Hi all, I was sent a link yesterday to this New York Times article written by an emergency doctor at Bellevue Hospital. He details the particular qualities of covid pneumonia, particularly "silent hypoxia" where you can desaturate spectacularly without feeling particularly breathless. Hence late calls for help and late referrals to hospital when the pneumonia is already well advanced and treatment has to be more extreme. Checking your O2 with a pulse ox is recommended to get necessary treatment early and avoid intubation.
This is written about patients without respiratory conditions who arent used to having to deal with breathlessness. Maybe we would recognise symptoms earlier but who knows? This covid pneumonia seems to be distinctly different to pneumonia Im used to anyway.
You may have to sign on to read it but it's worth it - it was an eye opener to me though maybe Dr John Campbell has spoken about it, I havent had time to view to all those very useful youtubes.
x
That makes so much sense Jean and could save many lives. This Covid pneumonia is very different and we need to get on top of it. I’ll look into getting a pulse oximeter as it sounds like a good idea. Xxx 😘
If you get an oxypulsometer check it against your gp's. Mine reads a lttle lower, eg 93 against 95. Below 90 for a lengthy period will ordinarily leave you feeling at least a little hypoxic. That means the other fraction is co2. Below 85 is definitely to be worried about. Read up on hypercapnia (high co2 in the blood). Ask your gp about the danger threshold. They are around £12 on the net.
Thank you Mezitonka, pulse oximeter hard to obtain at the moment. I wanted to buy a decent one from the UK so will do some research. Take care xxxx