[FRIAM] COVID SaO2 at 7k feet

[⛧ glen]

Her response was similar. But *I* would have gotten you out of bed and made you walk around the block every day. Bed rest doesn't seem healthy to this insomniac.

On September 27, 2021 6:13:34 PM PDT, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
>Glen, 
>
>I have never been able to get my heart rate up that high for any purpose.  Another individual difference. 
>
>In January of this year I was felled by a virus (?) which had no symptoms other than that I went to bed and didn't get up for 4 days. Not even a fever.  Not flu, not covid.  Literally, I slept 18 hours a day.  A big yawner for my doctors.  Assuming they had lost their mind and were killing me with neglect, we called a doctor we knew in California for an explanation of their attitude.  Her answer:  "At any one time there are 2-300 viruses floating around in the population, each one with its own pattern of symptoms or lack thereof.  Feed fluids, take ibuproven and wait."
>
>I would love to know what Renee thinks of that answer. 
>
>N
>
>Nick Thompson
>ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
>Sent: Monday, September 27, 2021 9:05 PM
>To: friam at redfish.com
>Subject: Re: [FRIAM] COVID SaO2 at 7k feet
>
>
>On 9/27/21 4:11 PM, uǝlƃ ☤>$ wrote:
>> What am I struggling with?
>
> "But while fighting my infection"   I took this to mean you were "struggling" with an infection.  I understand/appreciate that your SPO2 numbers weren't necessarily causing you any symptoms... I assume you were measuring them for some reason though?   Curiousity I get... I used mine as crude biofeedback to (re)learn how to breath properly, but most of the time I was taking readings out of curiosity...  trying to understand correlations between what felt like a good, hard measure (SPO2) and various activities and symptoms.
>
>>  Thanks for the stories about SpO2. They nicely demonstrate that variation is normal. To be clear, when I talk about SpO2, I'm not talking about symptoms at all. I'm simply talking about the number that comes from the little machine. I've never had any symptoms that correlate with a low SpO2 measurement. And I think your (and Nick's) stories indicate that there's little, if any, correlation between the two (symptoms and low SpO2).
>I'd say that the effects of low SPO2 are less obvious (to a point) than one would imagine...  I can't say that when I was down in the 70s, there was no correlation with my fatigue, chills, blue lips and fingernails, etc...
>> However, what was interesting to me during this very normal cold was my elevated heart rate. Even though I quit running seriously about 5 years ago, my resting heart rate is ~63. I've never really monitored it through other infections. But because I happen to have that number along with SpO2, now, I noticed that at the nadir/height of the infection, my resting heart rate was ~100 or ~90 bpm. It's about 80 now, on day 10 since symptoms started. It just never crossed my mind that infections like the rhino would raise your heart rate. But I guess it's common.
>One might guess that low SPO2 might raise your heart rate to deliver the same amount of O2 per unit time?


-- 
glen ⛧