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7:50am June 25, 2013

If I have time which I might not, I’ll ask my doctor today, but…

What does it mean when your oxygen level isn’t that low. I mean borderline low but not terrible as long as you stay on oxygen, but…

You feel a constant icky sensation in your lungs. That feeling you get when you hold your breath and your body is screaming for air.

And…

Increasing your oxygen level solves the problem even though technically your pulse ox isn’t showing that dramatic a change.

If it helps, I’ve got bronchiectasis and asthma and central/obstructuve sleep apnea and frequently aspirate stomach contents and then get pneumonia. And I have neuromuscular problems that sometimes affect breathing if I get weak enough. So I often breathe too shallow. And I make a lot of phlegm and spend a lot of the day coughing it up.

But I haven’t aspirated recently. The only thing that I’ve felt like recently is like my lungs feel really weak, sometimes I’ve needed to use the central apnea settings on my bipap while awake to assist my breathing. Probably a UTI interfering with the neuromuscular condition, but I can’t be sure.

Anyway returning my oxygen up a notch has made the sensation partly go away, Even though my oxygen level isn’t actually that different and was never that low as long as I kept the oxygen on, even at the prior setting. So why would upping the oxygen even help?

My lungs still feel cruddy, mind you, just not quite as desperate. Idk what’s going on.