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← Return to 7% Saline Prescription and Medicare Part B payment quandry
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7% Saline Prescription and Medicare Part B payment quandry
MAC & Bronchiectasis | Last Active: Mar 23 3:02pm | Replies (100)Comment receiving replies
I use 7% saline when I nebulizer and hate all the plastic bottles it comes in, so I bought a bottle of pharmaceutical grade sodium chloride and distilled water and make my own solution and store in glass bottle. 100 ml water with 7 1 gram tablets makes 7%. I like having control over this little part of my health.
Replies to "I use 7% saline when I nebulizer and hate all the plastic bottles it comes in,..."
Distilled water is NOT sterile! It must be boiled for ten minutes and then one minute for each 1000 feet of elevation! Then you need to worry about contamination of any jar or container you put it in.
Distilled water is NOT sterile!
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I always appreciate the less-plastics approach and applaud your determination to do your part. I make my own yougurt and store it in glass jars for the same reason. My daughter reuses the gallon jugs to start all her seeds in winter.
A few questions I can think of -
Do you sterilize the bottle and the distilled water? Depending on bottling/handling methods, Dr Joe Falkinham and his students have found that distilled water is not always sterile.
Where do you store the homemade solution, and for how long? My daughters (RN's) taught me - open sterile containers at room temperature are to be discarded after 24 hours, refrigerated after 72 hours. Knowing that bacteria don't reproduce well in 7% saline, I personally would fell safe storing in the refrigerator for up to 7 days.
And a caution - be sure when pouring the sterile water into the nebulizer not to touch the lip of the bottle with fingers.
If I need to return to daily 7% saline nebs, I will definitely consider this!