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Oxygen inhalation at home.

Oxygen is one of the most important elements involved in the life of the human body. Thanks to its constant flow into the blood, the processes of cleavage and synthesis of organic compounds take place, which support nutrition, movement, growth, thought processes and many other processes that accompany human life. Lack of oxygen instantly disrupts health, causes failures of all functioning systems and organs.

Ideally, the most favorable environmental conditions are clean air, well saturated with oxygen, but the realities of life are far from ideal. The scientific and technical breakthrough has entailed not only convenience in the life of human society, but also pollution of the environment, where industrial waste is disposed of. Xenobiotics (poisonous substances) currently occupy a significant share in the structure of the air that a person breathes, thereby provoking a lack of oxygen in the body.

Lack of oxygen causes oxygen starvation of tissues, hypoxia of the brain and, in its worst manifestation, can be fatal. The lack of oxygen is especially dangerous for people with respiratory diseases (asthma, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, smoker's bronchitis, pneumoconiosis, tuberculosis and others), cardiovascular disorders (ischemia, heart failure, etc.), metabolic disorders and general ailments associated with asthenia, reduced immunity. How to avoid oxygen starvation?

To replenish the body with oxygen, oxygen therapy is useful - forced oxygen inhalation. Their usual use is associated with medical procedures within the framework of medical institutions (hospitals, clinics, sanatoriums, health resorts). But today it is possible to carry out oxygen inhalations at home, especially since doctors have long been sounding the alarm about the deteriorating health of people living in megacities, cities with a large number of factories and plants, in monotowns tied to any production, sometimes extremely harmful.

For inhalations with oxygen at home, you can purchase an oxygen cartridge with a removable nozzle - a mask, or use special oxygen concentrators that extract oxygen from the air in the room in which they are located.

Oxygen cans come in a variety of capacities, but portable oxygen cans, which are slightly larger than a large aerosol bottle (about 40 cm in height), are most convenient to use. Such oxygen cylinders are convenient in that they can be taken with you on the road, to work, on vacation and in any situation they can be used without problems. One cartridge has a different volume of oxygen injected with a concentration of 80 or 95%, designed for approximately 100 -150 breaths. When the oxygen supply in the balloon runs out, the mask is detached and attached to the next balloon.

Oxygen concentrators are of two types: stationary and portable (move around the room) and have various purposes (purified concentrated oxygen is released into the atmosphere of the room, thus saturating it to the required level, which is considered by the computer installed in the concentrator, or filling a special tank with the released oxygen, from which oxygen enters the respiratory tract of a specific person through a mask or nasal cannulas - tubes inserted into the nasal openings).

Thus, oxygen therapy can be carried out at home for the whole family or for one family member individually. It should be noted that oxygen concentrators do not combine both functions (atmospheric saturation and individual inhalation). They are intended either for oxygenation of the room atmosphere or for individual inhalation.

It is necessary to carry out oxygen inhalations at home with caution, as you can get oxygen poisoning by oversaturation of the room air or human blood with oxygen molecules. The optimum oxygen concentration in the air is about 20%. To carry out oxygen therapy for the purpose of treatment, it is necessary to have a pulse oximeter device that allows you to monitor the level of blood oxygen saturation.

It is necessary to carry out inhalations with oxygen according to certain rules:

Do not breathe deeply and often - breathing should be calm, even (with a deep breath, you can fall asleep and not wake up from the high dose of oxygen received);
If the inhalation time and oxygen concentration are not specified by the doctor, then it is better to stop for two or three breaths from an oxygen cartridge with 80% concentration or 20 minutes in an atmosphere saturated with oxygen;
It is unacceptable to arrange oxygen inhalations at the time of sports (the same deep and frequent breathing is dangerous), for example, in the gym or while exercising on the simulator in the apartment).

Signs of oxygen toxicity:

Drowsiness,
Dizziness,
Headache,
Feeling of dry mouth,
Soreness or cough.

At the slightest sign of oxygen poisoning, oxygen inhalation is stopped, and during the following oxygen therapy procedures at home, the settings for the oxygen concentration level, the number of breaths or the time spent in an oxygen-saturated atmosphere are changed.