Quote
Elizabeth
But your 20 min. test doesn't equal a person wearing the mask for 8 hrs
I do a lot of playing around with breath. I disagree with this. If the SpO2 is going to change, it changes rapidly. When I wear a training mask, as I linked above, I can restrict flow and drop O2 right away.
What can happen, depending on the mask, is that CO2 will accumulate, though it will reach a steady state in a few minutes. Because CO2 signals the urge breathe, those where this signal is set at low level may feel like they need to breathe more, or can't breathe.
Russian Dr. Buteyko developed a simple test that he called "control pause" or CP. This tests the level of your brain's CO2 trigger. Briefly, you are breathing in and out normally through your nose. On a normal exhale, not an extreme exhale, you hold your breath out. You time it till you feel the first urge to breathe, not an extreme breath hold and time it. More detail
here and
video instruction.
Dr. Buteyko developed a
chart for the CP time and health. Buteyko actually measured serum CO2 and correlated it with the CP time. Longer is better. Mine is around 27 seconds - not great, but not horrid. I continue to work on it.
When Buteyko was a young medical student, he was assigned to observe people who were dying. He got to the point he could predict when they were about to expire, based on breathing rate. When you become observant, you can see that people who aren't in good health breathe rapidly at rest and many times through their mouth, not nose.
As to non-medical masks, what they are good at is capturing or slowing down exhaled droplets. They won't help you if you are in a cloud of aerosols. Assuming that people can transmit when they are a) asymptomatic; b) pre symptomatic; c) symptomatic but not isolating, the masks can help reduce these transmissions. The article I posted
here noted, "Successful Infection = Exposure to Virus x Time." My understanding is that aerosol transmission requires time, hence the choir practice scenario is a risky situation.
This is personal for me. I do many
things to reduce the probability of a serious case, some of it thanks to your Dr. Brownstein. I have an adult son whose been diagnosed with glioblastoma for 3 years (this is what killed John McCain in a year and my son's neurosurgeon gave him 12-18 months after his surgery). My son's immune function is trashed from the treatment and the illness. I help care give and take him to appointments, so if I get the illness and don't know it, it could be fatal for him. Hence I pay great attention to how to avoid it.
My operating assumptions:
- staying away from people is best
- being around people outside, with 6+ feet between people is next
- if I go inside around people, I do wear a mask, and do not spend a long time inside or near others.
I look at my mask not as protecting me, but protecting those around me, if I'm shedding virus. I feel it is the least I can do for people like the clerks I deal with at the stores. They are exposed to people all day.
{edit} if someone has a problem breathing with a mask, a face shield is also an option. The receptionist for one of my son's therapy appointments was wearing one instead of a mask. Eliminates the O2 restriction and CO2 accumulation issue. From Cleveland Clinic on
shields.
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/2020 12:19PM by GeorgeN.