I just came across something I had not heard about before...it sounds pretty good to me.

I was told by my technician to put 1-3 drops of hydrogen peroxide in the humidifier and it would help keep bacteria down..I have been doing it and there is no smell of the peroxide and you would think there would be. Not to be used in place of cleaning.When she used the large room humidifer she had always added a tablespoon or so.

Thought it a good idea to let you partners take that and disect it. What say????

Ummmm.......just doesn't sound lung friendly to me.

You just mean to clean it, right?

Do you lie down and squrit a few drops of it down your nose, every night?

If you don't, I wouldn't be putting it in my HH water either.

And if you do, putting it in your nose, is probably a worse thing to do.

The lungs are meant to use clean air, adding other thing into them isn't a good idea, even rock dust like is in mine. Jim

needingu wrote:I just came across something I had not heard about before...it sounds pretty good to me.

I was told by my technician to put 1-3 drops of hydrogen peroxide in the humidifier and it would help keep bacteria down..I have been doing it and there is no smell of the peroxide and you would think there would be. Not to be used in place of cleaning.When she used the large room humidifer she had always added a tablespoon or so.

Thought it a good idea to let you partners take that and disect it. What say????

Your technician needs to be educated or you misunderstood his/her directions. Hydrogen peroxide is great for cleaning but NOT for breathing.

The reason it is so good at cleaning is because it is highly corrosive. When it comes in contact with organic material it can actually become combustible. It is morbidly toxic to humans if inhaled in amounts greater than 10% solution ... less than that will cause mild to severe irritation. Do a Google search on the toxicity and you will learn never to purposely inhale that stuff.

Hopefully what your technician meant was that you put in a few drops and rinse it out ... not run your PAP machine through it and inhale it.

- roberto

What bacteria is going to grow in a clean humidifier anyway?

I wouldn't put any chemicals in my humidifier.

Hydrogen Peroxide is H2O2. Initially it has a free hydrogen radical, acting like an acid - then it further breaks down to 2(H2O2) -> 2(H2O) + O2. It is this property of Hydrogen Peroxide (breaking down into good old oxygen plus good old water) that makes most people view it as "clean" and "safe". You can put it in waste water and it will not leave things there as would

Look, putting three drops of peroxide in 4 cups of water is not going to do anything. It is not going to rot your nose and it is not going to kill bacteria. I base this on two things - one that it takes 20 ppm to damage your eyes, the next that it takes about 200 PPM to purify water.

While 10% peroxide is corrosive and will do all sorts of horrible things to you, and industry uses concentrations between 30% and 70% for many things, 2-3% peroxide, like the sort you typically buy in a brown bottle for household use is fine for rinsing your mouth out with to kill germs or prevent bad breath. Some dentists like you to cut it in half with plain water. But it is not going to cause lesions like the stronger stuff will.

And when you take 1 ML (20 drops) and you add it to a typical humidifier load of 500ml of water, well, now you have a solution of 30 parts per million - remember that the OTC peroxide is only 3% max.

I had a hard time getting to a concentration tequired - I finally found that the City of Toronto was purifying waste water and needed 285 Mg/liter to get to the point where the coliforms were reduced to the amount that they wanted them. Your goal is to sterilize, so I'll say this is a good amount to use to sterilize. This is approximately 10 times the amount that I thought you'd achieve if you added 20 drops to 500 ML of water. (.000285)

I did find that, like those special kleenex that are designed to kill the residual cold viruses that are shed into them, peroxide in the bottles that you buy in the store is registered as a pesticide, and, therefore, its use for anything not mentioned on the labeling or its use in any way not mentioned on the labeling is a federal crime. Therefore I urge you to follow the label instructiuons, and I note that keeping a box of that disenfecting kleenex in the toilet in case you run out of TP is tantamount to encouraging people to commit a federal crime, since the tissue is labeled as "facial tissue". But I won't tell if you won't.

I also cound one article which was talking about contact lens sanitizing. It said that concentrations of Peroxide greater than 20 ppm could damage your cornea. 20 ppm is .000020, which is what you'd get from the 20 drops in the 500 Ml.

