CPAPtalk.com

rested gal wrote:I was very glad to hear you did some overnight oximetry recordings. I know you're anxious to hear the results. Hope it
turns out to be good news for you!!

Thanks, RG, for the good wishes. I am more concerned now that if it doesn't, I have a road ahead of me finding out just why I desaturate. The concensus is, it's probably not the low amount of events I have per night, so it must be something else. I'm worried about the cardiac aspect of it, sort of a "here we go again" that I thought I was through with four years ago. But ignorance serves no purpose, especially with health matters, so we'll have to wait and see.

Sleepless on LI wrote:RG,

Thanks so much for posting the readouts from your oximeter. The one the DME gave me today doesn't look like it has anywhere to print anything out, nor does it look like something that has a connection to a computer. I wonder if they put in some type of code and are able to read it off a display? I can't figure this out.

The Respironics 920M that you used, Lori, does connect to a computer. The port where the finger probe goes in also hooks up to a download cable. I have one at my computer desk, and it downloads the information and prints it from a regular computer. I'm interested too to see what your results are. Good luck!

Sorry, that post above was from me!

Christine,

I am so glad you signed in from your "Guest" status because that post was so helpful to know. Thank you. Now lets see how fast they can get the report over to my doctor. I am very curious to hear what they have to say.

I told you about my son who is now an RRT (passed his registry) and I am curious to know what you think about his theory about it could be cardiac-related, these O2 desats of mine in REM. When I had the oximeter on and was sitting up in bed, it read 97-98. As soon as I laid down, it went down to 94-95, an occasional 96. He said that 94 was already below normal, 95-100 being normal for being awake. He thought since I did have two cardiac ablations a few years back to correct a lifetime of supraventricular arrhythmia/tachycardia, he felt perhaps the heart was no longer pumping up to capacity and a chest x-ray would show if there was any fluid in the chest. Could be why I have borderline high BP, too, without my diuretic which five months of CPAP couldn't fix. I'd be curious to know your take, too, if you have one.

Thanks again for helping me to know how they will get the info out of that little oximeter...have a great day.

This thread has been kicked around for several weeks now. Here's one more <KICK>. The question was raised how a pulse oximeter really WORKS, engineerically speaking. Here's a PDF from the Nellcor site that gives a really detailed yet readable explanation. Pretty cool actually, not as simple as you might suppose. Lots of good chemistry and physics here:

http://www.nellcor.com/_Catalog/PDF/Pro ... chNote.pdf

It would be nice to be able to use one or even rent one. I don't have ins so paying out of pocket gets old. At my SS it showed me at 42%. I would like to see how much it has improved. I know when my wife was in the hospital they would not take her of oxygen untill she got up above 90.

Toby

I bought a used one on eBay, and pretty cheaply at that. No prescription needed. I am waiting for the right cable connector to arrive (also from eBay) to use it. This one is a "hospital grade" oximeter, records for extended periods and has alarms and such. Mostly I want to use it for running on the treadmill and monitoring how well I am doing, in "real time", hence the need for a big display.

There are lots of clip-on finger pulse oximiters available online (eBay and elsewhere), not very expensive. Not sure how accurate they really are. If you believe their claims they are pretty darn good. I would want to find a third-party independent review of those before I bought one. Names like Nonin, BCI, SPO, etc.

twistedcherokee wrote:It would be nice to be able to use one or even rent one. I don't have ins so paying out of pocket gets old. At my SS it showed me at 42%. I would like to see how much it has improved. I know when my wife was in the hospital they would not take her of oxygen untill she got up above 90.

Toby

42%??? You really need to follow up on that, insurance or no insurance. That is very, very low. Please think about getting yourself checked now that you're on therapy. That is one area that you cannot ignore, or should not ignore. And assuming it has gone up due to therapy is not a wise idea in your case. Please think about getting checked.

Thanks Lori, I will get it checked out. I do know that it has gone up, because before I got the cpap I stopped breathing all the time. At my sleep study it said that I stopped 100 times an hour and the longest was 43.5 seconds. I was doing a sorts of crazy things, thats why I took out a second and got a ss done.

Toby

[quote="twistedcherokee"]Thanks Lori, I will get it checked out. I do know that it has gone up, because before I got the cpap I stopped breathing all the time. At my sleep study it said that I stopped 100 times an hour and the longest was 43.5 seconds. I was doing a sorts of crazy things, thats why I took out a second and got a ss done.

Toby