I'm buying a pulse oxymeter. NYTimes piece.

[impulse]

After reading this...  Seems like a lot of people are showing up in the ER with very low pulse-ox numbers even before they notice symptoms.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html

 

Seem to be readily available on Lazada, some for less than $25USD.  (Though I'd probably pop for a pricier one)  Alas, I'm in the USA and they're harder to find here.  

Edited April 22, 2020 by impulse

[ukrules]

Yes, these are useful I guess, I have one. Apparently some people have very low levels then they go to hospital.

[uhuh]

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/coronavirus-studie-tu-muenchen-sensor-medizin-1.4883805

 

Similar,  but a bit more sophisticated,  by a University Hospital in Munich. 

They use pulse oxymetry and some other parameters,  check every 15 minutes (!) and send the data to the hospital in real time. So the patient will not wait at home too long. 

 

I have recommended relatives to buy a pulse oxymeter - but it's almost useless if you don't have a medical professional to help you to interpret the data. 

[impulse]

2 hours ago, uhuh said:

I have recommended relatives to buy a pulse oxymeter - but it's almost useless if you don't have a medical professional to help you to interpret the data. 

 

I used one for months after my bypass surgery.  There's nothing to interpret.  If my readings went below a certain level (spelled out in my post surgery packet), I was supposed to call the hospital.  Fitbit, Garmin and others have 24/7 pulse-ox readers that track on a smartphone.  People use them to evaluate their sleep quality with respect to apnea and other breathing issues.  I still have 2 or 3 of them, but they're scattered around places I can't get to under the lockdown. 

 

According to the linked article, many people are oblivious to their Covid19 pneumonia, showing up at the hospital with PO2 readings of 50% or lower, when a normal reading is 95%+.  Seems to me like running a fever, or a PO2 less than about 80% would be a good indicator that getting tested is in order...  If you established a baseline while you're healthy, you could tighten that up and seek treatment even faster.  Of course, it's not definitive, but I'd hate to be one of those guys who seeks treatment when it's too late- because I didn't spend $25-50 on a simple fingertip meter.

 

Edit:  The issue with the German system is that it's for people who have already sought treatment, and are already under a doctor's care.  Not the vast majority of us that haven't, and probably won't, unless there's some kind of indication.  But by the time the symptoms alone send us in for help, it may be too late.

Edited April 22, 2020 by impulse

[ExpatOilWorker]

48 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

I used one for months after my bypass surgery.  There's nothing to interpret.  If my readings went below a certain level (spelled out in my post surgery packet), I was supposed to call the hospital.  Fitbit, Garmin and others have 24/7 pulse-ox readers that track on a smartphone.  People use them to evaluate their sleep quality with respect to apnea and other breathing issues.  I still have 2 or 3 of them, but they're scattered around places I can't get to under the lockdown. 

 

According to the linked article, many people are oblivious to their Covid19 pneumonia, showing up at the hospital with PO2 readings of 50% or lower, when a normal reading is 95%+.  Seems to me like running a fever, or a PO2 less than about 80% would be a good indicator that getting tested is in order...  If you established a baseline while you're healthy, you could tighten that up and seek treatment even faster.  Of course, it's not definitive, but I'd hate to be one of those guys who seeks treatment when it's too late- because I didn't spend $25-50 on a simple fingertip meter.

 

Edit:  The issue with the German system is that it's for people who have already sought treatment, and are already under a doctor's care.  Not the vast majority of us that haven't, and probably won't, unless there's some kind of indication.  But by the time the symptoms alone send us in for help, it may be too late.

Very interesting and since you seem to have done your research,  do you mind sharing which model or models on Lazada you would recommend. 

Just trying to avoid the disappointment of being stuck with some Chinese junk.

[rabas]

25 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

Very interesting and since you seem to have done your research,  do you mind sharing which model or models on Lazada you would recommend. 

Just trying to avoid the disappointment of being stuck with some Chinese junk.

