O2 desaturation

[Youka]

My sleep report mentions my O2 levels are at 88 % during sleep. What exactly does that mean? will cpap help me go into better ranges?
(Been on cpap for 3 weeks now)
Should I be monitoring my O2 levels?

[Okie bipap]

Your red blood cells carry oxygen to the muscles in your body. They are limited in the amount of oxygen they can carry at one time. "Ideal" blood oxygen saturation is 100%, but normal blood oxygen saturation is considered to be anything between 95% and 100%. Use of your machine will help you maintain normal oxygen levels when sleeping. When you have an apnea or hypopnea, your blood oxygen will normally drop slightly, and recover as soon as you start breathing normally. When deciding if a patient needs a machine, they look at the apnea, hypopnea index (AHI). This is the average number of events you have in one hour. They also look to see if your blood oxygen dips below 90%. If you want to check your blood oxygen saturation level while sleeping, purchase a recording oximeter, and wear it while sleeping.

[khauser]

Hi Youka,
Some people do monitor their O2, but the vast majority do not.

Part of the sleep lab test includes, as you saw, stating how much your issues impact O2 saturation. Yes, CPAP treatment will improve that, because breathing improves O2 saturation. The O2 desaturation (and accompanying CO2 buildup) is what causes sleep deprivation and damage over time ... it is precisely what we are trying to improve.

It takes a surprisingly long time for CPAP treatment to help us feel better. You may, as I did, feel an initial improvement yes still feel drowsy-ish, brain fogged, etc. That just takes a bit longer to fully clear up.

88% is not unexpectedly low for OSA. Your doctor would already know if your awake O2 was problematic. Unless you have known lung issues (aside from OSA, which isn't really a lung issue) I would expect your sleeping O2 to improve with treatment.
-Kevin

[Pugsy]

If you want just a one time check of the oxygen levels while using cpap to confirm that they no longer drop you can ask the DME supplier you got your machine from to have your doctor order an overnight recording pulse oximetry test. You just sleep with the little gadget on your finger all night and it records all night and the DME then plugs it in to software and see what happens.
This is something that can be done either for free sometimes or insurance will pay for it but always ask ahead of time so no ugly surprises.

Now if you think you might want to check it more often for some reason or other then you can buy an overnight recording pulse oximeter and gather your own data whenever you want and use the software like the DME does.

Now these DIY units have been in short supply what with Covid and all. Prices range from 50 to 100 bucks or so depending on where you get it and which model you want. Just make sure it records all night.
Also if you want to use OSCAR some of the overnight recording pulse oximeters are compatible with OSCAR which makes for easy viewing of the reports.

So it depends on what you want to do. 88 % isn't horribly low and how important it might maybe depend more on how long you were down there as to how critical it was. I went to 73% for almost an hour....that's pretty bad. Once I started using cpap I never had such drops. Cpap fixed it.
I did have my DME do a test to confirm though just to be sure since mine went so low.

[Youka]

Thanks for the information. Will wait to order a test with my Doc on Nov 13, just to reassure me.