Best Oximeter

What is the best oximeter to get? Is it a must to get, to treat sleep apnea? What is the benefit of an oximeter? All opinions and information is appreciated. Thank you.

Hi Gabe

http://www.contecmedicalsystems.com/han ... p-171.html

This type is best for using whilst sleeping, as you cannot accidentally turn it off., and the dial can be easily seen if the alarm goes off.

http://www.contecmedicalsystems.com/wri ... p-167.html

Good for just about any conditions you are likely to come across.

http://www.contecmedicalsystems.com/oxi ... -p-89.html

For travelling you can get one that uses batteries. For home use there is one with an internal rechargeable battery (as shown above). Not good for sleeping with as it is easily turned off by accident.

My next one will be the wristband model, as it is the most versatile.

A forum search using the search word "oximeter" will bring you 6332 entries, where you will find plenty of opinions about all the various models, and how useful (or useless) they are.

cheers

Mars

Thank you, Mars, for the information.

George

I would stay away from this one:

CMS-50E OLED Fingertip Pulse Oximeter

http://www.contecmedicalsystems.com/oxi ... -p-89.html


Endless of clicking and it reverts to Chinese language constantly.

avi123 wrote:I would stay away from this one:

CMS-50E OLED Fingertip Pulse Oximeter

http://www.contecmedicalsystems.com/oxi ... -p-89.html


Endless of clicking and it reverts to Chinese language constantly.

But that one is very popular here. I haven't heard many complaints all.
It seems most here prefer it for a fingertip monitor and the CMS-50F for a wrist monitor.

avi123 wrote:I would stay away from this one:

CMS-50E OLED Fingertip Pulse Oximeter

http://www.contecmedicalsystems.com/oxi ... -p-89.html

Endless of clicking and it reverts to Chinese language constantly.

Hi Avi

As I said, the only problem with mine is that it is too easy to turn it off whilst sleeping, otherwise I have had no problem with it. It is very convenient for carrying around, but only last a few nights until the battery needs recharging. Which is why for travelling rough I prefer the one with replaceable batteries.

So you may well have a faulty one, which I hope you can get replaced

cheers

Mars

clean up time

Hi Avi

I would set the alarm so that if I went below SpO2 the alarm would go off. I would wake up, adjust my position, and go back to sleep.

And start fine-tuning to see if I could eliminate the desaturations.

cheers

Mars

mars wrote:Hi Avi

I would set the alarm so that if I went below SpO2 the alarm would go off. I would wake up, adjust my position, and go back to sleep.

cheers

Mars

If do that then I would be awaken 4 to 5 times during the night by the chirping alarm

Avi, sorry to hear you received a bum unit. You should return it for one that works properly.

I think it is time to bring your sleep doctor into the 21st century...

Tell your doctor that you want to stop by the sleep lab and check the accuracy of your pulse oximeter. When you find that your unit is providing good data, ask your doctor to enter your pulse oximeter reports into your medical file.

The idea of using a pulse oximeter at home is to monitor your therapy. You are not trying to conduct a sleep study with it, nor are you trying to diagnose a condition. You are simply establishing a trend of your oxygen saturation while you sleep.

The only argument that your doctor will be able to present is that your pulse oximeter is not an approved medical device. Tell your doctor fine, but you have noticed that when you feel like you have had a good nights sleep, your desaturations are minimal, and when you feel that you have had a very rough night, your desaturations are far greater and more numerous.

I present data to my doctor all the time. I point out the difference between data from approved medical devices and my data by labeling my data as Hobby Data. That way there is no confusion between official Medical Data and my Hobby Data.

I will add that my doctor would not accept my Hobby Pulse Oximeter Data until I left my unit with him so he could check it out. He compared that data it was reading with the hospital units that are frequently calibrated and found that the readings were very close.

We have an agreement that this is done once a year, or in the event that my unit starts to show data that may indicate problems. While he won't made a decision based upon my data without confirming it for himself, he does find the data interesting, and gives me some pointers on what it is showing.

Remember that you hired your doctor to help you understand what is going on in your body. If you don't like the job he is doing... fire him and hire someone that you can work with.

It is your therapy and your life. If your doctor is able to show you and convince you that desaturations below 90% are no big deal and do not, or will not, impact your quality of life, fine. If not then you have a little more work to do in fine tuning your therapy.

Finally, there is always the possibility that this is as good as it gets for you. If that is the case, then the medical establishment has done all they can for you and you should make the most of your life, knowing that some day you will die... Just a minute now, that applies to all of us. Oh well...

Avi, to synchronize the data you have to use time.

Set the time on your pulse oximeter to the time on your xPAP machine. This way both will be related to the time of day and that makes a correlation easier.

Still not perfect, but better.

avi123 wrote:I would stay away from this one:

CMS-50E OLED Fingertip Pulse Oximeter

http://www.contecmedicalsystems.com/oxi ... -p-89.html

mine works well
Endless of clicking and it reverts to Chinese language constantly.

Yes, by all means, as it works great and is priced well. It must matter who you buy from, mine works as advertized in English. Jim

AVI, If you sync the time on your unit and then copy your screenshots to another document, I use excel, then take a screenshot of the whole thing with the times lined up, you will have something like this.

Mine is offset because the power was out when I went to bed so I didn't put the mask on until 3:30. I think I blocked out 3-4 because I was awake. The gray line at 2:15 was a break in the reading. It's not lined up perfectly but it's close enough. You could do this with some 10 minutes views of your clusters and desats for your Dr and probably sell him on it. Unless of course those below 90 drops are signal loss.

avi, damn!, that's an ugly looking events chart.

kempo wrote:avi, damn!, that's an ugly looking events chart.

Yes, you would think his pressure would be raised unless there is some other explanation.