Anybody use an Oxygen concentrator/generator?

[Peter Charlton]

Whilst I have seen my blood oxygen level as high as 99%, generally when rel;axing, it is around 92 and when I am asleep it spends half the night at 85%

As the NHS are so very impotent now, I went pro-active and bought my own oxygen concentrator. I am a little disappointed though to find that despite its claim to produce 90% pure oxygen, my blood oxygen only goes up 1 to 3 percent when I use it.

Does anybody else use one of these machines?

[Guest ANCY]

I use one, not directly for my dysautonomia but do find it helpful sometimes managing symptoms. Primary reason is for my sleep apnea becuase of my abnormal ear/oral/sinus structure (due to cleft palette) when I wear a cpap I have a problem with getting ear infections.  So my Drs figure something is better than nothing with the O2. A Pulmonologist told me in my case that my low blood pressure prevents adequate profusion to my fingers to accurately give an O2 sat level so the "lows" I was seeing were incorrect, the problems lied elsewhere. I do however drop my O2 throughout the night even while laying down with fairly normal BP. At any rate I do find the O2 to be especially helpful with managing brain fog, migraines, and dizziness and also mildly helpful in overall symptom management. I hope that is some small help, let me know if there's any other questions I could answer.

[yogini]

Yes and it helped me, but only a little. Not as much as I expected 

[Peter Charlton]

I was a little disappointing to find that on its 90% pure oxygen setting at 1 litre a minute, it only made my blood oxygen go up between 1 and 3 % and I was wondering what percentage yours goes up by, wondering if this machine is a little too cheap and I should send it back for a better one?

Having said that, the last two night I have used it, resulted in the deepest sleep I have had since my troubles began last year, my overnight pulse is lower and much more stable, I also find that my many ectopic heartbeats and palpitations have cut down noticeably.  Brain fog and dizzyness still remain though.

[Pistol]

I am surprised you only use 1 l/min, most people start with 2 l/min. Maybe if you go up to that your o2 level at night will improve more?

[Peter Charlton]

11 hours ago, Pistol said:

I am surprised you only use 1 l/min, most people start with 2 l/min. Maybe if you go up to that your o2 level at night will improve more?

This machine, whilst claiming to have adjustable oxygen concentration and adjustable flow rate, actually has a set oxygen rate of 90% at one litre a minute. When you increase the flow rate, you are just adding room air to the 90% litre of oxygen, and diluting it, so 1 l/min delivers exactly the same amount of oxygen as 2 l/min but with a useless extra litre of ordinary air blowing up your nose which seems pointless and less comfortable. 

This is why I was interested to see the results others got at a setting of 1 litre a minute at 90%