Hypoxia and Medicine

Blood Oxygen Saturation?

I'm an asthmatic yet for some reason I can get to the stage where I'm non-responsive to voice or general awareness of what's going on around me almost to the point of blacking out whilst having a Blood Oxygen Saturation of 96% At this stage I can hardly get any air in my lungs and in some cases have ended up on Bi-Pap. What would cause my levels to stay high but still get very little air into my lungs? Reason I ask is that some hospitals realize straight away that I'm not ok where others read my levels and tell me I'm fine send me home and I end up back in an I.C.U ward that same day.

Public Comments

1. The ones that send you home are idiots or worse. The reason your saturation's stay up is that you're hyperventilating, blowing off CO2 making your blood more alkalotic. This increases your bloods "attraction" to O2 but it holds on to it at the cellular level making you hypoxic with a normal saturation. Also you're young and the lungs have a remarkable reserve. You can lose quite a bit of lung and still function. I am an RRT and often very frustrated by nurses who don't understand these basic principles making decisions about patients who really need help. These are the same nurses who will listen to an asthmatic's chest, not hear anything, and think everything's alright. Sorry, not all nurses are like that and there are some therapists who also think that way. God bless and help you in the future.
2. that's exactly what happened to me they said i was fine when i clearly was not i was in there the day before and the day before that from asthma and when i got home about 5 hours later i had to go back my o2 levels were high so they said i was fine but my lips were turning blue so they put me on saline and a little o2 and i couldn't get oxygen into my lungs then 10 minutes later they sent me home then about half an hour later i was back in the hospital almost collapsing they put me in a wheel chair straight away and my o2 was down to 50% and they asked my mum how long i was like that and she said since you sent her home 30 minutes ago (we just waited outside for a while because mum said i was getting worse) then i was rushed straight to ICU but i wasn't put on Bi-Pap they were debating between themselves weather to or not but i was so close i still had the hospital band on my arm but they cut it off and put a new one on and they were stuffing around and then after 10 minutes they finally put the o2 mask on after i had blacked out about 10 times and they had woken me up and asking me all these questions like "whats your name" and stuff im sorry to hear about ur asthma i know how you feel ive been there a few times hope u feel better soon:)