Should you invest in a pulse oximeter?
Doctors disagree on whether people should keep a pulse oximeter in their home medical supply kits. "Unless a patient has true lung disease, there is no need for them to use pulse oximetry monitoring in normal times," says Yale Medicine pulmonologist Denyse Lutchmansingh, MD. But these are not ordinary times. The American Lung Association recommends that people avoid buying pulse oximeters unless absolutely necessary and instead focus their attention on other COVID-19 symptoms.
According to Dr. Lutchmansingh, the benefits of pulse oximetry monitoring are most evident in patients who have COVID-19 symptoms such as cough, fever, and shortness of breath. "If you are symptomatic that is a reasonable time to check your oxygen. "That's something we've been trying to do as an outpatient," she says. "We have COVID-19 patients who we are monitoring at home, and their oxygen level is one of the deciding factors in bringing them into the hospital."
However, she questioned the need to purchase a pulse oximeter for people who are young and healthy and do not have COVID-19 symptoms.
Purchasing a pulse oximeter to alleviate anxiety
Another factor to consider, according to Dr. Lutchmansingh, is that some people stock up on anything that relieves their fear and anxiety. "There is such wide variation in this disease," she says, explaining that it's still difficult to predict who will become severely ill, and it's understandable that people would want to be ready for anything. "There is a medical component to this, as well as an anxiety component. People are terrified. "It's difficult not to take advantage of it if they believe there is some action they can take, some sort of monitoring they can use," she says.
Meanwhile, shortness of breath and low oxygen levels are just two of the symptoms of COVID-19, and it's critical to be aware of all of them. Cough, fever, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, chills, repeated shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, and loss of taste or smell are among the symptoms.
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