Why are pulse oximeters restricted from sale for patient use

[wading thru the muck!]

The recording pulse oximeter I borrowed could print out the overnight results on a little roll of paper that was in the oximeter itself.

That little machine has sure earned it's keep... and frequent flyer miles.

[Snoredog]

it boils down to how much money the medical profession can squeeze out of you. Take for example the Nonin 9500, you pay a couple hundred more for it from a medical supply house but you can get nearly the exact same thing in the Nonin "sportstat" version from REI.com without a prescription for $325

Mountain climbers, pilots etc. use them to monitor levels when climbing or flying.

[sleepybarb]

Note that oxygen saturation levels via pulse oximetry are fairly reliable for most folks, but can be misleading for some with particular medical conditions (I believe anemia is one, it is possible that compromised peripheral circulation is another). In those cases you really need an arterial blood gas level done in a hospital--and those hurt!

[Paul B]

A model I've been looking at is called the Fingerprint from http://www.smiths-medical.com. It has a built-in summary printer and it can be immediately printed in the morning or software is available to download the data to a PC. I've seen them priced from the low $600. dollar range, not cheap but the data is invaluable in assessing the quality of therapy from the APAP. The catalog # is 3403-000.

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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): APAP

[snork1]

[quote="Snoredog"]it boils down to how much money the medical profession can squeeze out of you. Take for example the Nonin 9500, you pay a couple hundred more for it from a medical supply house but you can get nearly the exact same thing in the Nonin "sportstat" version from REI.com without a prescription for $325

Mountain climbers, pilots etc. use them to monitor levels when climbing or flying.

[NightHawkeye]

I think an oximeter should be a normal part of the users taking control of their treatment...since no one else will help them.

$600 is a chunk of change though. I am still hoping to find some sort of oximeter set up, used or new, that comes in under $300....

I'm wondering if this discussion has driven the prices up on e-bay for N-395's. Yesterday they were available there for $450 but not today. Down under I noticed one outfit selling 'em for $395 AUD. Cheapest I find 'em here though this morning is $499, including 30-day warranty, new battery, and finger probe.

My oximeter recorded a new record last night - first night ever with zero, nada, zip, none, no desaturations at all last night. Oximeter data is always the first thing I download in the morning, and I was surprised to see the PsO2 nearly flat. Never seen that before. Interestingly enough, AHI was only a little lower than it's been the past few nights, but very few apneas, mostly hypopneas, whereas FLI was highest its ever been.

Regards,
Bill (gotta love that oximeter - really cheap for the benefit I got)

[Roger...]

The most recent indicator I have from the pulse oximeter is that I had only 1 desaturation event last night while having a pretty decent full night's worth of sleep. This compares to a low of 7 desaturations for the best single night before I started xPAP, with an average of around 15 desaturations per night and a high somewhere around 30.
[snip]
For the past few nights after increasing pressure, the number of desaturations has been in the 1 to 3 range I believe. This doesn't correlate directly with apnea events because apnea events of 30 seconds (my average) don't have much effect on desaturation by themselves. The desaturations seem to occur on single long apnea events and with heavy clusters of apnea events. I also can't tell that my hypopneas have much effect on desaturations either.
[snip]
For me, getting the oximeter was a life saver. It allowed me to challenge the sleep lab diagnoses and get started on xPAP. Don't know if everyone would find it useful, but I suspect that many here on this forum would find the data very informative and having one would benefit some in their treatment. Oh, and using an oximeter is a lot less intrusive than xPAP, (although at about the same cost as CPAP). All you have to do to use an oximeter though is attach an inocuous little device to your finger and sleep with that on.

Bill,
This is really good information and it is raising my interest in doing some Oximetry test, because being able to sleep, and keeping adequate oxygen in the blood stream is really what xPAP is all about and I have no real good idea if I’ve got enough treatment at my current stalled pressure setting..

One other thing worthy of note that I haven't explored in great detail yet is that my desaturations increase greatly when I sleep on my back. I have avoided that like the plague for years, but sometimes it just happens anyway. Sleeping on my back for a little while doesn't seem to greatly affect my AHI but it sure does affect the number and severity of the desaturations. I'm pretty sure that this is an indicator of much longer apnea events when I sleep on my back. After I get the titration range settled for side sleeping then I will take a look at that. Obviously, without an oximeter I wouldn't necessarily know this.

I’m trying to become a back sleeper, but I haven’t been able to contain the pressure with a nasal mask adequately. In my case to push the puffer above 14cm H2O has it coming out my lips making way too much noise. My experience with a full face RESMed has been a disaster and they don’t answer emails asking questions so I’ve stalled on where to go with that mask for a while. To get around the full face mask problem, I’ve begun to think about asking my MD about surgery to see if I can reduce the severity of the Apnea enough that I can to sleep on my back.

One of the things I’ve noticed about treating Apnea is there always seems to one more issue to deal with no matter how many have been handled already.

Thanks for taking the time to explain your experience. If you do more experimenting keep us posted so we can learn from your reports.

Thanks,
Roger…

[NightHawkeye]

Thanks for taking the time to explain your experience. If you do more experimenting keep us posted so we can learn from your reports.

You're welcome Roger. I'm glad to be able to give back to this board. Hope that it helps you. I have another thread here today which centers around oximeter data that you might benefit from as well. viewtopic.php?t=7180.

Regards,
Bill