low SaO2 level... how bad is it?

General Discussion on any topic relating to CPAP and/or Sleep Apnea.
piscesman7620
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low SaO2 level... how bad is it?

Post by piscesman7620 » Sat Dec 17, 2011 1:53 pm

MY Sa02 level was recorded at 52% in my sleep study!!!!

How close to fatal was this? what damage may have been done?


I "guestimate" that I have been suffering from sleep apnea for at least 5 years!!!

I am just wondering If anybody else had a level that low or lower and is here to write about it??

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BlackSpinner
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Re: low SaO2 level... how bad is it?

Post by BlackSpinner » Sat Dec 17, 2011 1:55 pm

piscesman7620 wrote:MY Sa02 level was recorded at 52% in my sleep study!!!!

How close to fatal was this? what damage may have been done?


I "guestimate" that I have been suffering from sleep apnea for at least 5 years!!!

I am just wondering If anybody else had a level that low or lower and is here to write about it??
read the previous thread you started - you are in stroke territory.

Using your cpap every night all night will help rebuild the damage.

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Re: low SaO2 level... how bad is it?

Post by Kitatonic » Sat Dec 17, 2011 7:39 pm

My low SaO2 prompted the tech to call the doctor for emergency CPAP, as I just kept drifting down, 80, 70 then a low 60s in just under two hours of sleep. The calculated AHI was 48.6. BUT the good news is that on my home oximeter the SaO2 remains 95 the entire night and my three month average AHI of 0.4.
A few months ago, I had one 53 second apnea so I increased the pressure to 9 and decreased the exhalation resistance to 1. Now my few apneas are 10-13 seconds since there is less collapse upon exhalation.

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archangle
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Re: low SaO2 level... how bad is it?

Post by archangle » Sat Dec 17, 2011 7:57 pm

piscesman7620 wrote:MY Sa02 level was recorded at 52% in my sleep study!!!!

How close to fatal was this? what damage may have been done?


I "guestimate" that I have been suffering from sleep apnea for at least 5 years!!!

I am just wondering If anybody else had a level that low or lower and is here to write about it??
It's more complicated than O2 numbers, but think slow, painful death over the years as apnea gives you the death of a thousand cuts. Or slow, silent death like boiling a frog. Or sudden death from heart attack, stroke, etc.

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sickwithapnea17
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Re: low SaO2 level... how bad is it?

Post by sickwithapnea17 » Sat Dec 17, 2011 10:18 pm

you have to use cpap every night for every nap

how low does your O2 have to be to do damage? mine is in the 70s and I get headaches sometimes. I'm not sure if it is from asthma and narrow airways?
when I was at the hospital I tried holding my breath and after 15 seconds my O2 only fell a few points so a O2 that low may mean that you are not getting oxygen for minutes
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MsBea
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Re: low SaO2 level... how bad is it?

Post by MsBea » Sun Dec 18, 2011 10:10 am

Mine was 35% while hospitalized. They told me I shouldn't be alive and to get a sleep study immediately.

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Re: low SaO2 level... how bad is it?

Post by Seawulff » Sun Dec 18, 2011 10:25 am

Your O2 saturation is the measured oxygen level in your blood. It is usually in the high 90's and your qualify for supplemental oxygen if it is below 85%. It is created by the intact of oxygen from the air you breathe and determined by how much gas exchange is occuring in the lungs. Normally you take in air with 21% oxygen at sea level, absorb it through the lungs in exchange for CO2. Your body uses the oxygen and creates carbon dioxide. Too much of the latter makes you sleepy until you pass out and too little oxygen makes your tissues unable to metabolize normally. You notice this in exercise when you create lactic acid in the muscles. Your brain needs oxygen so too long without it and you suffer brain anoxia and cell death. It isn't a good thing obviously. Short durations are tolerable but longer absence of oxygen is dangerous and can cause severe problems. The other issue is that higher levels of carbon dioxide can facilitate the development of cardiac arrhythmias and that can lead to death.

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Re: low SaO2 level... how bad is it?

Post by Puswart » Sun Dec 18, 2011 7:30 pm

I was curious about this myself. I just recently had the sleep study done and I had O2 readings in the low 50s. It was no time at all before they put me on the machine during the study and my numbers all leveled off. I've only had my machine a few days now but it seems that I can already feel the difference it makes.

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marcus234

Re: low SaO2 level... how bad is it?

Post by marcus234 » Tue Jun 24, 2014 11:07 pm

If this was so bad then The Buddhist Monks would be dropping like flys. they aren't. I imagine their are about 200 million Yoga practitioners who are capable of deep meditation and who get their heart rate down to 30 bpm. Respiration down to 1 per minute. They blood oxygen is probably about 30. Did all these people die? I don't think so. Medicine uses scare techniques to sell products. remember that. mother nature would not design us so we have organ failure if we sleep deeply and don't breath much.

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Re: low SaO2 level... how bad is it?

Post by Guest » Tue Jun 24, 2014 11:51 pm

marcus234 wrote:If this was so bad then The Buddhist Monks would be dropping like flys. they aren't. I imagine their are about 200 million Yoga practitioners who are capable of deep meditation and who get their heart rate down to 30 bpm. Respiration down to 1 per minute. They blood oxygen is probably about 30. Did all these people die? I don't think so. Medicine uses scare techniques to sell products. remember that. mother nature would not design us so we have organ failure if we sleep deeply and don't breath much.
I am highly skeptical of those claims. You simply can't have an O2 sat of 30 and be fine. Sounds like nonsense to me.

I hope you don't have sleep apnea, or you are going to get organ failure from rejecting modern medicine. And I hope you don't drag anyone else along with you by posting this nonsense. Our organs do slowly fail from the lack of oxygen at night with apneas, this is scientific fact. Trusting "mother nature" gets us nowhere. Why do you think that our lifespans are so much better than they used to be, if not for medicine? I'm sure "mother nature" wouldn't design us to die in childbirth, or from infections, or from smallpox... oh, wait...

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Re: low SaO2 level... how bad is it?

Post by dumborat » Tue Jun 24, 2014 11:52 pm

Sorry, that was me, I wasn't logged in.
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Re: low SaO2 level... how bad is it?

Post by ems » Wed Jun 25, 2014 12:19 am

You are replying to a thread that was started in 2011.
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