dont have oximeter myself so last readings at hospital aftrer sitting waiting usually . but district nurse came yesterday to take blood, and also took reading. she came at 9.00am It was higher that usual and very good at 99 ! was 92 last time at hospitalin the afternoon . My flow meter only reads at 200 to 230 now as well . I have always been a lot warmer in the mornings long before i had any lung problems. Too warm at work when others in same room didnt want the windows opened despite bunsen burners burning up oxygen.
The same now i am retired . I get up warm and 2-3 hours later i am turning up the thermostat. Does my circulation slow down when I am upright, not lying down and what about my oxygen levels . Where can I get an oximeter and see if there is a difference .
my hospital appointments are always being cancelled and i have had 3 cancelled now and not even changed to telephone appointment so cannot ask consultant.
I am very ignorant about this.
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Jaybird19
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Thank you I am definitely at the bottom of the learning curve . Must learn to ask more. I have, already learnt a lot since I found this group but there is so much more.Take care
The body has circadian rhythms which control things like body temperature over the day. So it's not unusual for you to wake up warmer after being cooler during overnight sleep, and then to feel colder later in the day when normally you would be active.Good luck sorting your hospital appointments.
Yes agreed to an extent ,but this is extremes now and the time when it gets to be nightsweats I have had a low grade infection cured by 3days azithromycin. It doesn't feel like an infection so difficult to decide. I took my rescue antibiotics ad had to ask for top up so r decided to take some blood. Now waiting for resultsTake care
thanks I dont think there will be anything conclusive. Age has a lot to answer for and. well past my sell by date.I dont think many of us will be back to our old selves ever again !!!
Good morning, Jaybird19. I see from your profile that you have Bronchiectasis which I also have. Your post rings so many bells with me.
My O2 goes up and down through the day. The other day I was sitting resting so popped the oximeter on my finger for no particular reason - just curiosity. My reading went between 89 - 96 and everything in between during the 5 mins I was sitting down! It didn't start at 89, it just suddenly dipped and made the alarm sound on the meter. Most of the time, it was around 94.
Other times, my O2 can be 99 or 90. If I sit with the thing on my finger for a while I can usually get an average of about 94 or 95 which I'm happy with. Of course, on the rare occasion that it stays high, I'm ecstatic!
The thing about being warm in the morning interests me. I am generally quite a chilly mortal, but I now regularly wake up around 6am really hot! We still only have the summer quilt on with a light blanket over it as we are still comforable with that. (The winter quilt is ready and waiting to go on when we need it). I usually wake once or twice in the night to use the loo and am always just comfortably warm, but at sixish I am sweating! The radiators haven't come on so I don't know the reason for this sudden heat surge. I am well past the age of hot flushes and haven't had one for years so don't think it's hormonal. This has been happening for a few months now.
My peak flow has been between 180 and 210 for a long time (usually about 200) but, since I had a different antibiotic for the most recent flare up which didn't want to shift at first, my peak flow is regularly between 220 and 250! I haven't hit 250 for the past 5 years. It makes me think I may have had a low key infection all that time which the Clarithromycin has now shifted.
As others have said, you can buy an Oximeter from Amazon. I now have two as I didn't believe the readings on the first one because they were consistently low (89-91) but I was in denial and actually had a nasty chest infection. It wasn't making me ill in other ways so I convinced myself that it was the equipment that was wrong. I bought a new one and it said the same! You do need to make sure your hands are warm and let the thing settle before you take notice of the reading as I have found with both of mine that they can go up and down a bit initially. Also, keep an eye on the battery as when that gets a bit low I find mine tell fibs!
I've just had a thought. How about we take our temperatures when we are really warm and then later when we are feeling chilly? Perhaps there's a difference there. As you say, it could be to do with circulation - but who knows?
As they used to say on the tele - answers on a postcard please! Lol!
Thank you so much for all that info. I am convinced that I dont have bronch iectasis but what ? I do not get many exacerbations. Last one one holiday a year ago and due to dirty air con. So i am told it is dry bronchiectasis. The early morning temp turned to the night sweats eventually so be careful of that I haven't found the definite answer to that yet. The worst thing is the smell , not any usual sweat smelI but really acrid, gross! , That has been was cured by 3 doses of azithro mycin, in the past so low grade infection as you say. Interesting about the peak flow too maybe I should do that more often. I had forgotten about it. I will try the temperature thing and see.
Its worth doing peak flow,02,and temperature whn feeling gd as well as bad so have comparison tooi have heart probs too + i find pulse is fast when start to sweat,so worth checking pulse too! Sounds like change of sweat smell linked to infection.do try to catch infections + begin treatment asap to avoid further damage
thats exactly what i think about the smell, but i do know what you eat can change the smell but this is different. tell the doctors but it doesnt seem tp mean anything to them. the smell is so bad that i think it can wake me up.
One comment on pulse oximeter readings, they can vary dramatically from hand to hand and on different fingers. It is possible to get 99 on the right hand index finger and then 90 on the left hand index finger. The same can happen between an index finger and middle finger of the same hand. It all depends on the density of the blood vessels in the fingers which varies in each individual finger. So if you get a reading you are not sure of try different fingers, also when I did a pulmonary rehab course the room was not heated so we had to wear gloves to keep our hand warm as the pulse oximeter didn’t work on cold hands
Re oximeters, I was told that wearing nail varnish can also affect the readings for the worst. I have stopped wearing it when visiting hospital/GP etc.
I sometimes get hot flushes when waking up. My GP told me years ago they can last all your life (thanks doc.) I'm not sure you can be too dependent on oxymeters: they are pretty little toys, but the readings do seem very variable.
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