![]() You may have had a medical professional use a pulse oximeter on you at a doctor’s office or hospital as part of a routine checkup, for a pre- or post-op procedure, or as a diagnostic test for a respiratory illness. ![]() Increased demand for pulse oximeters was likely driven by people who wanted a relatively inexpensive device that gives out a number for assessing their health, rather than trying to gauge symptoms based on how they feel. Most at-home pulse oximeters range in price between $25 and $200, and can be bought with pre-tax money from your FSA or HSA account. Richard Levitan, who wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times that using pulse oximeters and monitoring blood oxygen saturation can help individuals recognize signs of COVID-19 before they notice any other symptoms. Some COVID patients either do not notice or do not have other illness symptoms as their oxygen levels drop, according to Dr. Why were people buying pulse oximeters earlier this year?ĬOVID-19 is a respiratory illness that can cause lung complications including pneumonia and acute respiratory distress, both of which deplete oxygen levels in the body, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. Depleted oxygen can lead to lightheadedness, fainting, coughing, wheezing, and even death. Albert Rizzo, Chief Medical Officer of the American Lung Association.Īccording to the Mayo Clinic, oxygen saturation that dips below 90 percent is considered hypoxic, which means there is a lower level of oxygen than is needed in the blood. If it’s low, in the 90 range, that’s not considered very good,” says Dr. “If it’s highly saturated, which is good, it’s usually 95 to 97 percent in most healthy individuals. ![]() The device does this by emitting small beams of red light through the skin and, based on how the blood absorbs the light, can estimate the percentage of oxygen in the blood. The type of pulse oximeter most people want is a device that is clipped over a finger, toe, or ear lobe to measure the saturation of oxygen in the blood.
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