O2 Saturation levels

[GreyParrot]

My O2 levels stay around 93-95 all night. I feel like that's a bit low.
How are other folks doing that monitor with an oximeter?

[PaulaO2]

That's a normal range. I get about 98 during the day and about 94-96 at night.

[zonk]

I don,t check my levels but I think would wake up with a headache if O2 level drops way down to whats normal level

[Peter_C]

I wish I had your numbers~!

Mine is 89 to 91. I believe your numbers to be good, as it is normal for it to decrease a bit at night, and the Oximeter is only good to plus/minus 2?

[DocWils]

Your numbers are well within the norm. Blood oxygenation is often slightly lower when sleeping, mostly due to the longer breathing period. In fact, you are doing extremely well and should pat yourself on the back for such good numbers. Nothing to worry about there.

Those are around the same levels a day time mouth breather will get (breathing through your nose activates certain enzymes that allow the blood to better process the O2, so your mum's admonition when you were little to close your mouth, you are not a codfish, was dead on)

[vsheline]

Hi GreyParrot,

The following is is a quote from the article linked below.

"… administer oxygen to keep saturations between 94 and 96 percent. No patient needs oxygen saturations above 97 percent and in truth, there is little to no evidence suggesting any clinical benefit of oxygen saturations above 90 percent in any patient."

http://www.ems1.com/columnists/mike-mcev...ygen-hurt/

About the author: Mike McEvoy, PhD, REMT-P, RN, CCRN is the EMS Coordinator for Saratoga County, New York, a paramedic for Clifton Park-Halfmoon Ambulance, and Chief Medical Officer for West Crescent Fire Department. He is a clinical specialist in cardiac surgery and teaches critical care medicine at Albany Medical College. Mike is the EMS editor for Fire Engineering magazine, a popular speaker at EMS, fire, and medical conferences, and lead editor of the Jones & Bartlett textbook, "Critical Care Transport".

[me50]

The only time I got concerned about my O2 was when it dropped to 85 and that was during a titration study. I don't watch my O2 levels at all even though I was given a script for an O2 monitor. I decided that I had 2 choices: I could be obsessive when there were no indications that there were issues with my O2 OR I could use my machine faithfully every time I slept and go from there. I decided to deal with what issues I have right now and not worry about what I don't have. It works for me. YMMV.

There are some members here that have medical issues that requires their O2 to be monitored and that is a different story.

Right now, for me, my biggest issue is that I prefer to sleep on my side but when I lay on my side, I never can fall asleep and eventually I turn over on my back so I can get some sleep. I just made a note to ask my doc about it when I go back in February. In the meantime, I am prescribed 50,000 IU of Vitamin D to take once per month. That seems strange to take that much rather than to take it daily but, at some point, I have to trust that my doc knows what he is doing. I asked if my body would get rid of the excess and he told me no, that Vitamin D attaches to fat and is stored and used as needed (this was how it was described to me in terms I could understand).

[GreyParrot]

Thank you everyone. Last night I did have a very quick dip to 74%, but only once and it lasted only seconds. I expected to see
a big jump in heart rate but only to 80bpm from my normal 45bpm. I also expected to see an obstructive at the same time in
ResScan, but nothing showed up except a minor flow limitation. Maybe it was just a glitch in the oximeter. I've been practicing
breathing properly with my diaphragm everyday and keeping my "cod" mouth shut every time I think of it ,and breath through
my nose. :>).

[GRak]

My wife runs in the low 90's and her doc does not seemed concerned.

[jdireton]

Agree with all of the above. Any advice from Doc is golden!

A simple and interesting experiment. While fully awake, put on an oximeter and try to match a really bad section of apneas from your software detail chart (obviously must be using software) second for second. I've tried and I can't hold my breaths that long, and that repeatedly, while awake. Also, O2 sats easily bump into the 70's.

For me, it kind of emphasizes why I use a xPAP to begin with.