Can You Use an Oxygen Concentrator Without Water

Oxygen Concentrators make high purity oxygen for you to breathe! By taking in the ambient air from the room around it, the internal compressor will pass the air through a pair of Sieve Beds which essentially remove the Nitrogen, and pass the high purity Oxygen to the patient. As part of this process, the Oxygen can be very dry. This can lead to a sore or scratchy throat, or possibly nose bleeds, especially if it is a very dry time of year like winter.

A common accessory you can add to your Oxygen Concentrator is a Humidifer Bottle. By attaching this low cost accessory to your machine, the dry Oxygen will leave the Oxygen Concentrator, and be run through this bottle that you must fill with Distilled Water and will moisten it before you breathe it. If you have an Invacare Oxygen Concentrator you will need the INVACARE HUMIDIFIER KIT and if you have a Respironics EverFlo, you will need the RESPIRONICS EVERFLO HUMIDIFIER KIT.

These kits include the same Humidifier Bottle, and also the necessary tubing hookup you will need to change the barbed oxygen nipple on the concentrator, to a threaded fitting that will screw on to the top of the bottle.

With this all being said, a humidifier bottle is absolutely NOT NECESSARY to use your Oxygen Concentrator! They may actually run a little bit better without a humidifier as there will be less back pressure on the Oxygen Concentrator while it runs.

So if your humidifier bottle has broken, or if you have maybe lost your tubing adapter, it is not a big deal! Continue using your Oxygen Concentrator. Hook your cannula or tubing directly to the Oxygen Outlet of the machine. If you buy a replacement bottle from us, we ship them as well as all of our quality filter kits 6 days a week with United States Postal Service and they deliver most of these packages in about 3 days!

As always, feel free to email us at OxygenPlusMedical@gmail.com if you have any questions or concerns!