My trial with an Oximeter [mle_ii]

[mle_ii]

Ok, got my Oximeter yesterday and tried it out last night. Probably wasn't the best time to test as I had went for a long run (for me) after work and my HR was higher than normal resting.

Seems normal is around 99% for me when just putting it on during the day and sitting. I'll check more to figure out my normal.

Heart Rate
When I went to bed my HR was still at around a low of 70 bpm, after a 3.5 hours of sleep it went to what I think might be around my normal resting of 60 bpm. There was a point where it got down to 48 bpm and a high of 99 bpm. Average was 66.1 bpm. It reported 136 events for my pulse. (event for pulse is change by 6 bpm for dur of 8 seconds)

Blood Oxygen
My oxygen saturation was at around 95% when going to bed, and this was my average base during sleep, probably due to oxygen debt from running for so long, but I'll try again tonight to see what it says. There was one episode at night where it dropped down to 90%, other drops below 95%, but not as much as this one. During the time where I was at 90% I could hear myself on the audio recording moving around and then a sigh/deep breath. Some times where it went up to 99% during the night. It reported 16 events for my blood oxygen during the night. Average time below 95% was 14.1%, none below 90%.

Device Info
Oh and the one I bought was a CMS-50E. So far so good. Love the instructions. Got a chuckle from a few translations. Don't like that it tries to hide the data from you, figured out where it stored it and copied it from there to another location just in case I want it for something else. Wearing it all night long wasn't too bad, only left an indentation. Made it stay on by a band aid, only stuck to my finger, not in a way that would cut off or restrict blood flow as I think it might have fallen or removed at night in my sleep. The single button seems to have some sensitivity issues, but none that deter too much.

Questions
Any places to read more about what the normal blood oxygen for me should be? Or more information than just say Wikipedia? I know there are ranges, 90-99% in one place I read, and another said 95%-99%, even found another talking about sea level. I'm pretty healthy as I exercise and eat well, and physical was 100% positive. Thinking that since I can get readings of 99% then 99% should be my normal resting. So I wondered why it remained pretty much at around 95% all night. One thing that I'd like to understand more is Oxygen Debt, seems that hard exercise can cause the oxygen levels to drop as it does work to clean up after exercise and reset blood oxygen.

Thanks for reading, I'll report more when I can.

Mike

[Bluecat]

In my sleep doctor's office, I noticed a chart on the wall giving "normal" blood oxygenation against age. I remember it goes down as you get older. Unfortunetaly, I didn't think of writing it down nor asking for a copy. I suppose it should be possible to find it online? (or maybe only french people have their normal blood oxygenation go down with age? )
I'm usually around 96% when awake.

[Slartybartfast]

When I showed my CMS 50E data to my pulmonologist along with the data from ResScan, he was fascinated at the printout and really scrutinized it, and asked if he could keep it. He said, "95% oxygenation. That's perfectly normal." So I take that to mean 95% is normal during sleep. While awake, mine is always higher. 98% most of the time.

[mle_ii]

In my sleep doctor's office, I noticed a chart on the wall giving "normal" blood oxygenation against age. I remember it goes down as you get older. Unfortunetaly, I didn't think of writing it down nor asking for a copy. I suppose it should be possible to find it online? (or maybe only french people have their normal blood oxygenation go down with age? )
I'm usually around 96% when awake.

I'll keep an eye out for it in my search. I only did a little bit this morning before work after looking at the data from last night. I can see how there is potential for blood oxygen to go down with age at least from my minimal understanding. Lung capacity, blood flow, and oxygen carrying capacity could go down as one ages, which would effect the number. I'm sure there's more, but again just learning about this.

When I showed my CMS 50E data to my pulmonologist along with the data from ResScan, he was fascinated at the printout and really scrutinized it, and asked if he could keep it. He said, "95% oxygenation. That's perfectly normal." So I take that to mean 95% is normal during sleep. While awake, mine is always higher. 98% most of the time.