I was an early preper and bought this model from China in January. Excellent performance and strong study quality. Runs real-time non stop as long your finger is in. Has a gravity sensor and up rights the display in all directions (will not start reading 66 instead of 99). When in horizontal position as in the image it includes a real time pulse graph. I can easily see my PVCs that I've had all my life.

 

Ad is from Ebay but Lazada has it for sale for about 600B. I paid less but that was before nCov-2019 spread very far. Maybe you can find it for 400B 450B.

..

Edited April 22, 2020 by rabas

[ExpatOilWorker]

20 minutes ago, rabas said:

I was an early preper and bought this model from China in January. Excellent performance and strong study quality. Runs real-time non stop as long your finger is in. Has a gravity sensor and up rights the display in all directions (will not start reading 66 instead of 99). When in horizontal position as in the image it includes a real time pulse graph. I can easily see my PVCs that I've had all my life.

 

Ad is from Ebay but Lazada has it for sale for about 600B. I paid less but that was before nCov-2019 spread very far. Maybe you can find it for 400B 450B.

..

Look similar,  but still different. 

Do you have a brand name?

 

[uhuh]

16 hours ago, impulse said:

 There's nothing to interpret.  If my readings went below a certain level (spelled out in my post surgery packet), I was supposed to call the hospital.  Fitbit, Garmin and others have 24/7 pulse-ox readers that track on a smartphone.  People use them to evaluate their sleep quality with respect to apnea and other breathing issues.  I still have 2 or 3 of them, but they're scattered around places I can't get to under the lockdown. 

 

According to the linked article, many people are oblivious to their Covid19 pneumonia, showing up at the hospital with PO2 readings of 50% or lower, when a normal reading is 95%+.  Seems to me like running a fever, or a PO2 less than about 80% would be a good indicator that getting tested is in order...  

You are the living  proof of what I said... you need a medical professional. 

You have no idea what you are talking about (it's SAT O2, not pO2, BTW), you haven't even followed the lay press. The subject came up several times in the NYT.

There is no "certain level ... spelled out in my ... packet". Because there is no packet.  And nobody is certain what the "certain level" should be. 

 

80%, as you suggest,  is much too low. A good way to have more people die. 

The idea of a "pulse-ox to go" is exactly NOT to wait until SAT O2 drops to such a low value.  People should come to the hospital to get oxygen much earlier, when SAT O2 is just beginning to drop below the baseline established while you were healthy. But there is no generally acknowledged cut-off value. 

 

Edited April 23, 2020 by uhuh

[thaibeachlovers]

18 hours ago, uhuh said:

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/coronavirus-studie-tu-muenchen-sensor-medizin-1.4883805

 

Similar,  but a bit more sophisticated,  by a University Hospital in Munich. 

They use pulse oxymetry and some other parameters,  check every 15 minutes (!) and send the data to the hospital in real time. So the patient will not wait at home too long. 

 

I have recommended relatives to buy a pulse oxymeter - but it's almost useless if you don't have a medical professional to help you to interpret the data. 

So, one buys a device that tells you that you have a low reading- what are you going to do about it? I doubt the hospital would be "happy" if everyone with a low reading and no symptoms turned up demanding O2 therapy.

[impulse]

56 minutes ago, uhuh said:

You are the living  proof of what I said... you need a medical professional. 

You have no idea what you are talking about (it's SAT O2, not pO2, BTW), you haven't even followed the lay press. The subject came up several times in the NYT.

There is no "certain level ... spelled out in my ... packet". Because there is no packet.  And nobody is certain what the "certain level" should be. 

 

80%, as you suggest,  is much too low. A good way to have more people die. 

The idea of a "pulse-ox to go" is exactly NOT to wait until SAT O2 drops to such a low value.  People should come to the hospital to get oxygen much earlier, when SAT O2 is just beginning to drop below the baseline established while you were healthy. But there is no generally acknowledged cut-off value. 

 

 

There isn't a packet?  Then what was that big folder they gave me when I left the hospital?

 

There's a thousand ways to abbreviate blood oxygen saturation, and you get caught up in those semantics?

