SIcklyhatED
New member
Last week my dad brought home a new piece of equipment (for me at least) to try out. It's called CoughAssist by Respironics (or the Coughalator, but I think that's just a funny name my dad likes to use). What it does is push and pull air out of your lungs using different pressues, similar to the vents people who are not able to breathe on their own use. Granted, it took about 10 minutes for me to stop being freaked out and actually put the mask on my face....
What I'm doing is hooking up my nebs to the machine, and the neb also to oxygen so I can do my meds while using the machine. Let me tell you, this thing makes you cough! Hook up a hypertonic solution and presto, you'll have half of your lungs out in 30 seconds, no joke.
You can change how high the pressures on the inhale/exhale are and how long of a pause there is inbetween them. So basically it hyper-inflates your lungs (good for getting the meds down in there) then on the exhale it creates a vaccum/suction and sucks the air back out (good for pulling the gunk out with extra force). I find that doing it like a PFT test works the best. If you exhale hard the machine takes it one step further and helps pull out the deep stuff.
I'm a very big Anti-Vest person (p.o.s. in my opinion....) but I think I found a new toy that actually DOES something. But.... it does make you dizzy after a few breathes, so I have to stop for a about a minute before continuing.
I believe they're about 6k (my dad sold one a few years back, and that's the only time we've heard of it, so I guess it must be fairly new?). Seriously guys, find out if you can get access to one (and apparently you can share them.... they come with bacteria filters....)
What I'm doing is hooking up my nebs to the machine, and the neb also to oxygen so I can do my meds while using the machine. Let me tell you, this thing makes you cough! Hook up a hypertonic solution and presto, you'll have half of your lungs out in 30 seconds, no joke.
You can change how high the pressures on the inhale/exhale are and how long of a pause there is inbetween them. So basically it hyper-inflates your lungs (good for getting the meds down in there) then on the exhale it creates a vaccum/suction and sucks the air back out (good for pulling the gunk out with extra force). I find that doing it like a PFT test works the best. If you exhale hard the machine takes it one step further and helps pull out the deep stuff.
I'm a very big Anti-Vest person (p.o.s. in my opinion....) but I think I found a new toy that actually DOES something. But.... it does make you dizzy after a few breathes, so I have to stop for a about a minute before continuing.
I believe they're about 6k (my dad sold one a few years back, and that's the only time we've heard of it, so I guess it must be fairly new?). Seriously guys, find out if you can get access to one (and apparently you can share them.... they come with bacteria filters....)