Wondering about the noise level of your model machines. Are you able to have it in your bedroom or do you prefer it in another room due to noise level?
Jane, it seems like you’ve been considering different machines for months 
When are you going to make the plunge?
My fresenius is actually not that noisy. I mean, I sleep with it about a foot away from me every night without any problem at all. It sort of just recedes into the background. Where I live, noises from people and traffic outside are a way more annoying. My Baxter water purifier is a lot noiser than the dialysis machine, but it’s in another adjoining room, so, I don’t hear it at all.
I thought the Fresenius would be noisier, but it was just that at the dialysis centre, I was used to hearing 30 of them all running at the same time.
I can’t compare with the other makes of dialysis machine, as I’ve never heard them in operation.
Pierre
my nxsatge machine seems to be very quiet.
Vanessa
Mine sounds like a distant carnival… :lol: :lol:
Jane,
I have the NxStage in my basement. The sound of the machine is minimal. I can easily fall asleep while connected to the machine. My wife will also lay on the couch next to me while watching TV (while I am on NxStage) and has easily fallen asleep. The sound is simuilar to that of a fan, assuming no alarms. I wish you much success with your macine.
Michael
I am just beginning home hemo and the R\O machine is the source of the most noise. There is a possibility that it will be replaced with the Acquboss, but right now, it is like an unmuffled generator. Very noisy. Very disturbing.
You don’t actually need to have the R/O right next to your dialysis station. As I said, mine is in the adjoining utility room, where the plumbing is, and I don’t hear it at all while I’m on dialysis. They simply ran the hoses from the dialysis machine into the utility room via a hole in the wall. I had an Aquaboss the first week or two. It broke down, and that’s many months in the past, so I don’t remember how noisy it was. I seem to recall it wasn’t that quiet either, though. I don’t have the Aquaboss now as they replaced it with something else after it broke down. By the way, I do have a leak alarm on the floor under the R/O, so I would hear it if there should be a leak.
Pierre
I found our Fresenius2008H not noisy at all. Or at least we got used to the sound. The, sound was the most and of course f an alarm went off. Lois easily slept relatively close to it on the bed. The RO system at that time was hooked up to the back of the machine, we just got used to it. It didn’t interfer, we often had the television or radio going on too.
This was several years ago so I don’t what some of the machines are like now.
John
I am using the Aksys PHD (“Bertha”). I think that “noise” is her middle name!
I was doing CAPD for about 6 months when I first started dialysis. Neither myself, nor my husband had any problems with noise from the cycler, which was good because I was hooked up to it while I slept.
The PHD, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. Sometimes, it seems like she never stops screaming and burping and coughing, etc… Luckily, the fact that she makes a lot of noise at all hours of the day and night is not a big issue for us since she is located in a room that we don’t use very much. But I am glad that I am not doing nocturnal with her because I doubt either of us would be able to sleep with it right by the bed.
During a treatment, the noise level is fairly minimal. Along with the typical “glug, glog”, like you get with the in-center machines during a treatment, Bertha’s noise level does increase somewhat during the frequent backflushes she performs during each treament. Nothing terribly loud, though.
However, the noise gets much, much worse during her recycling process. Sometimes it sounds as if something fell and crash landed on the floor.
If you decide on the Aksys PHD, I would definitely recommend your placing it somewhere that would provide some sort of sound insulation from its many loud noises it produces while it is recycling. One of our first thoughts was to put Bertha right next to our guest room. That would have a huge mistake. It would have been very convenient for us as far as proximity to the existing plumbing goes, but terribly inconvenient for any guest we had that was staying over. I seriously doubt that any guest would be able to sleep through all of the strange noises that Bertha produces at all times of the day and night.
We were just lucky about the location where we chose to put Bertha. I was initially told by the Aksys tech that came out to do our house survey that it did make some noise, but it wasn’t too bad. That was a huge stretch of reality, in my opinion! If we had decided to put Bertha somewhere else in our house, we would have unknowingly been making that part of our house simply unusable due to the excessive noises that Bertha almost constantly puts out.
Hi Estomb,
I have hated Dialysis machine noise since I began when the world was young or maybe I was…
I have used many different ‘systems’ to deal with the noise from the various machines and R.O. s since going home 7 years ago…
What began as 3 tier thickness cardboard with finger foam or egg crate foam spray-glued to the inside surface has evolved to 1 and 1/2 inch foam insulation board that comes in 4 x 8 ft sheets at Home Depot (around $8-10 a sheet but WELL worth it )with the same egg crate foam spray-glued to the inside…I make 4 of these to surround the PHD to the height of the top of the machine, when we had a roomate, I put a top piece cover on it and made sure to leave a 5" gap at the back of the machine for ventilation where the vents are or you can get a warning message after treatment “to vacuum the dust out of your exhaust vents” Your Aksys tech’s boss should have a picture of my setup they took them when I 1st set it up.
Also during treatment I set a foam board (with egg crate lining facing in toward the PHD) between me and the machine and it cuts way down on the noise, it works very well… let me know if you want more specific details…
Ciao,
Guillaume
Thanks for the info on sound insulation, Guillaume. If the excessive noises coming from Bertha become troublesome (like we move to a different house and Bertha can’t be located far enough away from our general living area) then I will definitely try what you described.