Dreamstation - Photo of foam 'bits' in airway under blower

[DaveCar]

Three year old DS Pro, never exposed to ozone cleaners or any kind of cleaners.
Was regularly exposed to ambient humidity (75%+ in summer).
Bits in airway under motor, and a greasy deposit in the airway exit hole.

So, it doesnt need to be very old or ozone exposed anyhow..

[qwerty42]

Damn, man. Sorry to see that. If I were you, I'd leave everything undisturbed with the machine, photograph the hell out of it, reassemble it, and find a replacement. What you have is very clear evidence of degradation leading to particulate generation. I hope you never need the evidence, but if you do, pulling the foam out will damage/abrade it, and make it very easy for others to dismiss anything further as being caused by you.

The particulate sizes of concern, in terms of getting trapped in lung tissue, are too small to see. If pieces large enough to see by eye are shedding, then smaller particulates probably are too. 

[DaveCar]

Thanks qwerty.  Yes, I'm going to document and reassemble it.  I had intentions of removing the foam as a precautionary move before I found this, but now of course the situation has changed.
Fortunately my DME vendor has agreed to supply me with a replacement (resmed) while we work this out.
I dont like knowing that this foam crap is now in my lungs, but its water under the bridge.. gotta move forward.

I joined a class action, who knows where that will go.

I should update - my machine is 3 years old, but it had 2.3 years of usage on it.
2.3 years with no ozone exposure.. just regular house humidity.
I think this problem is larger than Philips is saying.

[DaveCar]

Quick follow up - I took a bunch of pics and reassembled the unit.
Powered it back up to find the runtime hours = 5730.

I'm really looking forward to getting the Resmed loaner tomorrow, last night with no cpap was brutal.. I think I spent more time awake than asleep. I forgot how bad it can be (and found out how addicted I am to cpap, I guess).

[BHappy]

This is scary. I have used mine for 4 years in a very tropical city in Northern Australia (average relative humidity of 78%) and can't begin to imagine what mine is like.

[DaveCar]

"can't begin to imagine what mine is like"

Talking mine apart to find out was not very difficult, but I've taken many electronic things apart so Im comfortable with small circuit board connectors which imho is the highest risk point for a DIY inspection.  If you break the connector/wire/board then the machine is possibly junk (worth sending away for fix, and being w/o xpap ?).
Its certainly not a "factory trained techs only" type job, but absolutely not a "first time taking apart electronics" type job.
Short of that, other than waiting for a replacement, the antibacterial inline filter method will help stop the larger stuff from shooting down into your lungs. 

Finding out that I'm apparently a true victim in this is kind of annoying.  Other than the obvious reason,  I might also be out $1000 or so on a new machine.   I cant give this evidence up to Philips for a "free" replacement (presumably) and there goes the hard info, and Im sure my insurance wont pay for a new one when the manuf is offering to pay for it.

[DaveCar]

Follow up : I did get a replacement machine, at least temporarily (AS-10).
Just got the results of a chest xray.. all clear.
So thats cool, no guarantee that something nasty wont start someday, but at least there is nothing there for now.
Daily headaches went away as soon as I stopped the DS.