I call shenanigans!
When I was wearing one at work, I’m an RN, I did my own oxygen saturation and my usual is 97% or 98%. With the mask on they were 86% and I did this on many occasions.
Medicare pays for a patient to go home on oxygen when the sats are under 88%. On room air!
And believe me, Medicare has to have that documented, and also the percentage when walking and lying down. Medicare very much does not want to have to pay for anything if they don’t have to.
If your SpO2 dropped to the level of brain dysfunction and muscular paralysis simply because you put a piece of cloth across your face, you should never have been in the medical field to begin with because there’s something severely wrong with your pulmonary system.
You should seek medical assistance to help identify and correct whatever abnormality is causing this problem for you. In an N95 mask and walking on a treadmill for an hour at 2.5mph, normal test subjects see a ~0.4% decrease in SpO2. http://www.rcjournal.com/contents/05.10/05.10.0569.pdf
I have one of those finger 02 testers and the number drops from97/98 to 89/91 while wearing a blue med mask.
Absolutely. I had the symptoms of Covid19 back in the first week of January after a short trip back to California where we were exposed to a large family of Chinese in a Denny’s Restaurant just north of McCarran Airport in Las Vegas. This family were all hacking and coughing while chatting away in Chinese, while eating not more than a few feet away from where we were sitting. They had luggage with them, and were obviously just off a plane.
Shortly after returning from the trip both my lady and I came down with mild symptoms similar to those that were later reported to be Covid19, deep dry cough, loss of taste (actually everything tasted somewhat metallic), a fever, and exhaustion. Everything except the exhausted feeling lasted about two weeks. The exhausted feeling is still present months later, something described be many recovered Covid patients.
My lady developed Covid Toe in the months post that episode. In early March, I went in for an independent medical procedure during which they routinely applied a Blood Oximeter to my finger. The assistant was surprised that my blood O2 saturation was only 88%! So was I, as every time before, including the previous November, it had been 97% to 98% or even higher. Throughout my life, it has always been 97% or higher, even when I was in the midst of a myocardial infarction (heart attack). When I had managed the dental office before retiring, we had Blood Oximeters there and had played with them, trying to get our blood O2 down to less then 97% by holding our breath, not breathing, etc., and found it was impossible to do. Yet, here my normal breathing, not short of breath or any feeling of distress, my blood sat was 88%!
Fearing their unit was bad, they got another and it reported the same 88%. The specialist doing my procedure called my primary who ordered an overnight test to find out what was going on during sleep. In my overnight sleep, the O2 level was below 86% for 276 minutes and as low as 81% seven times. . . All with zero signs of sleep apnea.
In addition, this was ALL before we learned that some people who were in recovery from Covid were showing a SIMILAR blood O2 symptom as I am.
The lead up to this is that I now have an O2 concentrator machine which supplies me 96% to 98% pure O2 at night which raises my blood O2 to 95% to 96%. As soon as a few minutes pass from taking off the cannula, my O2 level drops back down to 91%, 90%... My doctor has told me to never wear a mask because doing so might put me far into the danger zone for blood O2. I carry my blood oximeter with me where ever I go. Sometimes, I have a 94% saturation. Most times, not. Putting on a mask, and it easily drops to 89%. If I started at 89% and put on a mask, how low would it go???
Medicare will not approve daytime oxygen. Not medically necessary. 88% and up is still within normal range, you see. . . But I don’t dare put on a mask. Not with a heart condition and NOW a lung alveolar/blood hemoglobin issue. Stupid is as government bureaucracies do.
Oh, my lady? Her blood PO2 level? 98% to 100% and once 104%. Go figure. Still has the Covid Toe and perpetual tiredness, though.
Are these the math geniuses who stated the hymalayas would melt by 2020.
Exactly. Especially by the end of a 12 to 15 hr shift.