An unusual symptom was reported by Jonathan Bannard Smith, consultant for intensive care at the Royal Infirmary, Manchester.
Doctors called the strange phenomenon of “happy hypoxia.” In this state, the saturation (oxygen saturation of the blood) in the patient drops to 70, 60 and even 50 percent. That is, objectively in the patient’s body COVID-19 life-threatening processes occur.
However, subjectively, such patients feel normal and do not experience typical symptoms of oxygen starvation. They have no shortness of breath, they can breathe deeply. Scientists have suggested that an unusual symptom may be due to the fact that with coronavirus, blood clots accumulate in the lungs.
In connection with new observations, British doctors recommended that their colleagues around the world make more careful decisions about the need to place the patient with coronavirus on ventilators.
Russian doctors called the discovery of British colleagues strange and suspected some mistake here. Domestic experts are confident that with a decrease in saturation to 93 percent or lower, a person cannot feel as if nothing is happening.
“I think this is some kind of mistake,” the professor at the Department of Phthisiology and Pulmonology at MGMSU named after. A.I. Evdokimova Sergey Babak, – When a person has low oxygen in the blood, general hypoxia occurs, organ. It can be caused by hypoxemia, that is, a low dissolution of oxygen in the blood or a lack of oxygen carriers. At the same time, a person feels very bad. He actually chokes.
Hypoxia does not mean that a person cannot breathe air. As the pulmonologist explained, the patient takes a breath, but he is constantly dyspnea.
– This is a serious condition. I do not believe that with a saturation of 56-60 percent, a person does not feel anything. This cannot be, this is against the physics of the process, ”concluded Sergey Babak.
True, even in the diagnosis of dyspnea, the insidious COVID-19 introduced confusion. According to the doctor, in the era before the coronavirus, it was believed that all patients with saturation below 90% are in a dangerous condition, where the main risk is the development of severe respiratory failure. With coronavirus, doctors began to consider 93% saturation as an excuse to beat all the bells.
“Everything below 93 percent is the first degree of respiratory failure,” the pulmonologist said. “The physiological norm for oxygen saturation of arterial blood is between 95 and 99 percent. When the saturation drops to 93, the first symptoms of oxygen deficiency appear.
If there is no pulse oximeter at home and there is no hope for a quick arrival of the ambulance team, pay attention to respiratory symptoms. The most common is a feeling of shortness of breath. It can manifest itself in completely different ways. Some patients feel like they have a sore throat, while others feel heaviness and tightness in the chest. Doctors even have a special concept – the language of shortness of breath. Pulmonologists advise him to listen carefully.
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