Interesting, I'm seeing pretty much the same thing last night. So far for the samples today during the day it's been around 97%-99% with most at around 98%.

Once I get a baseline I'm going to experiment with seeing what might change the values. Noticed that during the day holding my breath didn't seem to change it much, but after exercising I held my breath and it went down to about 80% where I decided I should stop and not see the low end. LOL

[archangle]

There's a long delay between breathing and SPO2 reading, especially in the fingers. If you want to play with it, exhale all the air you can from your lungs and then hold your breath. You'll still have a hard time holding it long enough to see a lower SPO2. Our brain really doesn't like oxygen starvation and fights hard to make you breathe.

If you do manage to hold on long enough, it will drop rapidly. You need to exhale the air from your lungs because your lungs keep pumping O2 from the air in your lungs even when you're holding your breath. If you exhale, the "O2 tank" in your lungs is smaller.

[mle_ii]

There's a long delay between breathing and SPO2 reading, especially in the fingers. If you want to play with it, exhale all the air you can from your lungs and then hold your breath. You'll still have a hard time holding it long enough to see a lower SPO2. Our brain really doesn't like oxygen starvation and fights hard to make you breathe.

If you do manage to hold on long enough, it will drop rapidly. You need to exhale the air from your lungs because your lungs keep pumping O2 from the air in your lungs even when you're holding your breath. If you exhale, the "O2 tank" in your lungs is smaller.

Ah, that's what I noticed in the normal resting case, before my run. After the run the effect seemed to be almost immediate.

What is strange is that at times I notice that I am actually not breathing much or holding my breath. And not on purpose, at least not conciously. Not sure what that is but every once in a while I notice it and then start breathing again.

So funny the things you start noticing once you pay attention to them. Noticed a funny thing that happens with my heart beat every once in a while once I started paying attention. It'd beat, beat, beat, seem like it doesn't beat and then beat hard, beat, beat, etc. Sometimes I can actually feel it. Doesn't happen a lot, but strange none the less.

[mle_ii]

Ok, night 2 and there was definitely an event down to 87%, though it was partly alcohol induced as I had a couple of drinks with dinner.

Heart Rate
When I went to bed my HR was at around 70 bpm. There is more strangeness around my HR tonight, but most likely again was alcohol. HR stayed right around 70 bpm for a while, then at 40 minutes it was bouncing all over the place for another 40 minutes, then slowly over the next 20 or so minutes it moves from 70 to 80 bpm, bounces around for 10 minutes then back down to 70 bpm, moves up to 80 bpm over the next 10 minutes and settles in there for about 20 minutes, then again hr bounces around but then moves down to around 60 bmp for some time. Anyway, many points during the night my hr goes up to almost 100 bpm. Average was 67.6 with a low of 51 bpm.
It reported 167 events for my pulse.

Blood Oxygen
My oxygen saturation was at around 95% when going to bed, and again this was my average base during sleep, so perhaps the 95% is my base during sleep. There was one episode at night where it dropped down to 87% (little less than 3 hrs after going to bed, other night it was 4.5 hrs), other drops below 95%, but not as much as this one. And this night during the time where I was at 90% I could hear myself on the audio recording moving around, some type of throat noise and then a sigh/deep breath. Some times where it went up to 99% during the night. It reported 20 events for my blood oxygen during the night. Average time below 95% was 30.6% (twice as much as the other night), .1 below 90%.

So tonight I'll be sure to do it with no running and no alcohol. Seems like there's something going on, but probably not to the level that others here are seeing. I definitely feel tired during the day, have memory problems, trouble concentrating, and a few of the other symptoms, but given the oximeter readings I'm not sure it's the apnea that's causing it. Perhaps more just not staying asleep long enough. Funny thing is last night I actually remembered dreaming, whereas most nights for several years I don't remember dreaming at night very often. I used to remember them a lot more when I was younger.

