How to Keep Your CPAP Hose Out of the Way at Night
A CPAP hose slides off the bed, wraps round you and tugs the mask when you turn. Owners have cheap fixes and a bought one, though each gives something up.
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The hose slides into the gap between the bed and the nightstand, and you haul it back up. Then one night you turn to the other side of the bed with most of it already down there, it catches, and it pulls the mask off your face. That was the nightly chore for the person who started a thread on hose hangers in r/CPAP.
A couple of months later, another thread starter was waking several times a night wrapped in the hose and asked for something homemade.
The answer in both threads is a hose holder: something that holds a loop of hose up above you. The length between the machine and your face then hangs from a point instead of lying across the bed. The replies split two ways, between rigs built from a hardware-store hook or a kitchen-drawer clip and a bought bedside pole like the Lerboai one, which wedges under the mattress.
If you sleep in a CPAP mask and roll around, the choice is between a cheap rig and that pole. The people who use each have said what it gives up.
Does a hose holder help with mask leaks?
It helps with one cause of them. The American Thoracic Society's troubleshooting page for CPAP users has a section on a mask that leaks at night. Two of its tips: lay the tubing on your chest under a blanket so it doesn't pull on the mask, and use a commercially available tubing holder. Philips says the same from the manufacturer's side: loop the tubing over the headboard to reduce the pull on the mask.
That's the job: a holder takes the hose's weight off the mask. A leak that comes from the fit of the mask itself is a different problem, and Philips tells a leaking reader to adjust the fit first.
A hook or clip on the wall or headboard
The pick of the cheap rigs is a Command broom gripper on the wall above the bed. The one owner who's tried a number of hose holders calls a 3M broom holder on Command strips their favourite by far, and takes it travelling too. Command's broom grippers come in a three-pack, so one can live in the travel bag.
Plainer versions work too. A large stick-on Command hook works well for one owner, and a chip clip on the edge of the headboard keeps the hose from falling off the bed for another.
A few people use a Command cord organiser, the sort sold for appliance cords. It opens so you can clean the hose, its soft plastic is quieter than the hard plastic holders, and one reply with that setup never gets tangles. At least one sold hanger is the same idea: Sunset Healthcare's CozyHose BOSS goes on the wall with the Command strips in the box.
The free routes, with nothing stuck to the wall
Philips' loop over the headboard is the free version of all this. Owners have their own: a hose that runs up through an old belt buckled round the headboard, a bedpost, a big S hook on a rail of the bed.
In a third thread, someone shared their cheap hangers: a picture hanger, keyring, badge clip and hair tie, three sets of them, and it works lovely. One reply:
After using CPAP for 5 years, I don't know why I have never thought of using hangers to keep my annoying hose suspended off my bed.
u/raderat, in r/CPAP
The pole under the mattress
The bought version owners name is a bedside pole with a base that wedges under the mattress. One owner calls theirs incredible. You set the exact amount of slack, and the top pivots to give you range when you roll around. It's never tipped or come undone, held by nothing but the mattress.
Another likes the same stability and sets it at the middle of their pillow, where it handles their rolling with little interference. They took out a section because it was too tall.
The base is the part to keep an eye on. An owner's husband had to reweld theirs, though it still keeps the hose suspended and away. If a stand wobbles, the wall is the fallback: someone whose metal stand was unstable and would fall on their head went back to a hanger.
What the cheap rigs give up
Put the cheap setups next to the pole owners' and the gaps are plain.
- A hook or clip on the wall or headboard gives up adjustment. The hose hangs from wherever you stuck it, at that height, and nothing in those setups moves. The pole owners talk about slack they set, a top that pivots when they roll and a height they cut down. It also needs a wall or a headboard within reach of your pillow. What you get back: the quiet of the soft cord organiser, and a holder the broom-holder owner packs for travel.
- A belt, bedpost or S hook gives up the same adjustment and depends on the bed you have. Every one of those owners had a headboard, post or rail to use, and the picture-hanger rig needs a wall.
- The pole asks for more money and a base to watch. You may also need to take a section out to get the height right. In return it stands on its own, needs no wall and follows you across the bed.
Does it make a difference at all?
Not for everyone, and there are two ways round the problem without a holder. The free one: one sleeper runs the hose over the top of the pillow. That works as long as you don't flip your pillow in the night. It's the same catch with clipping the hose to the pillow, which one reply rules out because they flip theirs too often.
The other is a mask with the hose connecting at the top of the head. An owner uses one, and another would rather try that than a holder. It costs more than a hook, though. The sleeper who asked for something homemade said maybe one day, since a new mask isn't in the budget right now.
Stick a Command broom gripper on the wall above your pillow tonight, or buckle an old belt round the headboard, and see what the hose does. The pole is for the sleeper who crosses the whole bed in a night and wants the slack set and the top following them. It's also the answer for a bed with nothing to hang a hook from.
