Agreed. Buying a pulse-oximeter was a waste of $100 or so for me. I used it a couple of weeks and it was no value added. It's in a drawer here somewhere.Pugsy wrote:I don't see the need for a pulse oximeter based on the data on the reports.
Now that doesn't mean that you couldn't be having some oxygen issues but if you are I don't see them being related to the OSA itself.
If it would relieve your mind to have that additional data...then by all means consider it but you stand a good chance of ending up like I did....I used my pulse ox twice and it went in the drawer and that was it until I sent it to someone who would use it.
I wasn't surprised that my O2 levels were just fine and I also wasn't surprised that I had no desire to check them again and that's why I got the cheapest one. I pretty much knew it wouldn't be an ongoing thing for me to be doing.
Just to be sure, at my annual visit, I asked my doc to send an order to my DME for a study. This would give me results with a "professional grade" meter. As mentioned earlier, they did a two-night study for free and sent the report to the doc. There were no problems with desats.
If I ever see a long apnea on my Sleepyhead report, I can assume there was some desatting. You don't need an oximeter. You just need to tune your CPAP therapy.
There is a caveat, and that is if you have a lung disease and need supplemental oxygen. Maybe an oximeter would be useful??
