Posted on 04/26/2020 11:36:42 PM PDT by dpwiener
The FDA is ok with lawyers who were elected to be Governors and Mayors practicing medicine, so what’s the deal?
That’s different.
The govs & mayors ore only functioning as anal sphincters
(Which somehow seems PERFECTLY appropriate!!!)
/sarc /nosarc
I’ve been using the Samsung Health app on my S8+ for a couple years, including the O2 saturation. I typically range between 97-99. I’m convinced I had the virus in late January, and my symptoms included shortness of breath. I wasn’t struggling to breath, but I felt like I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. That had me a little concerned so I used the Samsung app to measure my O2 saturation. It dropped throughout the day and bottomed out at 92. That was a first for me. (Covid-19 wasn’t really in the news yet, so I was mainly thinking pneumonia.)
By the 2nd day, my 02 was back up to around 95 (and my fever had dropped below 99). So I knew I was heading in the right direction. It was nice having that app, just to keep an eye on things.
One note: I’ve read that the Samsung S9 isn’t quite as accurate as the S8 in measuring O2%. Not sure about the S10.
I have an app on my iphone that checks O2 levels. Cost 4.99.
Accuracy is good, but precision is more important. “If” you make the measurement routinely and it drops significantly, than “you got trouble”. Of course, if you DON’T do regular measurements, THE you need it to be “first reading out of the box” accurate.
There are several in the App Store. Which one did you get?
Excellent insight!
It’s the advantage of retirement. You finally have a chance to sit down and really think about things.
I never used those things because I learned as an orderly to use your 5 senses to determine if someone is “sick”. As an orderly I had to do “vital signs” on some 50 patients at least once a shift. I realized pretty early on the standard I was being held to was not “the numbers are OK” but that the “vital signs” were really just an excuse to make the staff actually go in the room and touch the patient. Walking out of the room when someone clearly had a “change in condition”, the “vital signs were OK” was NOT going to be a “defense”. It was a lesson that served me well in the subsequent decades and earned me a reputation with the nurses as “someone they could trust”. Made my life so much easier.
“We’re the government. We’re here to protect you. Do what we say. Don’t question us.”
But my brain only gets 10% of 02. Maybe that is why I can’t think so fast.
“Why would they block this feature ?”
That was my overriding question. Read the article. It’s a little murky.
For example, there are blood-oxygen-measuring devices on the market, but they have been categorized by the FDA as “wellness” devices rather than “health” devices and FDA doesn’t regulate the former.
From the article:
“The agency [FDA] always faces harsh public and congressional scrutiny over drugs and devices that fail or cause harm.”
In normal physiology in the resting state a human heart pumps (for the ideal 70 kg. Man) your entire circulating volume each minute. 20% of that goes to the brain. In real life when the O2 per 100 ml of blood falls from the normal state by just 10 or 15% one rapidly suffers a deterioration of consciousness. Which makes that “hands on evaluation” distinct from the “vital signs” so important. JARMOC is the acronym by which to evaluate. Judgement, Affect, Recall, mentation, orientation, and cognition. Turns out the instrument between your ears if FAR more sensitive than any test or “vital sign”.
Because leaving that feature available opened them to liability they did not want to deal with.
I had a partner some ten years ago who got burned by a lady with a PE. He seemed convinced that the way he would never get burned again would be to purchase one of these devices. I tried to explain to him the way to not get burned again was realize the PE is a diagnosis made 50% of the time at autopsy and if he REALLY didn’t want to get burned again he just need to “increase his sensitivity” to the subtle presentation of this diagnosis and the terrible consequences of missing it.
I always had a VERY low threshold to R/O PE as it was so prevalent in Neurosurgical Patients. I never got burned. In fact I remember one occasion i saved the ass of a very good ER doctor.
In fact that “very good ER doctor” had actually been just a couple years earlier the Chief of Internal Medicine at U of Penn. Where he retired and worked ER to “double dip”. So it happens to THE BEST.
I understood that. But, if they had an issue, then it should have been discussed before now. Instead people want to use it, and the FDA in all their power says ‘we don’t think it’s safe at a time when it may be useful.’ Thanks Mom and Dad.
It’s probably because they think we are all bleach /Lysol drinkers.
Thank you for being that person. I know additional lives were saved through that alone.
I have a close friend who has been a nurse for a long time. She has told me stories of doctors that you couldn’t consistently trust in those circumstances.
“But, if they had an issue, then it should have been discussed before now.”
Go into the article. I didn’t read it carefully but I think Apple put the blood-oxygen-measuring feature in and then decided to not go through the FDA approval process, so they didn’t tell us it was there.
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