How Do You Keep Oxygen Tubing From Twisting?
On home oxygen, the hose knots itself while you get on with your day. Long-time concentrator users found a small part that stops most of it.
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A 50-foot oxygen hose turns every time you do. Walk to the kitchen, turn round, sit down, get up again, and each turn puts another twist into the line behind you. By evening it has wound itself into coils, and the coils fold into kinks and knots on the floor.
That's where the threads start. In r/COPD, somebody new to lung trouble who'd just been prescribed a home concentrator and a 50-foot tube asked for better tubing. In r/pulmonaryfibrosis, someone whose mother keeps tripping over 100 feet of coiled line wanted to know why there isn't an easier option.
There is. Owners in five threads spread over six years give the same answer, a swivel connector, and most of them say where it goes. If you're on a home concentrator and spend part of each day untwisting the hose behind you, it's the first thing to try.
What is an oxygen swivel connector?
A small plastic joint that sits between two lengths of oxygen tubing, with two halves that spin against each other. The tube on your side turns with you, while the tube on the machine's side stays put. Salter Labs, who make a swivel connector, say its 360-degree rotation helps to reduce tubing torque and twisting.
Owners have backed that up for years. The oldest voice is from 2020, a long-term oxygen user in that COPD forum who posted that swivels at both ends of a 50-foot tube keep the kinking and knotting down to a minimum.
Six years on, in the same forum, an owner who runs one at every connection says they made a huge difference. Another finds they definitely help keep the tubes less twisted.
It isn't one forum's habit either. On MyCOPDTeam, a member answering the same question calls swivel connectors invaluable. And a reply to the person whose mother kept tripping put it like this:
Make sure that your hose connectors rotate freely. Many do not. That rotation helps your hose keep from twisting and coiling.
u/LensPro, in r/pulmonaryfibrosis
Where do the swivels go?
Wherever two lengths of tubing meet. For one at the concentrator, that means a short length of tube from the machine first, with the swivel fitted after it.
Owners describe two layouts:
- Both ends of a 50-foot run. The 2020 poster's set-up: one swivel just after the concentrator, one at the cannula.
- Two 25-foot lengths with a swivel between them. One owner keeps 25 feet coiled by the concentrator for wandering far. Another 25 feet, joined to it with a swivel, covers getting round the house, with another swivel at the cannula. A second owner went from one 50-foot line to two 25s, or several 7-foot lengths, with a swivel at every join.
Ask for male/male. That means a plain male fitting at each end, so it goes between two tubes. One owner asked the supplier for swivels and got ones with a short tube attached instead, which wasn't what they needed. The Salter swivel is a male/male one.
Does a swivel stop all the twisting?
Not all of it, say the owners who like them. The MyCOPDTeam member who called them invaluable still gets some, and hangs a couple of hooks in the right places so the hose isn't twisting under their feet. In the kitchen they hook it over a chair, so only the 7 feet or so they need is loose.
The maker's sheet asks for the same thing in its own words. Keep the excess tubing loosely coiled and out of the way, and position it so you can't get tangled in it.
The owner who finds swivels help says the coils still build up over a few days, and warns against ever letting the tube fold into a sharp kink. A swivel takes most of the twist away, and a hook or two keeps the rest out from under your feet.
The other two fixes owners use
A sleeve over the hose is the second answer. One owner wraps the 50-foot line in cable protectors, which make it heavier but stop much of the twisting and tangling. Another uses quarter-inch split wire loom from the car parts aisle.
A third, who's bought a cover for the cord more than once, says it decreases kinks and knots but that the white one gets stepped on far more often. In the pulmonary fibrosis thread, plain cable wraps did the job for one person.
The third is a different hose. One owner says the hoses their supplier sends are stiff and won't uncurl.
On Mayo Clinic Connect, the person who started a thread about this switched to tubing with a reinforcement round it, which they say really reduces tangles. Another member's husband had less luck with a green hose bought for the same job. It went ten days without a tangle, then turned into a mess of tangles overnight.
Whatever length you end up running, have the supplier check the flow at the cannula end. A longer run can mean a lower output where it reaches you, and they can measure it there.
Where to get one
Ask your supplier before you order anything. One owner says their Medicare vendor supplies the connectors along with tubing in any length.
The part is a disposable. Salter's sheet calls it single-patient and says it's not for use past three months, so plan on swapping it before three months are up.
Start with two male/male swivels, one just after the short tube from the concentrator and one at the cannula. Then put a hook on the wall where the hose would otherwise lie under your feet.
Your supplier may hand the swivels over with the next tubing delivery. If they don't, or send the kind with a tube attached, order the Salter swivel, which is male/male and comes one to a pack.