[mle_ii]

Well, night 3 with it and no alcohol nor heavy exercising. Seems like not much around my blood oxygen is going on, at least that I can tell. But something is making me feel like I'm not getting enough sleep. Not sure if I should go with a sleep study but my Dr set up a referal, so I'll look into it. Perhaps it's just enough to keep me from getting the sleep my body needs, but not enough to cause blood oxygen to change. Audio wise I can hear myself at certain points of the night moving around a bunch, snoring, breathing deeply, silence and other things. Tonight I'm going to wear my mouth guard as I haven't been the last few nights while testing to see if it effects my sleep or oxygen at all. Dentist says I grind my teeth.

I do notice some things within the data, but I have no idea what it means. It looks like my HR slowly goes up (say 10 bpm from 60-70 bpm) with my oxygen around 95%, then I see it go up to around 98-99% and my HR goes down to lower values like around 50 bpm, eventually the oxygen goes down and the hr goes back up.

Heart Rate
145 events, avg 60.7 bpm, low 48 bpm, a high of around 85 bpm. Much lower than the other two nights in average and highs.

Blood Oxygen
9 events, Basal 95.3 %, low of 92% at around 4 hours into sleep. Time below 95% 25.2%, this is 10% higher than the first day, but 5% lower than yesterday.

I still don't get why my sleeping blood oxygen is 3-5% lower than during the day. Seems like it'd be better given it's all on my body/mind to breath when I'm asleep. Rather than during the day when you might consciously or subconsciously change your breathing rate.

[Lizistired]

Well, night 3 with it and no alcohol nor heavy exercising. Seems like not much around my blood oxygen is going on, at least that I can tell. But something is making me feel like I'm not getting enough sleep. Not sure if I should go with a sleep study but my Dr set up a referal, so I'll look into it. Perhaps it's just enough to keep me from getting the sleep my body needs, but not enough to cause blood oxygen to change. Audio wise I can hear myself at certain points of the night moving around a bunch, snoring, breathing deeply, silence and other things. Tonight I'm going to wear my mouth guard as I haven't been the last few nights while testing to see if it effects my sleep or oxygen at all. Dentist says I grind my teeth.

Get the sleep study. You may be having constant arrousals and never getting to the deeper sleep stages. You can be waking up hundreds of times a night without realizing it. If your brain and body are more sensitive to O2 deprivation, you wake up to breathe. You never really sleep.
Or the results will say you don't have apnea and you can resume searching for the reason you feel like crap.

[mle_ii]

I have an appointment with a Dr at a sleep clinic here in town this Friday. So we'll see where that goes.

That said, I've done a few more nights of oximeter/pulse readings and they're pretty much the same/similar results. I might post more.

But now I think I might be on to something. I think I might not have sleep apnea, but instead upper airway resistance syndrome, or UARS. It seems to fit a lot more with my symptoms and things I've noticed thus far. Might try a few things that seem to help out people who have this. I'll post some of the useful links to information when I get some time and remember to do so.

Not sure I should bring this up with the sleep Dr or not as there seems to be some controversy surrounding it.

Anyone know if there are any support forums for UARS? Haven't found one yet in my searching.

[mle_ii]

More sleep results. Decided to try keeping my window open and to use a nasal rinse last night in the case that it is UARS. Though I didn't get enough sleep last night and still feel tired, the blood oxygen results seemed better.

And I had an IR video camera set up to record my sleep last night, but at the last minute before going to sleep my setup stopped working, spent too much time trying to fix it and couldn't. Hopefully I'll figure it out for tonight, want to see what might be causing the fluctuations still and what some of those strange noises are.

Still a couple of more days until my first apt with the sleep Dr.

Also, wonder if I should talk to my regular Dr about my HR, both in the fluctuations I'm seeing, plus how high and low it gets during sleep. It's gotten down to around 43 one of the nights. Seems pretty low.

[mle_ii]

Found this which seems to imply that sleep apnea and bradycardia/tachycardia can occur.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9236445

Also found another item that said that resting HR can decrease to around an average of 20 BPM when sleeping, higher for younger, lower for older.