Daily Nebulizer Care

These are the 5 steps that it takes to clean & sterilize her nebulizers daily. She has only cultured pseudamonas ONCE in the 4 1/2 years that she has been on this earth. She cultured them October 28, 2010 & they were finally cleared up January 11, 2011. It took nearly three months of inhaled and oral antibiotics to clear up the nasty pseudamonas in her precious little lungs



She takes her nebulizers as follows:



8am - Pulmicort & Albuterol -- 17 minutes (roughly)
8:20am -- Pulmozyme -- takes 10 minutes (roughly)



I begin sterilizing them at 9am and they finish close to 10:45am



12pm -- Albuterol & Mucomyst


The sterilization begins at 12:30 & it finishes close to 2pm



4pm -- Albuterol & Mucomyst -- takes 17 minutes (roughly)



Third sterilization session begins around 4:30pm and it finishes roughly 6:15pm




8pm -- Albuterol & Pulmicort -- takes 17 minutes (roughly)
8:20pm -- Pulmozyme -- takes 10 minutes (roughly)



Final sterilization begins at 9pm and ends at roughly 10:45



She has separate neb cups for each medication. So she has 5 -- The fifth one is for her TOBI if/when she will be on it again!



Also, while she is doing these inhaled medications through her nebulizer she is doing her SmartVest (www.smartvest.com) for 30 minutes which equals two hours of her day.



Physical therapy for 30 minutes twice a day.



Electro Flo 5000 which is a hand-held percusser, which I do two times a day for 15 minutes at a time focusing on certain parts of her lungs.



Step 1 -
Soak and scrub in Dawn dish detergent with hot water to clean off any residue. I scrub them for 10-15 minutes in extremely hot water (120 degrees).








Step 2-
Hospital grade disinfectant/germicide to kill any pseudamonas or staph. his is what they use to sterilize Operating Rooms & Intensive Care Units. Soak for a minimum of 10 minutes.










(Close up up the disinfectant- what you see in these pictures is only HALF of her daily nebulizer cups)











Step 3 -
Neb soup! Boil all parts for 10 minutes to kill anything else (Yes Step 2 and 3 are similar, but I want to be SURE I am doing everything in my power to keep those bugs out of her lungs!)








Step 4-
Dry Heat. This dries the neb parts for me and then I run a second cycle to be sure nothing is still damp so pseudamonas does not have a chance to grow...(you would be shocked if you knew where PA is growing in your own house)....30 min per cycle



This isn't the one that I use. I use a different sterilizer. It is a germ guardian that I put in the microwave with water and it steam dries them. Two cycles of 15 minutes....













I would like to Thank Catherine Elizabeth Hopkins for allowing me to use her photos! These are her photos but she had given me permission to use them since her & I use the same method of sterilizing our babies nebulizers and fighting hard to keep our warriors healthy!




The reason behind this blog is to show everyone just a glimpse of what a day in the life of a Cystic Fibrosis patient is. This is just a small part of our daily lives. This right here is 8 or more hours of my day! And I wouldn't change it for the world.




She does her neds at 8am, 12pm, 4pm and 8pm and I sterilize them from 9am to 10:45am, then 12:30pm to almost 2pm, 4:30 to 6pm & then finally 9pm to 10:45pm. And I still manage to give her a normal as possible life. She gets 18 different medications a day.





Mommy Loves You Babygirl! I Will Fight Til' My Last Breathe For You! There isn't anything I would NOT do for you!