 Poster: A snowHead
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and probably of very little interest to most...
Being a quack with a couple of pulse oximeters including a small one like this I thought I would have a play...
I took one to Zermatt (highest lift in Europe and all that)
Normal Oxygen Saturation (including mine): 96-98%.
Abnormal <93%. We certainly tend to admit people with <91% to hospital.
Mine in Zermatt on arrival 91% when doing nothing - increasing to 93% when walking/talking - and 93% at rest by the end of the week.
At Kleine Matterhorn (about 3800m) 81-82% - even when doing nothing - I did not feel breathless - but a bit dizzy to start with. (low oxygen levels do not make people feel as breathless as either high CO2 levels - or a need to work hard to breathe).
After that I could pretty well guess an altitude between 1600 and 3600m by my oxygen saturation.
On one occasion mine was 93% at about 2000m - and our Mountain Guide was 97%. He does some trekking and said he has seen results of 57%. In my day job I have not seen any one fully conscious with a level below 70%.
This did bring home to me how even relatively moderate altitudes significantly impact on our physiology.
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Fri 13-03-09 16:40; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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stoatsbrother, fascinating post.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Wish I had a cool toy like that to play with. Fascinating.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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I wish I could claim a week's research in Zermatt 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Elizabeth B, Wish I could just BE in Zermatt!!!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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stoatsbrother, Very interesting. Probably explains why i felt so rough on top of the grand Motte a couple of years back and had to come down with a (mild) case of AMS.
Presumably you admit people below 91% to hospital because they should be up at 96%+ at 'normal' altitudes, not because being below 91% is in itself life threatening?
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Probably explains why I am out of breath by the time I go upstairs. Knew there had to be a simple solution.
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Ray Zorro, the simple (but not cheap) solution 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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stoatsbrother, I hope you claimed expenses? I will take my MD300 out with me and compare figures in a couple of weeks.
The advent of Pulse Oximetry to GP has changed my approach to managing sick or less obviously sick patients in their own homes, great piece of kit.
Do you happen to know if the Zermatt Leisure Centre is a) any good and b) included in the lift pass? (predicted response No and No)
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I've felt rough a few times in Zermatt - must stop going away with a gang of scousers...
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Axsman, spot on - the reduced oxygen saturation at normal altitude can be a useful prognostic indicator across a range of situations.
Martin Nicholas, exactly - and I don't know.
Jerry, probably drinking themselves silly because there were no cars to break into
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Interesting stuff.. 
| stoatsbrother wrote: |
| At Kleine Matterhorn (about 3800m) 81-82% - even when doing nothing - I did not feel breathless - but a bit dizzy to start with. |
Would the passing of the dizziness correspond with the raising of the levels? How long does the body take to adjust and is there anything that one can do to improve it? (sorry if those are stoopid questions)
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You know it makes sense.
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As part of the PPL, you have to learn about the causes and effects of hypoxia.
A smoker (such as me) could potentially experience hypoxia at 10,000ft/3250m and pilots should use oxygen if flying unpressurised aircraft at 10,000ft or more for more than 30 minutes. I felt very dizzy when first arriving at 3825m, up the Aiguille du Midi earlier this year. That's about 12500ft and the level at which a pilot has to use oxygen full time.
There was a good programme about a team of doctors who climbed Everest. They did 02 tests at rest and at exercise and concluded that they should all be dead. The 02 reading was no guide to the person's ability to cope with hypoxia.
I'd be very interested to see my 02 blood levels at altitudes.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Schuss in Boots, there is a maximal level of O2 saturation that you can reach at any given altitude given the characteristics of your own haemoglobin (the red O2 carrying stuff). I suspect with more time spent sleeping at altitude - the dissociation curve of my haemoglobin would shift, the SaO2 go up, and I might feel more normal. Resting breathing rates go up too. But as bar shaker says - this is not about your exercise capacity or your risks of AMS etc.
btw - the last time I opened a respiratory physiology book was 20 years ago - so take all this with a large pinch of salt.
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Poster: A snowHead
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stoatsbrother, another thought - did you make sure your fingers were nice and warm and ping before trusting the reading?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Martin Nicholas, yes - very good point. I suffer from very warm hands and usually end up skiing in liners or fleece gloves. And I was 83-84% at the top of Cervinia after 30 minutes in a bar...
Not sure I will repeat the experiment - scared me a bit!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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stoatsbrother, I hope your trip was paid for as study leave and don't forget to get the tax back.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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On the subject, this extract from Wikipedia, on Joseph Priestley's discovery of oxygen - my little home town is famous for something  :
In 1773, the Priestleys moved to Calne.
Priestley's years in Calne were the only ones in his life dominated by scientific investigations; they were also the most scientifically fruitful. His experiments were almost entirely confined to "airs", and out of this work emerged his most important scientific texts: the six volumes of Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1774–86).
