Another Health Gadget

I suspect at present we are in just as much danger of catching covid as ever. I don’t believe the numbers. People are mixing more. Several in our village have it. They’ve stopped bothering to report it. Many are turning off the app, assuming they had it in the first place. Even our elected leaders are bending the rules. It’s sensible to be sensible.

I read Piers Morgan’s account of catching covid at the Wembley football final. I’m aware he’s an arrogant know-it-all but he has my sympathy in this. Despite being fully vaccinated, he had an awful experience: high fever, aches, coughing; “definitely the roughest I’ve felt from any illness in my adult life” he said. He makes the fair point that without vaccination it is likely he would have been considerably worse. It may even have saved his life.

His respiratory consultant (lucky him!) said to monitor his arterial saturations and to seek help if they fell below 93%. 

Obviously, you can’t monitor your blood oxygen levels if you don’t have a gadget, so, for £16, I got one, just in case any of us at home catch covid. 

And when you’ve got one of these oximeters you can’t resist playing with it. I’m mostly somewhere between 96% and 99%. But what if you take a reading when you’ve been active or exercising (still 96-99%)? What does it show if you clip it on your toe (oh dear, a bit lower, I hope I’ve not got vascular disease)? How low can you make it go?

Did you know that if you stop breathing until you can’t resist any longer, and then push it a bit more by counting slowly to 10 before you breath in, nothing much changes except your pulse rockets up. Thankfully, you then breath in. And about thirty seconds later, when the blood gets to the end of your finger, you might have managed to get it down to 86%. Beat that!

Now, I wonder if it works with cats. Would it go best on Phoebe’s paw or on the end of her tail?