Posted by Hope NEVER use a hypotonic solution. Hurts like heck. Think water up your nose. Isotonic, of course, works fine, and there is very little risk of bronchoconstriction. If you use boiled distilled waer with your GSH in the proportions given, then you will create an isotonic solution for inhalation. CF doctors have lately been enamored of hypertonic saline, as there are now studies showing that ASL volume increases when hypertonic saline is inhaled by CF patients. (The theory is that the salt and the water in the solution tend to pull water out of epithelial cells and into the airway surface liquid.) It is a bit ironic, because way back 10 years ago there was a group of docs in Australia saying that HS was a great thing for CF patients, but nobody listened. Finally people are listening. Anyhow, the ratio of particulate matter to water is reflected in the percent. So 0.9% saline is isotonic. Anything over that is hypertonic. I have seen up to 7% or 9% used by CF patients. In one study, they tried 12%. Now if you mix your GSH with saline, even isotonic saline, the ratio of particulate matter to water will increase. So maybe a 7% saline solution would become a 12% solution (I am making these figures up, and I do not know what the percentage would be, but it will go up.) There is no problem in doing this--that is, if you as an individual can tolerate a 12% solution. Some people can, and some people cannot and will experience bronchoconstriction. Each individual is different, and it is impossible to predict in advance what percent solution a person can tolerate. You just have to start at a lower percentage and work up and see where your chest starts feeling tight. So if you want to use saline with your GSH inhalation, as a layperson I'd recommend starting with isotonic saline (0.9%) and working up from there. Hope this helps!
on June 28, 2007, 8:36 am, in reply to "What about the distilled water versus saline?"
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I will give this a try. A solution is isotonic if it has the same ratio of particulate matter to water as the lung. It is hypertonic if there is more particulate matter in ratio to water as the lung. It is hypotonic if there is less particulate matter in ratio to water as the lung.
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