If you or someone you love uses breathing equipment, whether it's a sleep apnea CPAP, asthma nebulizer, an oxygen concentrator or any other form of electrical equipment that helps you to breathe, the user should have a generator. Read on to learn why having a generator to use with this equipment is a must.

Power Outages

When power outages strike, the lack of electricity means that you can't use breathing equipment. Depending on what kind of equipment you have, this may seem like a dire situation, or not a big deal. For example, not having access to oxygen is something that could potentially put a life at risk immediately, but users with nebulizers or CPAP machines may not feel so anxious. 

However, the reality is that any power outage can be risky for users of breathing machines. Power outages can last hours, or in severe situations, even days. Sleeping without a CPAP can potentially cause a sleep apnea sufferer's airway to collapse, putting their health at risk. The anxiety surrounding the power being out can potentially stir up and asthma attack, which a nebulizer may be necessary to recover from.

Battery Life

Some breathing machines have battery back-ups that you might think are sufficient to get you through a power outage. However, batteries sometimes fail, and most batteries are generally only designed to work for a short period of time.

Generator running time varies depending on the model, but generators can power your entire home for prolonged periods of time. In addition, if you keep extra fuel on hand, you can refill a gas generator when it runs out of gas for even more time with electrical power.

Protecting Your Health

Power outages are often due to bad weather conditions, like snow or extremely strong winds. Some of these breathing devices are designed so you can hook them up to your car battery to use it as an alternate power source. However, going outside during severe weather to hook up your breathing machine to an alternate power source isn't necessarily a good idea. Cold air can be really hard on your lungs,and physical exertion isn't easy when you're struggling to breathe, so having to go outside to set up your equipment may make breathing even harder.

In comparison, the vast majority of modern generators are designed so that they immediately power on if the normal source of electricity is lost. Going outside generally isn't necessary to restore the power to your home. If you use a CPAP machine, this is also advantageous because if you're asleep when the power goes out, you might not wake up and realize the machine isn't working. Since the power will automatically come back on with a generator, your CPAP will turn back on immediately. 

Breathing machines can potentially protect their users' lives, but only if they have electricity to run. If you use any machine that helps you to breathe, adding a generator to your home can let you rest easy and be safe during power outages.