 

I'm suggesting people ignore me.  Ignore my advice.  Just read the link.  Then YOU decide what you want to do. 

 

I ordered a pulse oxymeter.  Or a pulse oximeter.  Or a blood oxygen meter. Or an SP02 meter, if you want to get pedantic.  You do what you want...

 

Levitan told "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King that people could potentially detect coronavirus earlier by checking their oxygen levels at home with pulse oximeters.

Read part of their conversation below.

Dr. Richard Levitan: People were sick for days, and then they only came in with shortness of breath, like, the day they presented. ... And they would arrive with oxygen levels that basically were incredible to us. I mean, almost unimaginable how people could be awake and alert and have oxygen levels that are half normal. … Normally we are 94% to 100% on these devices, these pulse oximeters that measure how much oxygen we have in our blood. And people were showing up with oxygen levels of 50%. Now, this matches the level of oxygen that we've measured on the summit of Mt. Everest. And it's amazing to me that patients could be sick for days, getting sicker, not realizing it.

Gayle King: So they had these very low oxygen levels, but they had no sensation of, "I can't breathe." Is that the point you're making?

Levitan: Yeah. Exactly.

King: You were surprised that some of them were still talking on cellphones. Why is that significant?

Levitan: You know, what is amazing to me with this disease is people's brains are working fine. … Their oxygen levels have gone down to scary low levels, but it has happened slow enough that their body has accommodated. So they are not like every other patient we see with serious lung disease … What I'm saying is this disease kills by silent hypoxia, and patients should understand that shortness of breath is a late sign.

King: Hypoxia is what, exactly?

Levitan: Low oxygen. 

King: And the reason why it's so important to get this early warning is because it could avoid you being on a ventilator and having to be intubated, right?

Levitan: Absolutely. So, you know, we think this pneumonia basically has two phases. … This silent hypoxia period, where the oxygen's drifting down, but you feel okay. And then the second part of this disease, the part of this disease that kills, is when all of a sudden your lungs get stiff, carbon dioxide finally starts to build up, you begin to feel short of breath, and those patients are the patients who are presenting with COVID pneumonia.

King: By then, in some cases, it's too late. By the time you go to the hospital and you can't breathe, it's a very serious, often dire situation.

Levitan: Yeah, but let me just reassure people that what the lessons learned in New York are, are that we don't have to put in breathing tubes, even in most of the people who show up with advanced COVID pneumonia.

King: We don't?

Levitan: No. … They did a study of 50 patients, and what we learned is that even people who showed up with significant COVID pneumonia, we could keep off of ventilators three out of four of them. So 75% of patients didn't need ventilators. But they needed oxygen. They needed to do what we call positioning maneuvers. So we put them in different positions to help open up areas of their lungs.

King: How do you know, Dr. Levitan, when you should even check your oxygen levels?

Levitan: Let's talk about Germany. The Germans have the lowest death rates in Europe. What they do is every patient who has COVID, they visit every day and they check their oxygen and they check their vital signs. And so, what I'm saying to you is if you're having symptoms of viral illness, if you're known to have COVID, you should be checking your oxygen. … If you don't have an oximeter, increased breathing may be a sign of that, but also just feeling worse.

King: I think most people listening to you will now think, "I need to get an oximeter." Can you explain exactly what that is and how it works?

Levitan: Basically, you know, you just turn this little button on, and you put it on your finger, and within about 10 seconds or so, it displays your heart rate and your oxygen level. ... I think that oximeters in the midst of a respiratory pandemic, and for the next 12 to 24 months, that the public should think of an oximeter the way they do a thermometer. … It is a tool that they can have at their home that they can check, and that they can call up their doctor and say, "Hey, my pulse oximeter is reading consistently at this number. Is that something I need to be concerned about?" 

King: I think every day we're learning something new about this COVID-19, and it seems to be such a moving target, always changing.

