Does everyone breathe out into the nebulizer? Dumb question?

@grammyvictoria I had to stop and think - I exhale through my nose when nebbing..

@grammyvictoria
It's impossible to ask a dumb question! Yours is actually quite interesting.

I breathe in and out with my mouth through the nebulizer. That's what I thought was breathing regularly. Maybe I should breathing out my nose?

With the Aerobika I breathe out through my mouth and in through my nose. I figure it's more sanitary and I don't need to clean it as often if I am only breathing out.

I use a Pari eRapid and I manually pause it after every inhale. Otherwise salt mist spreads around the room and triggers my air purifier to go into overdrive. No one told me to do this but I figure I should get as much of the saline as possible into my lungs. I also hold my breath a second or two or three before exhaling into the air, not the mouthpiece. Sometimes I can see salt mist in my exhalation, sometimes not; the longer I hold my breath, the less mist comes out, which I assume means more has been absorbed into my lungs. Then I put my mouth back on the mouthpiece, press the button, and inhale again.

@bronchiectasaurus
Wow. How many inhales do you get? That's a lot of pausing. I pause when I need to cough/clear during nebulization. I wonder how many pause/pushes that black button is good for.

@scoop my “eBase” button is blue, but yeah I also wonder how long it will last. So far so good.
My neb sessions would surely be shorter without all the pausing I do. I dunno, it just feels right and it’s habit now, but I do wish I had access to a specialist in this. No one in my med system even seems aware that nebulizing saline can help.

@grammyvictoria I think that is a great question! I use the Aeroclipse which has a valve on the bottom of the mouth piece so when I exhale my breath goes out through the valve and not back into the nebulizer. I'm not sure if they all have that feature, but I would think so. Also, I use the breath actuator setting so the saline (or whatever you may be nebulizing) is only released when I breath in. I am not wasting saline when I have to cough or remove my mouth from the mouthpiece for whatever reason. I also find it easier to tolerate the 7% saline since it's not constantly pouring out.

@bronchiectasaurus
Even if you had access to a specialist this is all just so nuanced. They would probably say if it works for you keep doing it. Furthermore, medicine would say there is no evidence, meaning it has not been studied, so they cannot say for sure. Evidence based medicine is great as long as there is evidence. I think what we all find sooner or later is that a lot of stuff we'd like answers to "has not been studied".