Are Ozone CPAP Cleaners Safe?
By Angela Giudice, RPSGT
Are ozone CPAP cleaners safe?
I have been a clinician in the sleep business for a long time. Sometimes I see a product on the market that raises an eyebrow, and sometimes I see a product that raises genuine concern.
Patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) run the gamut from healthy and athletic to those faced with other comorbidities such as asthma, COPA, and pulmonary fibrosis.
It is that overlap of the patient population that concerns me most when I see ozone-based CPAP cleaners heavily marketed.
Out in California, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) was sufficiently alarmed to adopt legislation to protect public health. Why? Because ozone is not what other manufacturers advertise it to be (i.e. “activated oxygen”). Rather, ozone is a toxic gas. FDA regulations are pretty clear on this:
Sec. 801.415 Maximum acceptable level of ozone.
(a) Ozone is a toxic gas with no known useful medical application in specific, adjunctive, or preventive therapy. In order for ozone to be effective as a cleaner, it must be present in a concentration far greater than that which can be safely tolerated by man and animals.
(b) Although undesirable physiological effects on the central nervous system, heart, and vision have been reported, the predominant physiological effect of ozone is primary irritation of the mucous membranes. Inhalation of ozone can cause sufficient irritation to the lungs to result in pulmonary edema. The onset of pulmonary edema is usually delayed for some hours after exposure; thus, symptomatic response is not a reliable warning of exposure to toxic concentrations of ozone. Since olfactory fatigue develops readily, the odor of ozone is not a reliable index of atmospheric ozone concentration. (emphasis added).
The two products I see in the marketplace that rely on ozone for cleaning are SoClean and VirtuClean.
One has a warning not to use the CPAP equipment for several hours. The other has no warning at all for a waiting period.
A safe waiting period is probably several hours.
But, how much ozone is being vented in the room? Is it safe for pets, children and the elderly? Does the product
label even indicate how much ozone is released?
Probably not.
If a patient wants to use an ozone product, at least some awareness as to the risks needs to be raised to ensure that the product is used safely and as directed.
The worst thing that can happen is that the patient does not wait several hours to use and inhales a full column of ozone in the CPAP hose into their lungs, or the device vents enough ozone to raise the room concentration above 0.05 ppm.
So are ozone CPAP cleaners safe?
If you can smell ozone, you are breathing it.
And that is never a safe thing.
Dear Sir or Madam,
I purchased a new SoClean 2 cpap cleaner and used it for almost 1 1/2 weeks. From the beginning I noticed thie strong unpleasant odor. Finally, I did some research and found that the Ozone cleaning agent odor can be strong enough to cause potential lung irritation and not be good for you. . One article read claimed that industranial ozone cleaner could be a powerful carcinogen and may have a link to cancer? I used the SoClean 2 for approximately 10 days and the smell really started making me sick. I followed the directions on cleaning and useage and still had the smell. Finally, I got fed up and sent it back to the seller. I would not recommend the SoClean 2 to anyone! I think you are putting you life in danger!t
When I use my SoClean machine, I smell the odor of fresh air which is a very pleasant scent . Is that ozone? I am concerned because I recently have been having more problems with shortness of breath. I do have COPD. I have it set to go on at 10AM and it is completed by 12noon. I do not use it until 9 or 10PM. Is that safe or am I further damaging my lungs? I am worried after reading your article.
It shows 44 comments supposedly on this post, but magically they aren’t visible anywhere. That’s rather odd, IMCO. And you seem to not add any information for anyone to actually do any math to figure out how much air in a room would need to have X amount of ozone in it in order to be above the .05ppm danger area. Seems like if someone wasn’t sleeping in a broom closet, they would need to close all windows and doors, and tuck towels under all of those doors, and STILL have to run the cleaning cycle several times in a short amount of time to get anywhere *near* the .05ppm danger zone. Seriously, give us some MATHS here. How long would this thing need to run in, say, a 12’x16′ bedroom (smallish, but still believable) before it reached a .05ppm level and be dangerous?
Ozone is in nature all the time, for example, in a thunderstorm, in levels enough that we can smell it, and people don’t drop dead of it. And since you give NO mathematical equations in order to figure out ozone levels in a “small,” “medium,” or “large” bedroom’s ppm of regular, un-ionized air, and how long the ionized air cleaner must run (un-enclosed, I assume, as an enclosed cleaner doing its job isn’t spewing ozone into the room) in order to reach a dangerous level… I must assume you’re not much of a scientist, and not much help, either.
Thanks for wasting my time. I need hard FACTS, not diffuse “warnings” with no real information.
Hello Doesnt the cpap machine have to be cleaned also ????????????
I recently purchased a small cpap cleaner and used it once. After carefully reading the instructions I started the machine and allowed it to complete is cleaning operation 30 minutes. After the cleaning cycle I entered the room and was sure I began to feel lightheaded after a few seconds. After further investigation I discovered I my have ozone sensitive. My machine came with no such warnings or cautions. It was not advertised that it wou;d be using ozone gas as a cleaning agent. It’s billed a oxidized air. I am returning the machine and I fell the FDA should set guidelines for these machines..
Hi I have sleep Apnea and have been using my Cpap machine for several years now. My issue now is that I purchsed Prime Clean Cpap cleaner and have been using it for about 3 weeks now. I did see a warning about not using it after it has just been cleaned. I neglected that a few times because I needed to get to sleep. Since then in the last week I have gotten sinus and chest congestion irritations and had to stop using it . I,m still a little congested and concerned about using it again unless i clean it early in the day but for now I,m a little worried. What should i do?
If the so clean is so unsafe, then why hasn’ t the FDA banned its sales.
I used wave cpap cleaner, when i woke the next morning the right side of my my face below my ear was swollen. could this be from the cleaner ozone?
So, how can SoClean be so popular if it may not be safe. If peculiar smell the ozone harmful to health?
Cigarettes, alcohol, fattening foods, drugs, etc. See where I’m going with this?
Can these devises (o3 Ozone) also be safely used to clean N95 masks?
No.
I used my Whiskey CPAP cleaner, which is also an ozone producing cleaner. Unfortunately, I have developed a rather nasty cough. Could it also be related to my CPAP cleaner?
Of coarse this site would say that these o3 cleaners are dangerous. Y’all are trying to sell a 300 dollar UV cleaner. I have been using a so clean device now for over a year and a cheap portable one I got off wish for when I travel and they work great. My guess is that how tiny these devices are they aren’t going to put enough ozone in the room to do any damage to people or pets. There are probably far greater pollutants floating around the room than one of these little devices can put out. It’s not like people are going to attach one end to the machine then put the other in their mouth. I’ve got a piece of paper in my bag for my cpap that says this product has chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer. I think it’s safe to say these devices are safe of used correctly.