CIDP and the ventilator

    • Anonymous
      April 11, 2007 at 3:52 am

      Hi everyone, hope you all OK , haven’t been around for some time now, I’ll try to catch up with your posts later. Val developed pneumonia a week before Easter, he was on ventilator for a week, he’s off the ventilator now but still has trouble breathing. He uses the BIPAP mask but the days go by he seems to get addicted to this. Has any of you been in the same situation or used the ventilator from different motives was the transition from intubation to breathing normally very hard? How did you got past this. His getting very anxious as well as he’s got a lot of secretion down there and he hasn’t got enough strength to cough it up , so they need to do a lot of suction. Any input would be most appreciated. whish you all the best.

    • Anonymous
      April 11, 2007 at 4:12 pm

      Hi,

      I was on a ventilator for 2 months because I was so paralyzed from CIDP that I was not strong enough to breathe on my own. However, after being intebated for 2 weeks they gave me a tracheostomy. I had my trache in for a year and a half ( I was allergic to the plastic of the trache and a tumor grew under it and the trache kept the tumor from restricting my air passage until I was strong enough for surgery).

      When I was intebated I also had a lot of secretion and had to be suctioned a couple times an hour. When I came off the ventilator I had to be put back on about a week later because I just wasn’t ready to be weaned off of it yet, but when I was ready I did not have any problems.

      Emily