SPO2 Help! (Very Low)

[Gazhacks]

After what seemed a normal sleep today (Nightshift) I printed out my reports as usual and wow, some big drops in SPO2 but no event recorded? Im gathering its because of the duration but its a huge drop down to 80 spO2 and a rise in my heart rate. Is it dangerous to go this low? With my oximeter is there setting that can change the perameters so it will regonise all apneas and not just short ones although it must have taken more than 10 seconds to drop that low, any ideas, thanks.




Also I sept between 9am and 4pm but sleepyhead keeps thinking its night time?

[HoseCrusher]

Those look suspiciously like artifacts. Data like that can occur when you roll over and move the oximeter around a little. If you can expand that data to something like a 5 or 10 minute window, you may find that the drop off in O2 and the increase in pulse rate occur at the same time and the rate of change is very rapid. This would indicate an artifact and that section of the data should be ignored.

In general you don't want your O2 to drop below 90%.

[Gazhacks]

Just had a closer look and it was hight for 7 seconds before dropping again. An artifact? will have to look up this as I havent heard of it. Funny thing is I kept fighting my hose today, thank you very much for your response

[Kody]

I think HoseCrusher is right about being just artifacts. I have had the same thing show up in my Oximeter reports in the past.
One way I found out for sure was I had the low 02 alarm set to on one night, and when I rolled over real fast (was still awake at the time); the alarm went off just for a few seconds. When I checked the next morning it showed I dropped way off the charts like you did. I would also disregard it. These inexpensive consumer Oximeters work surprisingly well, but their not perfect all the time.

[Lizistired]

I think if you look closely at those drops, as hosecrusher said, in the 10 minute window, you will see a break in the line where the reading was lost. I don't know how well it shows up in Sleepyhead but if for some reason it doesn't, look at it in SPO2 Review. You can click and drag to select those areas. SPO2 will grey them out and drop them from the stats.

[Slartybartfast]

The meter is reading your SPO2 from the color of your blood at the end of your finger, about 3' from your heart. Because of the tremendous surface area of the arteries, arterioles and capillaries that the blood must transit from your lungs and heart, then to your fingertip, any real changes in SPO2 are absolutely not going to manifest themselves as sharp spikes like that.

As an experiment, hold your breath sometime and watch how long it takes your SPO2 to be affected. Or wrap a rubber band around the base of your finger to stop the arterial blood from flowing into it. The recorded SPO2 will decline very slowly.

Below is what real desaturations look like. they're deep and prolonged. Left side is my initial study, right side is during my titration study. Sleep doc says anything above 90% is Ok, 95% and above is better.