Levitan: What I'm telling you is actually hopeful. What we are learning about this disease is it attacks primarily through one pathway, and that's the lungs. We know when it is going to attack. It is going to attack between five to 10 days after infection. … And we know we have a way to detect it earlier, and that way is by close monitoring of pulse oximetry. … And what I'm saying to you is that as the public health messaging shifts, … we can move the treatment curve earlier and do much better for patients.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 23, 2020 by impulse

[ukrules]

19 hours ago, uhuh said:

but it's almost useless if you don't have a medical professional to help you to interpret the data. 

Check it every day - normal readings are 97-100% for me, if it goes below 90% call 911 ????

Edited April 23, 2020 by ukrules

[thaibeachlovers]

4 minutes ago, impulse said:

Dr. Richard Levitan: People were sick for days, and then they only came in with shortness of breath, like, the day they presented. ... And they would arrive with oxygen levels that basically were incredible to us. I mean, almost unimaginable how people could be awake and alert and have oxygen levels that are half normal. … Normally we are 94% to 100% on these devices, these pulse oximeters that measure how much oxygen we have in our blood. And people were showing up with oxygen levels of 50%. Now, this matches the level of oxygen that we've measured on the summit of Mt. Everest. And it's amazing to me that patients could be sick for days, getting sicker, not realizing it.

What that says to me is that DRs don't know everything, even if they pretend to. I've been misdiagnosed by so many Drs that I have little faith in them anymore.

 

BTW, if everyone with shortness of breath tried to get into hospital there wouldn't be enough beds for all of them.

[impulse]

7 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

What that says to me is that DRs don't know everything, even if they pretend to. I've been misdiagnosed by so many Drs that I have little faith in them anymore.

 

BTW, if everyone with shortness of breath tried to get into hospital there wouldn't be enough beds for all of them.

 

If you showed up with a blood oxygen saturation in the ranges they're talking about in the link, the hospital would be criminally negligent if they turned you away.  And they can confirm or debunk your own device's reading in less than a minute with their own fingertip meter.

 

Edited April 23, 2020 by impulse

[timendres]

You, sir, are a genius for posting this information. Just placed my order for:

 

   https://www.lazada.co.th/products/beurer-po30-i103199102.html?mp=1

 

I wanted to be sure to get a legitimate product with some accuracy, and this appeared to be the best that Lazada had to offer. Tried to purchase from the Beurer official shop, but every single oximeter product was out of stock. So, went with the best rated shop selling the same product. 

[thaibeachlovers]

11 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

If you showed up with a blood oxygen saturation in the ranges they're talking about in the link, the hospital would be criminally negligent if they turned you away.  And they can confirm or debunk your own device's reading in less than a minute with their own fingertip meter.

 

Which sort of makes the point about needing to interpret readings by someone qualified to do so that another poster mentioned.

It's like using the internet to diagnose a disease. Too much information and possibly wrong choice.

Just because the machine says one has a low O2 it doesn't automatically follow that one is in danger. Which is why one should ring the help lines that have been set up before driving to hospital. They will take other conditions into account as well before making a diagnosis.

Personally I'd go by temperature, taken under the tongue, as more significant, as my O2 is probably always poor.

[thaibeachlovers]

19 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

If you showed up with a blood oxygen saturation in the ranges they're talking about in the link, the hospital would be criminally negligent if they turned you away.  And they can confirm or debunk your own device's reading in less than a minute with their own fingertip meter.

 

If you are talking about 50% of normal I'll agree.

[timendres]

I am not dying yet! For 1,700 THB, this is a very nice device.

 

[ExpatOilWorker]

6 minutes ago, timendres said:

I am not dying yet! For 1,700 THB, this is a very nice device.

 

I wonder if double the price is justified. The below devise will do the same measurement. 

Where is the Beurer made? Also in China?

[timendres]

8 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

I wonder if double the price is justified. The below devise will do the same measurement. 

Where is the Beurer made? Also in China?

The Beuer PO 30 oximeter is manufactured in Germany.

Edited April 24, 2020 by timendres

[uhuh]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/well/live/coronavirus-pulse-oximeter-oxygen.html

 

If you buy one you should read this follow-up