respirologist about this and see if the same thing is true for partial non-rebreather masks and if we can use it long term.
I hope people find this helpful and please let me know what your Oxygen setup is. I’m curious to know how many people have 2 oxygen concentrators (or more) hooked up.
Thank you,
Vishal -
4 Replies
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Hello Vishal, you have made a great post. Thank you for sharing. Have a great Sunday, Mark.
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I’m also using two concentrators for activity. I need 15lpm. However, my doctor wants me to use the lowest possible amount of oxygen when I am at rest. That, for me, is about 3-4lpm. The POC isn’t enough so I have to use a tank, which still runs out fairly quickly. I really don’t want to have both concentrators right beside me because of both the noise and heat they generate. Any suggestions?
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Have you investigated the Oxygen multipliers that fit in the canula line and store extra constant flow oxygen between your intake breathes? They say they can produce up to 4 times the breathing time because they only release on the intake breath and shut off like a POC unit on the exhale breath. I just posted some info yesterday but don’t see it today yet. There are apparently several models and one is called a multiplier medalion (wears liker a necklace on cannula line and the other is a larger cannula worn under the nose. A good reference I found is at URL Address http://www.Respondo2.com and shows a blue table for different tank sizes at different LPM and the 3x and 5x Conservation flows available. I honestly know nothing else about these yet but am slowly increasing my Oxy needs so am investigating my alternatives as I move forward toward oxygen. I find the multiple POC units an interesting hook up and wonder if anyone has done any testing for real data from those. Here’s another reference below:
https://journal.chestnet.org › article › S0012-3692(22)03381-5 › fulltext
The Oxymizer Pendant: an Underutilized Oxygen-delivery Device
DISCUSSION: Long term oxygen therapy is indicated for those with chronic lung disease and hypoxemia. Typically, CNC is used but less conventional nasal cannula such as the Oxymizer can be utilized. This device has the advantage of reducing the oxygen flow rate by up to 65 % (1) and leads to
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oxygen multiplier medalions site:journal.chestnet.org at DuckDuckGo
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Since I am looking toward eventual Oxy tanks, your linking of two or more tanks strikes me as interesting. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder. I am not a professional nor engineer, yet my natural logic makes me want to think that when you hook two POC or oxygen units together that it will not double the oxygen % content but only the overall volume of enrichened concentrated air with the same % oxygen in it as one unit. It also seems that the demand regulator on one unit might interfere with the demand regulator of the other unit and create issues. On the other hand if you were trying to increase the actual % of oxygen in the air you breathe then you would have to connect POCs in series as in one output to the others input to allow reprocessing of air already enrichened. I guess I’m not sure whether increasing LPM is meant to increase the overall volume of air or the % of oxygen content moving through the canula.
I’m sure you’ve had the necessary discussions, but if not you might want to coordinate your efforts with both the oxygen supplier and your doctor. Any feedback you have on this would be appreciated since we all may be dealing with frustration over where we go when we’ve reached the limits on our POC units.
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