[Harp-L] Death rattle from a chromatic?

[martin oldsberg <martinoldsberg@xxxxxxxxx>]

My CX-12 gets used very little. I take it out about once a month, but even more seldom these days since it´s gotten this ... asthmatic sound. "Death rattle" may actually be overstating it a bit -- and in contrast to that sound it goes away after some minutes of playing -- but something´s not right here.
  Of course I know it´s the valves but what I´m wondering is, is there any way to fix this without disassembling the instrument? 
  A healthy dose of warm water?
  I´m not keen on experimenting: I´d rather have this asthmatic harmonica than no chromatic at all; also I´m extremely reluctant to do anything more advanced with it, for the same reason. (Sadly, "advanced" is in my book just about anything that you can´t fix with gaffa tape.)
  Am I lost?
 
Thus wonders,
Martin
in Sweden