Thank you for your reply.
Do you think most of the Covid patients you saw needed to be on a ventilator?
My mother was put on one years ago when she had pneumonia and never came off it. It was when H1N! was raging, but supposedly she never had that.
I wasn’t around when they put her on the ventilator. My father says they rushed into her room because all of a sudden her oxygen level was low but that she had never seemed to him to have trouble breathing or anything. She was acting normally and talking to him about something on the tv.
First of all, a low O2 level is not an indicator for initiating mechanical ventilation. There are certain conditions for intubation, such as a Code (Asystole or heart stopped,) major trauma to the head or face, chest trauma ‘gun shot or stab wound,’ flail chest or multiple rib fracture, and a number of others.
Shortness of breath is not necessarily a reason to intubate. The best thing to do if time is available is to obtain an Arterial Blood Gas or ABG. In an active trauma center or ER, ABG results can be gotten in 10 minutes or fewer. The blood draw might take 30 seconds, and the analysis can take most ‘Readers’ another 30 seconds or so. It becomes minutes depending on Lab location and transport time.
An ABG consists of readings. Mainly they are the Ph, the PaO2, PaCo2, HCO3, O2Sat, and 1 or 2 other measures which are typically disregarded.
The first thing that is looked at is the Ph. It is extremely important. The 2nd thing is the PaCO2. PaCO2 is the partial pressure of Carbon Dioxide in the blood stream. These are usually the only 2 things that I ever care about. The other measures are relevant but in a trauma situation, that is what is being looked at. Of course often the other things must be considered, especially if the numbers are not absolutely definitive. Most times they are, but of course not always.
I can look at an ABG result and usually know within 5 seconds if intubation and mechanical ventilation is called for.
There are 4 Life Functions in Humans. The number one life function is Ventilation. Carbon Dioxide is the Index of Ventilation. If the CO2 level is elevated this can be a critical situation. CO2 must be eliminated from the body, this is the primary function of metabolism.
The number two life function is Oxygenation. You can give a person 100% Oxygen all the live long day, but if that CO2 is not getting out, it is pointless and that person will quickly expire.
The number three life function is Circulation.
The fourth is Perfusion.
I love discussing these things, but I prefer to not ‘take over’ threads. Anyone can feel free to FReepMail me on this stuff. I can try to explain things as I realize that questions will almost always arise. If I cannot answer, I probably know someone who can. .
Stay with me, I sort of have a point if I don’t forget it.
In 2017, I was taken to the hospital with respiratory failure. ( I tell people pneumonia, because I guess I had that too) My oxygen was down to 50 or 60% (I don’t know and my husband does not recall). The weird thing was, I did not know I couldn’t breath. My husband forced me to go to the doctor because of the way I breathed at night.
Waiting to be called, I was in the waiting room playing “Clash of Clans” on my laptop, when my husband asked what I was doing. So I told him, and he freaked out. (I did not have my laptop, I was hallucinating the whole thing),
When I came around next, I was intubated and in critical care. ( the “dreams” I was having is a whole other subject, but when I woke up I was like “oh no, this is real).
I believe to this day, that intubation saved my life. I just wish they hadn’t brought me around and made me wait a night and a morning prior to taking it out. It was awful, horrible, I so feel for those who are intubated.
Although smoking was not the only factor to my distress, I never smoked again.
And I fear hospitalization and intubation. Don’t care if it saved me.