Tornado Tube the Asthma Inhaler Spacer

Disclaimer: This is not a substitute for medical advise. Not all HFA inhalers are supposed to be used with a spacer. There are commercially available spacers that can be obtained by contacting your doctor or pharmacist. Some have specialized antistatic inner linings and one way valves.

The inspiration for this came from a post in the Open Source COVID19 Medical Supplies Facebook group. Patients are unable to use nebulizers because of the risk of aerosolization. A spacer can be used with a metered dose inhaler (MDI) to help disperse the medication and reduce the deposition of particles in your mouth (i.e. more medication gets into your lungs). This might be a little too late to be helpful. At the time spacers were in short supply. However, this was an interesting design challenge for me. I made a lot of different prototypes over the last month before ending up with this final shape.

This was made to be quick and easy to print in "vase mode". It took me a little over an hour to print. It can be printed either in one piece or ideally split into two. The split design allows the two halves to be twisted into each other. Which can also be disassembled and cleaned. See below for additional printing information.