Help, blackish residue in mouth after first use

Good Lord, here's something I didn't expect and I hope someone can shed light on it -- I've already called cpap.com (where I bought my equip) and they have no idea. I received my equipment yesterday and wasn't feeling well last night, so I just used the machine for about three hours this morning, 8:30-11:30ish. When I got up and rinsed my mouth out there was some kind of blackish residue in the water I spit out. Pardon my 'colorful' description but some of it looked a little stringy, probably because of nasal mucous, and some of it looked more like powdery particles in the sink. I am wondering, could there be some residue from the equipment, for example, the climate control tubing, that gets flushed out when you use the equipment for the first time?

As if this whole apnea/CPAP thing isn't difficult enough, I never expected something like this. If anyone has had this happen or can shed some light on what it might be, I'd appreciate it.

I haven't heard of this happening.

Could it be something from you not feeling well?

Sinus drainage?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hairy_tongue

Did you take some antacids recently?

Are the filters installed?

Blood.
Probably from nose.

See a real doctor.

Appreciate all your ideas (however creepy all the possibilities are!). Follow-up question, would a nasal pillow mask (I just started on the Swift FX for Her) tend to be harder on the nasal passages and sinuses than the nasal mask? I didn't have black residue in my mouth when I used the Mirage nasal mask during the week-long titration.

tigrpal wrote:Are the filters installed?

The filter on the back of the CPAP is installed (the white pad) -- does this unit (or its humidifier) have another filter(s)?

Nasal mucosa are fragile and remember, never had nasal pillows stuck up in there with the air going full force.
Make sure the pillows aren't too tight. Use a little Lansinoh up in the nostrils to help hydrate the tissues.
It doesn't take much blood to seem like a lot. My first suspect would be a little broken blood vessel (maybe dried out) and it drained into the mouth. If you aren't having copious amounts of fresh blood I wouldn't worry about it.

Might want to increase the humidifier setting also.

When I first moved to Las Vegas I had bloody nose pretty much every day due to the nasal mucosa drying out and cracking just a little.

Maybe you could try a nasal rinse to flush your sinuses out and clean everything up. and see what comes out with the rinse.

squid 13, good idea, I will do that right now. I use a sinus rinse every evening as well. Last night's rinse was clean as a whistle so I'll go see what it looks like now. Thanks.

are you a smoker by any chance?

I quite smoking three years ago after a 20 year pack-a-day habit. I coughed up black, stringy stuff for weeks.

mikewithe wrote:are you a smoker by any chance?

I quite smoking three years ago after a 20 year pack-a-day habit. I coughed up black, stringy stuff for weeks.

No, never smoked. I'm thinking now that it was probably some dried blood from tissue irritation in my sinuses that drained into my mouth. I did a sinus rinse as squid13 suggested, it was clear. The bleeding must have been further up than my nasal membranes because I could blow my nose and that was clear too. Thanks for offering the idea, all ideas are always welcome.

Had I read this earlier, I would have suggested you collect some of the stuff and drop it off at the doc's office.
A ziploc would be fine, patients have been taking gross stuff to the doctor for a long time--
(they used to use an empty baby food jar)..
No need for an appointment, they will call you if you need attention.
Otherwise they will call you and tell you it's all right; or whatever.

chunkyfrog wrote:Had I read this earlier, I would have suggested you collect some of the stuff and drop it off at the doc's office.
A ziploc would be fine, patients have been taking gross stuff to the doctor for a long time--
(they used to use an empty baby food jar)..
No need for an appointment, they will call you if you need attention.
Otherwise they will call you and tell you it's all right; or whatever.

I'm trying to imagine the look on the receptionist's face at Kaiser! That is actually a good idea, I'm just trying to imagine what would happen if I tried to execute it. What I would do, though, is if it happens again I might actually book the first available appt with my doctor, where I could not only bring in a sample but I could also insist on getting an appt with one of their heavily guarded sleep doctors. Thanks for your post.

Didn't someone report something coming out of their CPAP machine in the last year or so?

It seems doubtful that significant quantities of crud would come out of the CPAP machine, even if the people in the factory are being careless. The stuff the machine is made out of doesn't seem to be likely to have loose crud on it when new.

Also, you would expect crud to blow out when you first turned it on, and you'd tend to notice it. We tend to be pretty sensitive to dust in the air we breathe. I guess it's possible there was something in there that broke loose after you fell asleep and you didn't wake up. Take the filter out and see if you can see something in the air inlet.

I would suggest you turn it on, let it blow freely with no mask, and see if anything seems to be blowing out.