Hello ,im sorry you are feeling nervous concerning your illness.i also tend to get the jitters when i am experiencing shortness of breath.i use the nebulizer too.They do have some breathing meds for us to use in the nebulizer that makes me very nervous and shaky,i hope you begin to feel better very soon.If you should ever want or need to talk or just vent,you can find me here.MJ

The only thing that will calm me down on a bad breathing day is 0,25 mg of alprazolam.

I also just changed my oxygen tubing pack to the salter green hose and that seemed to help. I had been using soft hose but my cat likes to chase the hose as I wander thru the house and it may have had some pin holes in it from her claws. The awful green hose that doesn't lie flat to the floor is at least stronger.

Thanks for tell me that and I will find you if I need to talk.Barb

snowlady; i have no suggestions, but want you to know i am thinking of you & praying for you.

zelli= the green hoses are sturdier? do they curl up & kink as much as the clear ones?
i went to 10' lines with swivels every 10' but lately they seem to curl up & kink as bad as the long line.
once i had green line & it seemed not to do this so bad---do you think green line could help this problem??

Jarca, yes the green hose doesn't fold up and stop the oxygen as much as the softehose. I use the 50 ft length. I think too many swivel connections would cause problems with getting caught on things though.

All though the soft hose is more comfortable on the face my oxygen person told me not use them with pulse dose conservers. He said they don't work as well with them. That I should use the regular salter cannulas.

Green and Salter hoses are channeled (excepting the yoke of the latter) making it is practically impossible to cut-off oxygen flow by kinking or even stepping on them by normal means. You can tie them in knots and the oxygen will still flow. Soft hoses are not channeled and thus are easily clamped closed. Its a trade-off.

Green and Salter hoses do tend to roll/coil (not lie flat) and maintain a memory, this is partly due to the material used and partly by design. You can straighten them by immersion in hot water (seal off both ends) and then stretching them straight.

Green and Salter hoses share a few common limitations with Soft Hoses when it comes to pulse or conserver use a general inability to work well with additional inline devices (humidifiers, reservoirs, flow meters, etc.) and longer lengths (>35). Soft hoses have the additional limitation of requiring a specific size to match required flow requirements, while Green and Salter hoses (all sizes) handle a much broader range of flows.

However, Im not aware of any particular restriction based on whether one is using continuous or pulse. It would be interesting the next time you talk to your oxygen person to find out specifically why they felt Soft Hoses dont work as well with them (conservers). Always good to learn something new.

Gnott, It was the person that delivered my oxygen and set things up with my new 5 year contract for the homefill system. I had been using softhose for years, so of course I didn't believe him. He did a little demonstration of the cannula by swinging it in circles until it picked up enough air to get the pulse to work. The salter hose picked it up much faster. The softhose needed more spins to set off a pulse dose.

Also I told a friend about softhose that had recently purchased a Inogen G2 portable. She found that the salter hose worked better on it. Now I am wondering if that was the reason that I couldn't use the pulse dose conservers.

You got my curiosity up so I went looking for a more definitive online answer to the question of soft tubing and Pulse Delivery. I was less than successful. (Ghod, I miss Dennis) Smile.

However, I did come up with a few interesting facts. No vendor of pulse devices (whether dual or single lumen, or electronic or pneumonic**) recommend using any cannula longer than 7. No specific reasons given, just the occasional general observation that delivery would be less accurate if one did.

As an idle test I took approximately 20 of soft hose and green hose I had around (Yes Im a packrat and generally bored) and jury-rigged a U-Tube on the end. Pulse devices are triggered by partial vacuum created when one takes a breath. Making a few simple totally unscientific observations by drawing on one end (a la a straw) I did notice that soft tubing appears to introduce a *delay* In both the time it took to change the level in the u-tube and the time it took for the level to return to homeostasis. Delay was barely perceptible with green hose. I also noticed with decreasing amounts of suction there was a point where soft tubing displayed no effect while green tubing always appeared to always produce some effect. My general conclusion therefore is that soft hoses do introduce a damping effect compared to channeled hard hoses therefore it probably isnt surprising that people will experience issues with long hoses and pulse devices. But in any case using a hose longer than 7 with any Pulse Device is not recommended by the industry at large.

[* Information from vendors of POCs was even more sketchy, as well as information from LOX systems. (LOX bottles contain internal conservers.) It should also be noted that each device often had additional timing mechanisms to deliver an equivalent liter per minute and not totally dependent upon a single inhale I would definitely expect different devices to perform either better or worse under different conditions.]

Gnott: I am now wearing a 4ft. softhose cannula attached to a green salter 50ft. hose. My cannula keeps twisting and shutting down my oxygen. It seems the softhose cannula works better with the softhose 50 ft.. I probably will have to go back to using the salter cannulas. I wonder if anyone else has noticed a difference with them.

Are you using that length with a conserver or a concentrator?

Frankly, after continuing to piddle with various hose combinations (and the few devices I have available) Ive come to the general conclusion that there are simply too many factors (objective and subjective) involved with any particular configuration to be able to accurately predict what will work or not work.

It appears trial n error is likely the only reliable method to find out what will work for any individual.

I use stiff cannulas and 'green hose'. Works for me.

I am using a concentrator. I was not able to use a conserver it wouldn't keep my stats up. I want to be tested again with the salter hose though and see if I can use it now. Then I will know for sure if the salter cannula is better or not. But also I had tried a conserver about 4 years ago and I could be getting worse now. I will let you know after I try it. I am waiting to hear back from the therapist. I think they have made the conservers better and perhaps with a salter cannula I could use one.

Hi Snowlady! My breathing has been terrible also. For me it seems that anxiety is a factor. And the holidays bring a lot of that for various reasons. And also the cold weather. And the rain. Which yay we're getting some in California finally. But still it makes it harder for me to breathe.

Sometimes I just have to stop. Because that's all I can do. And let stuff go. It'll all be there in the spring. Hopefully I will be too. Ha. Hugs.