Help!    I desperately need to find something to cover my hose with that is "kitty teeth proof"!  My guardian cat is put out with my CPAP machine (that I have been on less than 1 month) and as he was used to keeping watch over me at night and waking me when I was choking, now that doesn't happen, and he has attacked the hose in the middle of the night, and I awoke to pulling on my hose and discovered that it had numerous tooth holes in it.  Needless to be able to continue to use it for the remainder of the night, I only had derma tape available and taped it up.  Well he has attacked it again twice since and now I not only have derma tape on it but bandaids. (I know it seems humerous, and it is really).  I have a new hose but won't use it till I have some means of protecting it.  As it is now, I have a lightweight towel wrapped around the old one and he seems to leave it alone, it can just get heavy. Does anyone have any ideas?  I would be ever so appreciative!  

I don't know if this will help, but I bought a cover for mine from someone on ebay.  It's made of a soft fleece with elastic on one end, and on the other end is elastic with a snap.  You say he seems to be leaving it alone with the towel on so maybe this will help.  I do like this cover because I tend to keep the hose under the covers with me and it's much more comfortable.  In the meantime, I'd just find some fabric (or the towel) and keep it wrapped around there to deter him.  Hope this helps.

Hi Mushy!!

I too have cats who:

1.  Attack my hose when my CPAP is off and defenseless.

2.  Shake the hose to wake me up so I'll feed them.

So here are my solutions:

A.  I tried coating the hose with tabasco sauce, but I wouldn't recommend it.  It ended up all over my face.

B. I also bought some bitter tasting stuff at the pet store to deter them.  I don't know how well it works yet because I-

C.  Bought a pile of ridiculously cheap tube socks, cut the toes off and threaded them on my hose.  I don't use a humidifier, but if you do, this solution has the added benefit of insulating the hose so the water doesn't "rainout".  I haven't had any more teeth holes, but the hose is a little heavy.  I can still move around however.

BTW, the best thing I've found to cover the holes is Saran Wrap.

Meow!!

Vicki   :  :  :  : (The dead give-away that it was the cat)


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That which does not kill you makes you stronger-Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich must of had apnea.

Thanks you all!  Will have to try different things. Hopefully one of them will work.    Thought about wiring harness insulation type stuff, but I am not sure that is kitty proof either, and not sure if it wouldn't become very heavy.  

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Last edited by another_guest on Tue Oct 31, 2006 10:59 pm; edited 1 time in total

My cat has only gotten my hose one time- and it was somewhat on accident...he knows ones I'm so far awake that the best way to get me fully awake is to pretent to bite at my hose and one morning he was doing that on the hard plastic connector between my mask hose and the machine hose...except one of it teeth slide off and and hit the hose. I do keep a polar fleece tube over the main tube- more for preventing rainout then anything...plus its a lot softer against my skin then the plasticy hose. I'm a sewer so I made my own- I used 2 layers of polar fleece. Even if you are not a sewer, you could hand stitch polar fleece easily using a darning needle and ribbon- polar fleece doesn't ravel so the larger needle doesn't matter.

I'm also on a feeding tube and suction at night- my cat never bothers the feeding tube line, but the suction line has to be covered at all times so we made several covers for it and hold them on with masking tape. Cats may be a pain sometimes, but this guy has woken me up when something is wrong more then once...the worst was when a room humidifier shorted out in the middle of the night- if he hadn't woken me up and drawn my attention to it, who knows what might have happen. All this, well my dog sleeps totally unaware of anything...

I have a cat as well, but she does not bother my machine or anything. Thank goodness. Have any of you considered putting your cats out of your bedrooms at night so they don't bother you or your machine?


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Cathy D
Carrollton, Texas