marjsimmons

Good Evening, This is just a quick update. All the equipment finally arrived. It took a little while to get here but otherwise dealing with Foremost Medical was not that bad. The regulator actually only goes up to 120 L/min. I set it all up and it functions. I breath in softly and it slowly lets out oxygen. If I breath hard and fast it opens more letting out more oxygen to match my increased inspiratory effort. My cycle seems to be over so I will not being using the new equipment for awhile. Maybe I will be lucky, never have to use it and put it up on Ebay in around 3-4 years . I was curious about what might be expected flow rates for inspiration and came across this study abstract while googling. Study Abstract Also here is another study from 3M. Peak Inspiratory Flows of Adults Exercising at Light, Moderate and Heavy Work Loads And here is another on healthy adults breathing through the nose. Peak nasal inspiratory flow; normal range in adult population

No worries. I got a prescription from my Neurologist for the oxygen at 12 L/min from a nonrebreather demand mask for 15min. I got him to put the demand mask in there and he got the 12 L/min for 15 min from his literature. When I went to my local DME they hooked me up with a M60 tank and a regulator that goes up to 15 L/min and I have been running it at 15 L/min. Once I new it was working I looked into the cost of buying the equipment vs rental and saw that it would not take long to make a return buying it instead. I contacted my DME and they said it would be not problem if I got my own equipment from somewhere else and they just filled my tanks for me as long as I had a valid prescription on file with them. I am buying the tank from them because they had the best price and got the rest online from Foremost Medical Equipment.

Just to make sure I went back and reread the datasheet. The flow rate from the regulator is based on inspiration (I learned a new word) effort. The faster you breath (ie: greater the vacuum created on the outlet with respect to atmospheric pressure) the higher the magnitude of the flow rate from the valve. The L063R maxes out at 40 L/min while L063 maxes out at 160 L/min. With out having the L063R model I will never know if I could have maxed out at 40 L/min but for only 4 bucks more I could not turn down the 160 L/min model, even if it never will make a difference. Again, thanks guys! I will let y'all know how it works for me once I get all the stuff in (I also had to get a regulator with a 50 psi DISS).

CHfather, will do. I currently have a regulator that goes up to 15 L/min and an O2ptimask kit. the system is working but does not keep up with my natural breathing. I am sure if I had a regulator that went up to 25 L/min I would be sitting pretty but my friends often call me overkill and I want to jump the the Porsche system. My guess is the relevance of flow rate, with even a demand system, has to do with what flow rate you breath at. For example I now a demand valve with a max rate of 15 L/min would actually be worse than what I have because the reservoir bag would not fill up between the breathes. My understanding is the demand valve requires the effort of breathing to activate. My guess is the greater the vacuum created by your breathing effort the higher the corresponding flow rate from the demand valve. After Spiny answered me I had a duh moment, there is virtually no difference in cost between the 40 L/min and 160 L/min models and the way I understand the operation of the demand valve, the extra capacity will not cause any problems. I get my stuff the end of the week and I will post an update/review after I get it. Thanks! Again, if it were not for this site and others like it I would be in a much worse state.

Thank you. 0-160LPM it is then. Thanks again.

Good Evening Everyone. This is my first post here. Thanks largely to the information here I finally have oxygen therapy. It was a long road getting here and it truly amazes me how effective it is. I am now looking at upgrading to a demand valve like the Allied Healthcare Products L063. My question is should I get the 0-40lpm or 0-160lpm model? Does the 40lpm model have high enough of a flow rate to keep up with the breathing technique? Thank you in advance!