Low oxygen reading freaking me out!

[Todd31]

A couple of weeks ago I posted about chest pain when lifting heavy items, pressing on my chest or flexing and since then the pain has gone away. My family is traveling out of the country for 2 weeks and I went to the doctors today to get anti anxiety medicine for while their gone as my Health Anxiety has been awful lately. I have been scared of lung cancer fears. I was brought right into the office and told the doctor would see me right away. I’d just walked thru the parking lot and my anxiety was causing my heart to beat very fast. The nurse left the oxygen test on my finger for just seconds and took it off. She paid no mind to the ratings and just wrote everything down she was nice and left. The doctor came in looked at my chart took my heart rate listen to me breath with the Teathascope and told everything sounds good then he told a story about his dog and wrote a scribe for anxiety. Then I looked at my stats to see if my temp was high and noticed my oxygen said 89. I didn’t think any about it until I googled it and now I’m told it’s seriously low!! I’m scared to death now right when I was getting over this fear!

---------- Post added at 03:25 ---------- Previous post was at 00:30 ----------

Wouldn’t the doctor or nurse had noticed if it was dangerous? They both saw the level.. I’m scared :(

[fidgetninja]

Are you sure it was the oxygen reading and not the pulse?

[Emc]

There’s no way a nurse or doctor would have ignored a sats reading of 89% unless you’re someone with known severe lung disease. I would imagine either the probe didn’t get a good reading or you’ve actually seen your heart rate.

[MyNameIsTerry]

You would have symptoms at a below normal reading. And your doctor even listened to your chest and found no concerns.

If your fast heart beat can affect the reading they would know this. It's like with white coat syndrome with blood pressure checks. It's extremely common to see elevated blood pressure and the reason why they perform additional checks (ask you to relax & try again, ask if you have just been exercising or are anxious, ambulatory check if want to rule out/in Hypertension, etc) rather than rely on one reading. They know all about this as they must see it daily whereas we only know a little and are not trained & experienced in making adjustments.

[Todd31]

I did not see what the reading was only what she wrote down. All I know is she wrote it down after she took that think off my finger. It might have recorded my pulse too. I went for my normal morning run with no issues I will proceed with caution until my family is back in two weeks from their over seas travels then I’ll go back to have them run it again.

[fidgetninja]

That device they put on your finger is called a pulse-of, and it stands for pulse-oximetry. It measures both your oxygen AND pulse. 89 was surely your pulse, as they and you would definitely notice 89% oxygenation. If neither the doctor nor nurse was concerned, you can rest assured that’s what it was. My son is asthmatic and has had oxygen levels of 94%-95% with labored breathing. He was working hard to breath, and the doctors absolutely took note of that number. 89% oxygen would’ve caught their attention and you’d be struggling really, really noticeable. Hope that brings you some assurance.

---------- Post added at 19:45 ---------- Previous post was at 19:41 ----------

Sorry, that should say pulse-ox * 🙂

[Todd31]

Thank you! I hope your kids health improves.

[fidgetninja]

You're very welcome! :D And thank you too - we've got my son on a good treatment plan and he's doing great! :)