Man I had a blood oxygen reading of 84-about for a couple of years and every time they’d be like, “oh that can’t be right sweetie, you wouldn’t have walked in here if it was!”
It was right, one corrective surgery later, and I’m 96-98% blood oxygen. Can confirm, 36% is cause for concern.
Pulse oximeters lie so much that I generally weight their output very lightly in patient assessment. I’ve had old oximeters get readings without even being on a patient before. I’ve picked patients up from clinics where they were losing their shit about the patient’s 54% reading. One sensor adjustment later, the patient was reading 93%; still not amazeballs, but also not full metal panic.
Not sure if you’re kidding around here, but it shouldn’t ever pick up atmospheric O2 concentration. The way an oximeter works is that it uses a very specific band of light that interacts differently with heme molecules (or hemoglobin protein, I can’t fully recall) when they’re saturated with something (usually oxygen) vs not saturated with something. That’s what it’s also called an “O2 saturation” or “O2 sat”. You can calculate how much is saturated by how much light is absorbed, and that’s what it does and why it won’t read atmospheric concentration. It’s important to note here that it only reads how much hemoglobin is bound to anything, including both Oxygen and Carbon Monoxide. So, you can asphyxiate from CO poisoning while having an SpO2 of 100%.
Man I had a blood oxygen reading of 84-about for a couple of years and every time they’d be like, “oh that can’t be right sweetie, you wouldn’t have walked in here if it was!”
It was right, one corrective surgery later, and I’m 96-98% blood oxygen. Can confirm, 36% is cause for concern.
A doctor seeing 36% O2 sat wouldn’t be concerned, they’d just pass the patient off to the coroner.
Pulse oximeters lie so much that I generally weight their output very lightly in patient assessment. I’ve had old oximeters get readings without even being on a patient before. I’ve picked patients up from clinics where they were losing their shit about the patient’s 54% reading. One sensor adjustment later, the patient was reading 93%; still not amazeballs, but also not full metal panic.
It was just picking up the environment’s oxygen concentration! 🤓
Not sure if you’re kidding around here, but it shouldn’t ever pick up atmospheric O2 concentration. The way an oximeter works is that it uses a very specific band of light that interacts differently with heme molecules (or hemoglobin protein, I can’t fully recall) when they’re saturated with something (usually oxygen) vs not saturated with something. That’s what it’s also called an “O2 saturation” or “O2 sat”. You can calculate how much is saturated by how much light is absorbed, and that’s what it does and why it won’t read atmospheric concentration. It’s important to note here that it only reads how much hemoglobin is bound to anything, including both Oxygen and Carbon Monoxide. So, you can asphyxiate from CO poisoning while having an SpO2 of 100%.