COPD & Emphysema Support Group
COPD is a progressive disease characterized by airflow obstruction or limitation. Emphysema is characterized by loss of elasticity of the lung tissue, destruction of structures supporting the alveoli and of capillaries feeding the alveoli. Both have symptoms that include shortness of breath, among other respiratory troubles. If you are a COPD or Emphysema sufferer, join...
The cheapest I have seen for a Lung Flute is $45.00 and a prescription is needed to buy one in the US. All it is.. is a 14 inch rectangular flared plastic tube with a strip of mylar inside that flaps when you blow into the business end. The flapping produces a 16 Hz sound vibration that travels down into your airways and loosens mucus causing you cough it up.
You can see one here.
http://www.medicalacoustics.com/
I think this thing is over priced and there is no excuse that the FDA can come up with that justifies the prescription...
So I got to drinking and thinking... heck.. I can make one that works as good as theirs. I have lot of cardboard and duct-tape laying around. So I put one together.
You can see my first attempt here.
http://webpages.charter.net/tommix/lung%20flute%20knockoff.jpg
Well it worked some.. but the plastic strip inside wasn't floppy enough so abandoned it after a couple of days of testing.
A couple of days ago I made and tested one that is a totally new design, which is better than making a knockoff anyway. All that is needed is to produce sound at 16 Hz. The materials required to make it cost me 6 cents and it took me less than a minute to make.
After using it to bring up about 4 oz of mucus this morning I am ready to share my invention with the world. When you see the picture of it you may laugh because of the simplicity of design. It is very portable and is so small that you can carry it in your watch pocket, wallet or coin purse. You use it the same way you would the other.. much more expensive Lung Flute.. You know.. the one you need a prescription to get. Don't hold it with your fingers because they will damper the vibes. Blow short hard breaths. It's good FEV1 training. Good lung exercise.
Here is my new invention and seeing that it is invention month, I am giving the design to the world at no cost.
http://webpages.charter.net/tommix/lung%20balloon.jpg
tom
You can see one here.
http://www.medicalacoustics.com/
I think this thing is over priced and there is no excuse that the FDA can come up with that justifies the prescription...
So I got to drinking and thinking... heck.. I can make one that works as good as theirs. I have lot of cardboard and duct-tape laying around. So I put one together.
You can see my first attempt here.
http://webpages.charter.net/tommix/lung%20flute%20knockoff.jpg
Well it worked some.. but the plastic strip inside wasn't floppy enough so abandoned it after a couple of days of testing.
A couple of days ago I made and tested one that is a totally new design, which is better than making a knockoff anyway. All that is needed is to produce sound at 16 Hz. The materials required to make it cost me 6 cents and it took me less than a minute to make.
After using it to bring up about 4 oz of mucus this morning I am ready to share my invention with the world. When you see the picture of it you may laugh because of the simplicity of design. It is very portable and is so small that you can carry it in your watch pocket, wallet or coin purse. You use it the same way you would the other.. much more expensive Lung Flute.. You know.. the one you need a prescription to get. Don't hold it with your fingers because they will damper the vibes. Blow short hard breaths. It's good FEV1 training. Good lung exercise.
Here is my new invention and seeing that it is invention month, I am giving the design to the world at no cost.
http://webpages.charter.net/tommix/lung%20balloon.jpg
tom
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My 6mo twin DD's are EBF and just started rice cereal on the first. Everything has been going fine except this morning one of them had a diaper rash (lots of redness around her anus). I read this as one of the signs of an allergy. BUT I did just buy a different brand diaper yesterday (which they have used randomly before w/no issues). Do you think its the cereal or the diaper? Im ready to start...
can't comment on ole floydy's comment...it's in chinese to me. sorry there, chap!
good job, tom! thanks!!!
Thanks TOm
You are a hoot! Just blow me away. Good thinking.
The short answer is;
You don't without the proper tools.
The long answer is;
Although I gave most of my recording studio equipment to 3 of my sons who have a band, I still have some left. I record a sound and save it as a wav file. I then load it into Harbal software and that gives me a "picture" of the sound. I can then see all of the frequencies and how many decibels all of the frequencies are.
16 Hz is below what the normal human ear can hear although some exceptional people can hear that low. To give you an idea how low that is, the lowest key of a piano is 27 Hz.
I started exploring the making of a lung flute by recording a lung flute from a video on the web. When I loaded the recording into Harbal I saw that the low frequencies were weak and the decibels of the frequencies increased up to about 10,000 Hz and then tapered off.
So there are many frequencies besides the useful low frequencies being produced. The balloon is no different. It also produces full range of frequencies but only the low ones are giving the benefit.
While I'm on the phone I'd like to mention a couple of things. Although the balloon is very portable, it may embarrass some to haul it out in public and give the appearance of trying to blow up a popped balloon but are just making loud fart noises. While that wouldn't bother me in the least, others may be more timid.
The other thing is if you use it you probably will get a little unnoticed lung juice in it and the next day may find that it doesn't work because it's stuck together. A few seconds of running some warm water through it fixes that problem.
Better still is to clean it after use. But on the the other hand, if you used a new one each day it would only cost about $1.80 a month.
(hey, we all know i'm full of hot air...so that shouldnt'be the problem)
It's important that you keep you fingers off of the balloon when you blow because they will absorb and rob some of the vibrations. Just pucker like you are kissing a fish and blow like a banshee.. as hard as you can for about a second. Do that about 20 times.
i'll have to get some of the smaller thinner ones.
thanks for clearing that up for me!