3 drops in 500 ML of 3% peroxide is 6 parts per million. Less than a third of what it takes to damage anything. And less than a tenth of what it takes to clean.

So, useless for cleaning, useless for dissolving your nose

Also: Peroxide is viewed as safe. Don't get it in your eyes.

And if you want to sanitize with household peroxide, spray it full strength onto the surface and then spray white vinegar - spraying those two solutions consecutively in either order is supposedly one of the best sanitizers you can get in your house - but you should rinse thoroughly.

Now, I'd like to know what problem you are trying to solve. The distilled water I buy does not have noticable bacteria in it - occasional cleaning with ordinary tap water seems to be all it needs. Why use chemicals of any sort if you don't have to?

My apologies for alraming anyone ... I just assumed that the typical household version was a 10% solution.

I have not measured my reservoir but I'm pretty sure that if I put half a liter in it it would overflow. I would estimate mine is more like a third of a liter ... which would still not create a concentration high enough to rot your nose or even kill you.

Nevertheless, I think the moral of this thread is as brasshopper stated above:

Use distilled water whenever possible and periodically disinfect and clean the reservoir.

- roberto

I would not put anything in the humidifier. Think of it as an extension of your lungs. Yikes!

It's definitely NOT something I would do. In the quantities you're talking about, it probably won't hurt you but why bother? There's nothing that could possibly grow in your (distilled) HH water that could get transfered to your body.

Best wishes,

Den

I laughed when I got my machine, b/c the manual said not to add any fragances to the humidifier.......HA HA

Recently I changed the filters and membrane on my WATTS undersink Reverse Osmosis water filtration system.

According to WATTS, you are supposed to "disenfect" the RO system annually when replacing filters.

The main RO membrane can be destroyed by chlorine bleech, reason there is 2 charcoal filters to remove the chlorine from city tap water before it reaches the membrane.

In any case they instruct you to remove the main line going from the membrane out side to the storage pressure tank and use an eye dropper to inject a couple tablespoons of chlorine bleech or Hydrogen Peroxide to sanitize the tank.

So Hydrogen Peroxide must do a pretty good job if that small amount can sanitize that large of a tank. I could see where a few drops would sanitize the humidifier tank.

Back in the 70's I was watching TV in a big ole bean bag at my girlfriends house, she was messing around and dropped one of those white styrofoam beans from the bean bag into my ear. We couldn't get it out so she squirted some Hydrogen Peroxide in it and it boiled it out (lots of sizzling action just like a stroke), I asked her can you do the other side?

Brasshopper has once again hit the peroxide on the percentage, so to speak.

Just a thought: I used to wear contacts and had a high protein concentration in my tears. I used a specially made hydrogen peroxide system for cleaning that helped to keep the protein at bay. There were two vials and the contact lenses were contained in a basket system connected to a lid. There was a solid (silver?) catalyst in the other vial that was filled with saline and then the lenses had to be soaked in that vial for something like, maybe, 6 hours before they could be worn.

I do not know what the exact chemistry or percentage was, but those contact lenses really felt great the first day out of the cleaning system.

The chlorine in tap water that we use here in the Great Lake State is sounding less and less toxic after the explanation of Brasshopper. And, both substances can remove color from fabric.

Just came across this thread

IIRC
Hydrogen Peroxide is the fuel that was in the torpedo that exploded & sank the 'Kursk'

HydrogenPeroxide is the fuel used in the famous 'Rocket Belt'

I know of several Helicopters designed to spin their rotors using Hydrogen Peroxide as jet tip propelland fed through tubes down the rotor blades.

Exscuse me if I smile whn someone tells me they are using it in their H/H

DSM

PS I know the HP I am talking of is generally 97%+ pure.

I knew if I gave this topic to you it would be thoroughly researched. We have some very knowledgable people on board and I value your opinion.

Very interesting to read all of your opinions.
Thanks

NOW I have another question re. maskprint face in A.M.