In August 1774 he isolated an "air" that appeared to be completely new, but he did not have an opportunity to pursue the matter because he was about to tour Europe with Shelburne. While in Paris, however, Priestley managed to replicate the experiment for others, including French chemist Antoine Lavoisier. After returning to Britain in January 1775, he continued his experiments and discovered "vitriolic acid air" (sulfur dioxide, SO2).
In March he wrote to several people regarding the new "air" that he had discovered in August. One of these letters was read aloud to the Royal Society, and a paper outlining the discovery, titled "An Account of further Discoveries in Air", was published in the Society's journal Philosophical Transactions. Priestley called the new substance "dephlogisticated air" which he made in the famous experiment by focusing the sun's rays on a sample of mercuric oxide. He first tested it on mice, who surprised him by surviving quite a while entrapped with the air, and then on himself, writing that it was "five or six times better than common air for the purpose of respiration, inflammation, and, I believe, every other use of common atmospherical air". He had discovered oxygen gas (O2).
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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slikedges, I don't suppose you remember all the grief we GPs got in the Daily Gossip for claiming expenses for educational trips to the Alps which combined skiing and lectures? I did it once & far too tiring to repeat, but I notice that various governmental organisations seem particularly comfortable conferencing in alpine destinations.
The unfortunate bottom line is that the taxman is very alert to any sort of attempt to slide these trips through GP expenses!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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slikedges, 
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Martin Nicholas, see, stoats got it! 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Martin Nicholas, you mean Mr Darling would raise his formidable eyebrows!
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stoatsbrother, how relaible an indication of blood oxygen do these pulse oximeter gadgets give (I did know how they wrok, once, but I've forgotten)?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| bar shaker wrote: |
| There was a good programme about a team of doctors who climbed Everest. They did 02 tests at rest and at exercise and concluded that they should all be dead. The 02 reading was no guide to the person's ability to cope with hypoxia. |
Yes, that was a fascinating programme wasn't it. They were reporting O2 levels well below 40% IIRC, for people with little obvious loss of function. They reckoned it asked some very interesting questions about respiratory physiology to which they had no answers. They reckoned they'd gathered about 5yrs+ worth of research material on that trip. I wonder whether there's going to be a follow up programme with any conclusions? I guess they'd only be interim for a while.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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You know it makes sense.
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A most interesting read. We have these units in our St John ambulance and often practice with them. It put us to wondering how animals cope with the various O2 levels. We particularly thought of the alititude differences experienced by birds, for example, as they migrate.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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richmond, good but not perfect - and there are definite pitfalls.
Martin Nicholas, yep - we did that topic a year or so back with The Fat Controversialist.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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andyph, you won't be able to get it up to entirely normal levels without supplementary oxygen. The biggest influence is the partial pressure of oxygen available at that height. I wouldn't worry about it too much actually. Just seeing how the hills affect my physiology really.
I am prepared to divulge the perfect treatment... in return for Scotch and Chocolate - although I am ready to consider other suggestions!
geepee, do you think it is in our interests to make everyone better?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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geepee, I bet stoatsbrother has got Ganong off the shelf with a nice glass of claret just now.
edit - Glenmorangie
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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geepee, Kamagra is a lot cheaper
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Megamum, the gobsmacking altitude of 11,300 metres was recorded for a Ruppell's Vulture over Africa although it would have regretted it, after being hit by the aircraft that recorded its feat. The atmosphere has a greater 'thickness' around the fastest spinning part of its circumference due to the airmass being both warmer and the centrifugal force drawing the mass more sparsely. In other words, Ruppell's Vuture couldn't have flown nearly so high over one of the poles as he could at the Equator, even with a nice hot chocolate for fortitude. What might have helped Mr Vulture to fly as high at latiudes approaching 90 is a nice bit of EPO, a one time favourite cocktail ingredient of Tour de France cyclists and was evidently a tested drug for cross-country skiers too ...
http://www.sportsci.org/news/news9701/EPOfeat.html
When I used to do a lot of long-distance running, my resting heart rate had naturally dropped to around 37 or 38 bpm, a condition that most quacks tend to panic about and label bradycardia. EPO enhances that heart rate slow down by allowing more oxygen to be carried in a given amount of blood. Consequently some of the professional athlete abusers of EPO who were anecdotally recording 25 bpm resting heart rates were dropping dead in their sleep as a result of their blood clotting.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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moffatross, A fitness instructor that I knew was knocked out and his heart rate was 35bpm. His gf had to tell the ambulance crew that that was his usual rate
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Martin Nicholas, Ganong - there's a name from 30 years ago.... I did some respiratory physiology for the first part of the FFARCS - 20 years ago - then promptly forgot that too.
And it is Glenfiddich actually
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FAQ
GPs are a bit like farmers in enjoying a good moan from time to time 
