Hello! I have been a doctor for 21 years. My name is Georgy Olegovich Sapego. In this article I will tell you about how to understand that a person with shortness of breath has really little oxygen in the blood.
Many people with respiratory diseases complain of shortness of breath. Sometimes this shortness of breath is not too bad, and sometimes people really don't have enough oxygen.
Pulse Oximeter
It is a portable device that measures oxygen saturation of hemoglobin. Now these can be easily bought, and many have them at home.
If you fell ill, coughed and it seems to you that shortness of breath appeared, then you can see the saturation of hemoglobin with oxygen. This is called saturation.
Usually saturation is checked twice a day. If this figure falls below 95%, then you need to see a doctor. Call a doctor, an ambulance, whatever you want. The main thing is for a living medic to look at you with his own eye.
App on the phone
In modern phones, there are more expensive applications that work like a pulse oximeter. Such applications lie. It is especially painful to see doctors when they proudly measure their patients with their telephone. This is stupidity.
Last year, they even carried out a special study on this topic. It's called "Accuracy of smartphone pulse oximeters in patients visiting an outpatient pulmonary function lab for a 6-minute walk test". Anyone interested - search and read. So phones are not helpers in this matter. They lie.
How to check oxygen without instruments
You need to count out loud in your native language to 30, without taking additional breaths. We need to time the time and see how many seconds it takes.
If you can't count to 10 in one breath or just longer than 7 seconds, then this is it. That is, the saturation is less than 95%.
This thing was invented by the British to assess the lack of oxygen in people by video link. Telemedicine is like that. If it is impossible to count to 10, then it is necessary that a live real doctor looks at the patient.
When everything is clear anyway
If a person had shortness of breath, and then something went wrong with his head (drowsiness appeared, inhibition, began to behave strangely), then there is nothing to wait for and an ambulance must be called.
If you were hypertensive, and against the background of shortness of breath, the pressure suddenly dropped unusually low, then you need to call an ambulance.
If your face turns blue or stops urinating, then you need to call an ambulance.
In any case, if in doubt, call the ambulance and ask. There they will prompt.
