KmanTexas

Regulator attached to the welding o2, and everything works well. Thanks again everyone for the help!

Saturday I got a filled, 40 cu ft. tank from Home Depot. They keep them in the outdoor cage outside of any store that has a "Pro Desk", and they are serviced by Thoroughbred industrial gas. They also had 80 and 125 cylinders. Thoroughbred appears to be the default standard around these parts, and it looks like I can get an exchange refill from HD, Tractor Supply and several other places. It costs a lot to take home the first tank, but refills are $34.99. I'm about to order a regulator so I can test this thing out. Also, good news...the beast is down to a low roar after the 4th busting dose. Some low-grade attacks at night, but nothing compared to 2 weeks ago. Felt good enough to take the motorcycle out yesterday for the first time in a long time.

I haven't tried Apria, but there's one about 20 miles from here. I'll check it out as an option. In the meantime I've got a short list of welding supply companies to visit this weekend. Also, I talked to the guys at Home Depot at the Pro Desk, and they have 80 cu ft. cylinders of oxygen for $400 to start and then $40 refills. I'm still trying to figure out which regulator to get for the larger welding tank. The urgency is lower than it was earlier this week since I've been busting, and the hits are down to 2/day and at low intensity. I was caught off guard by this cycle since remission period was longer than normal. I will not be caught again.

@Justin Sane, I'm interested in your experience with the Homefill system. Now that it costs $100 to get a refill on an E tank I have been looking at alternatives. I was wondering if you think the oxygen fills from the Homefill are the same as getting them filled at a gas vendor. Does it work just the same?

I'm looking into the welding o2, and it looks like a good solution. @jon019 and @Dallas Denny, my only reservation is exchanging tanks. Does your supplier fill your tank, or do you just exchange the empty one for a full one? If it's my own tank I know where it's been. Maybe I'm being too paranoid. The other thing I'm looking at is possibly filling them myself at home. Some of the medical goods suppliers sell an oxygen compressor that mounts to the top of an oxygen concentrator. It takes several hours to fill a tank with this setup, and then you just remove the the tank and use as normal. Since the o2 concentrator wouldn't deliver enough oxygen as needed for a cluster attack this looks like a good possibility. Has anyone done this before with success? I haven't read about doing this, but wouldn't it be the same as getting tanks filled by a gas vendor? It's probably never been an issue since o2 has been so cheap up until now., but at $100/tank it could cost-justify itself pretty quickly. Three years ago it cost me $65/month for all-you-can-eat oxygen, and they delivered the full tanks to my door any time I called them. That same company just told me to go pound sand.

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone.

I was told by several oxygen providers in the Dallas area that they would not supply me with oxygen, even with a doctor's prescription, unless it was to treat Covid. I finally found a small supplier close to me that didn't ask. I had to buy two E tanks for $125 each, and then I could exchange tanks to get refills for $40 each. This works the same as when I buy propane for the outdoor grill, so it kind of made sense. I'm going through about half a tank per day, and I'm 4 weeks into my episodic cycle. Today I went to get a refill, and the price is now $100 to exchange an E tank for refill. They said their oxygen supplier, Airgas, raised the rates over the weekend. Holy wow, that's expensive!!! At this rate it will run about $1500/month for oxygen. Anyone else experiencing this a$$-rape for a simple refill?