PETERSON STRAW MASK The Peterson straw mask is a device that I have created that I have given freely to the lung disease community. The mask is a minor alteration that you can do yourself in 5 minutes to a commercially available product. Hearing about problems with smells makes me think that you may have tried one of those filter masks you can get for less than a buck that is designed to filter out dust, bacteria, pollen and odors. I bought a 5 pack of maxi masks (by Flents) at a drugstore for about $3. If you have tried one of these commercially available masks, you know that they do not work well for those of us with lung disease. The reason that they don't work is that we with lung disease do not have the lung capacity to re-breathe our own exhaled air and so when we use one of these commercially available masks, we get very short of breath. The way to eliminate this problem is to cut a small hole in the mask and insert (do not glue as some report sob from the fumes!) a straw through the hole so that you can exhale thru your mouth thru the straw so that your exhaled air goes out of the mask. Now when you inhale thru your nose, the air you get is not laden with carbon dioxide and you will not get short of breath. You can still wear the mask if you use a nasal cannula for supplemental oxygen. In fact, the mask prevents the oxygen from being blown away if you are outside in the wind. Give this mask a shot and let me know how it works for you.

Back to Home Page