Tried this thread on the adults section and got some very interesting replies. I live in England and we don't have the vest here. Can any one please give their opinions? Is it worth trying to get the vest here, does it make such a difference? Our hospital who have not seen one in action said they prefer the pep mask and felt exercise was the best way to go. But what if your child hates exercise?
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The vest
- Thread starter anonymous
- Start date
I think how effective the vest is, is a very subjective thing. A lot is dependant on how compliant you are. My daughter is 5 & 1/2 and when she got her vest a bit more than a year ago it was like heaven!!!! she would sit and watch her shows or a video and it was fine (as long as we padded the area where her g-tube is) but now she knows how to turn it off and on, and can really turn on the tears about having to get it done. She says that it makes her itchy or that it upsets her stomach. At first she brought up a large quantity of mucus (much more than with manual PT, postural drainage or excercise) every time she used it even though she was NOT sick, but now she is really clear and only occasionally brings anything up. I do thinjk that the vest helps her to stay really clear. I know many just hate the vest and won't do it or they don't use it for long enough or at the prescribed frequency or pressure. so I guess that for me as a parent, it is great. CPT is being done effectivelyand my tendonitis is not aggrivated. For Rachel, though, she doesn't want to be tethered to that machine for that whole time and all that shaking sometimes makes her itchy and uncomfortable. she would much rather jump on the mini trampoline everyday instead (but she never wants to do that long enough either)So my opinion is this. If you are going to be compliant it is great and definately worth it!( but how would you know unless you tried it first and felt it?)Andrea
Like everything with CF, it has its time. My child has been using his vest for 6 years, he is 12 he has used it faithfully 2-4 times a day. He has always fought PT's but with the vest he would play vides games or watch tv(he gains control of the flicker during his vest). So for us it was a God send. He stayed healthy throughout and required minimal hospitalization, maybe 4 times in the 6 years. He now prefers exercise, especially jumping on a trampoline. I like giving him a choice and at times he does choose the vest but just not as regular as before. I would defintiely recommend it.
As parents of two with CF, we love the Vest but only one of our kids does. It is extremely annoying to our other. It depends a lot on the person. It is a convenient way to get the CPT done and it does seem to do a good job of keeping their lungs clear but it is just not comfortable to everyone, then again, we've yet to discover a form of CPT that could really be called "comfortable"! We wouldn't trade ours, they are really useful when you have a hectic schedule.
AbsintheSorrow
New member
The thing with the Vest that annoyed me... first of all, the shaking for half an hour at a time made me sick to my stomach, and kind of disoriented. But the other thing... whoever invented it must've been a guy... because they did not make it with adult females in mind. There is absolutely no room for breasts. And so it squishes them, and this is painful.
The vests are both done by chest circumfrence not age. I think tha the chest has to be at least 16 or 18 inches to get a vest. My daughter got her Med Pulse vest last year, she was 4+. There are 2 vests, the Hll-Rom (used to be ABI) and the MedPulse, they both use the same base measurement though. I would ask the doc at CF clinic if you are interested. Whoever told you that the child had to be 7 was misinformed somewhere along the way....... Andrea
It is a vest that you wear: it has these tubes that are attached to a machine (kinda like a hand-held vacuum cleaner). When turned on, the vest inflates and starts shaking your chest - real fast. It is supposed to be able to shake loose mucus from deep in your lungs - and also reach all areas of your lungs (instead of just the 6-10 areas focused on during manual chest PT). My 3-year old uses it 3 times a day for 20 minutes each (or 2 times for 30 minutes). He can play and watch TV while he wears it. He does not have to lay down - he can stand up, sit down, whatever he wants.Maybe you want to check their website: I think it is: www.thevest.comYou might also want to check out the thread on the vest in the Adults Forum. Different perspectives on how users like it. So far I am very happy with it, and it does not bother my son. He is much happier using the vest than getting the manual chest PT.
For me the vest worked really well at first. For what ever reason as time went by it didn't work for me as well. Now I use the IPV and I've been healthier than I have in years. I was being hospitalized every three months, and now it's been over 7 since I was last in. You're not as free to do things unless you turn the trigger off as you would be with the vest, but it's more than made up for it.
IPV stands for Impulsator Percussionator Ventilator. It works like the vest in that it pulsates, but instead of it pulsing on the outside it actually pulsates inside. It's basically a nebulizer with tubes hooked up to a machine like the vest. When you push the trigger on the neb it pulsates the air that you breathe in and out. I haven't really heard of an age that they start CF patients out on them, but I would imagine that it would be hard for a 4 yr old to use because you have to make sure that you hold your mouth right so that the air doesn't go into your cheeks and out your nose. I did that the first couple times I used it as I was trying to get used to it. It felt really weird. I'm not really sure when the IPV came out, since I only just heard about it about a year ago. Hope that helps some.