Oxygen with demand valve - breathing strategies
Oxygen with demand valve - breathing strategies
Hello. Reading some of the posts on here I consider myself fortunate to have oxygen at home with a demand valve. I'm quite a big bloke and felt like I struggled to fill my lungs properly with the non-rebreather masks.
Logic would suggest the best strategy is to breathe out completely, suck on the demand valve to fill the lungs then hold the breath for a few seconds to maximise gas exchange, then repeat.
But sometimes I just want to pant - breathe oxygen in and then out again really quickly. It's counter-intuitive and probably isn't as effective - but when the pain is ramping up and I feel like the oxygen isn't going to do the trick, I'll try anything.
I appreciate we're all different and deal in different ways - but I'm curious as to how others use the oxygen and demand valve to abort attacks.
Login to add comments
You won't absorb all the oxygen that you inhale; you'll breathe out a lot of it. But a demand valve uses less because it closes the flow between breaths, where a mask's flow stays constant.
Use the O2 to clear that extremely painful CH attack, don't add to that torture worrying about a little lost air. Most people have to pant.