everettT

everettT

Audioholic Spartan
I like it how now the Online activists are blaming COVID for the on-field collapse of American football star Damar Hamlin. The team and his physicians say the most likely cause is an arrhythmia that occurred as a result of the blow to his chest. But NO its blame the vaccine. Might as well blame the vaccine for everything.
Yeah it's been pretty loud and considering that his Doctors don't have a definitive answer, it's not very constructive. It doesn't help that they mRNA vaccine manufacturers weren't forthcoming with their trails and the rate of myocardial issues in people under 30, which fuels speculation. There's a place for discussion but not speculation.
 
mtrycrafts

mtrycrafts

Seriously, I have no life.
I like it how now the Online activists are blaming COVID for the on-field collapse of American football star Damar Hamlin. The team and his physicians say the most likely cause is an arrhythmia that occurred as a result of the blow to his chest. But NO its blame the vaccine. Might as well blame the vaccine for everything.
It is easier to blame Covid for everything than to face reality. :)
 
M

Mr._Clark

Audioholic Samurai
I like it how now the Online activists are blaming COVID for the on-field collapse of American football star Damar Hamlin. The team and his physicians say the most likely cause is an arrhythmia that occurred as a result of the blow to his chest. But NO its blame the vaccine. Might as well blame the vaccine for everything.
It sounds like a variation of the "flood the zone with sh*t" approach: make numerous fact-free assertions in an effort to shift the burden to the other side to disprove it.
 
Dan

Dan

Audioholic Chief
Well after nearly three years I finally got it. I am maximum vaxxed last dose in October. So far a bad cold plus oxygen desaturation to 90%. Got the Paxlovid and am chilling at home. Too sick to work. I will be fine but having a pulse oximeter (50 bucks at CVS) is well worth it. Anything below 90% is a sign of trouble.
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
Well after nearly three years I finally got it. I am maximum vaxxed last dose in October. So far a bad cold plus oxygen desaturation to 90%. Got the Paxlovid and am chilling at home. Too sick to work. I will be fine but having a pulse oximeter (50 bucks at CVS) is well worth it. Anything below 90% is a sign of trouble.
I got pretty sick but the Paxlovid helped get it under control very quickly. The low oxygen lingered for almost 2 months after though.
 
Swerd

Swerd

Audioholic Warlord
Well after nearly three years I finally got it. I am maximum vaxxed last dose in October. So far a bad cold plus oxygen desaturation to 90%. Got the Paxlovid and am chilling at home. Too sick to work.
Glad to hear that the symptoms aren't worse. Hope the Paxlovid does it's job. Did you have to stop any other medication while you're doing Paxlovid?
I will be fine but having a pulse oximeter (50 bucks at CVS) is well worth it. Anything below 90% is a sign of trouble.
You must be the first person I've known with his own pulse oximeter. Do you know if it's good enough for clinical use? Or is it only good enough for a quick & dirty estimate? Is that 90% measure of blood oxygenation accurate to ±1% (good), ±10% (fair but acceptable), or worse (too sloppy to be useful)?

If the owner's manual doesn't mention those things, then you know it's only a quick & dirty estimate. You know me ;), I always am skeptical about those things, until proven otherwise. It might be OK, but at only $50, I'd be surprised if it had gone through the lengthy validation process needed for clinical use.
 
Trell

Trell

Audioholic Spartan
You must be the first person I've known with his own pulse oximeter. Do you know if it's good enough for clinical use? Or is it only good enough for a quick & dirty estimate? Is that 90% measure of blood oxygenation accurate to ±1%, ±10%, or worse?

If the owner's manual doesn't mention those things, then you know that it's only a quick & dirty estimate. You know me ;), I always am skeptical about those things, until proven otherwise.
Those where written about for some time during the pandemic, so I'm curios as well. Having one that is properly calibrated and approved for medical use is expensive, I gather?
 
Swerd

Swerd

Audioholic Warlord
Those where written about for some time during the pandemic, so I'm curios as well. Having one that is properly calibrated and approved for medical use is expensive, I gather?
Yes. But they might be like fever thermometers. They can be very accurate, reliable and inexpensive, but most have not gone through the expensive & time consuming process required for clinical validation.
 
Eppie

Eppie

Audioholic Ninja
Yes. But they might be like fever thermometers. They can be very accurate, reliable and inexpensive, but most have not gone through the expensive & time consuming process required for clinical validation.
Apple Watch gen 6 and later also measures blood oxygen but it says for general fitness only. You may find the document on the Blood Oxygen app interesting. This link is for using the app and at the bottom of the page is this link for a PDF describing it in more detail. The Performance Accuracy section is beyond me but I would be curious to know your thoughts.
 
Trell

Trell

Audioholic Spartan
Yes. But they might be like fever thermometers. They can be very accurate, reliable and inexpensive, but most have not gone through the expensive & time consuming process required for clinical validation.
One difference is that we know how to measure temperatures very cheaply, accurate and reliably for a very long time, but for measuring blood oxygen levels that is fairly new for consumers (home users). Personally I would only buy one that is certified as a medical device if I where to use it for medical purposes.
 
Verdinut

Verdinut

Audioholic Spartan
I own a Withings ScanWatch which among its features, a SpO2 (oxygen saturation) level can be accurately measured with the use of a multi-wavelength sensor.
Pages 69-74 cover the use of the oxygen saturation sensor. In the specs (page99), manufacturer specifies: Medical Grade Oximeter.

SpO2 values generally vary between 90 and 100%: 95 to 100% is normal but 90-94% is below average (very well explained on page 70)

I have owned this watch for less than 2 months. So far, I measued my SpO2 level twice with results of 99% and 98%.

I bought it because of my history of atrial fibrillation episodes. While wearing it during my sleep, it monitors my heart rate which is recorded on an app on my smart phone. When I get up in the morning, I can verify if there were any irregular beat incidents. I should also get a vibrating alarm if I have an AFib incident.
 
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Swerd

Swerd

Audioholic Warlord
Apple Watch gen 6 and later also measures blood oxygen but it says for general fitness only. You may find the document on the Blood Oxygen app interesting. This link is for using the app and at the bottom of the page is this link for a PDF describing it in more detail. The Performance Accuracy section is beyond me but I would be curious to know your thoughts.
At first read, I have to say I'm impressed with Apple's efforts to produce a useful blood oxygenation measuring device – and to provide data to demonstrate it's usefulness.

This is not what I've encountered in the past with computer tech companies when they ventured outside their own information tech world and attempted to make devices that could read out medical or physiological conditions from human subjects that might be used in medical monitoring or diagnosis. More often, after they ran into the fortress wall of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), they said 'we're not doing all that insane stuff' and ran away, muttering how insulting it was to have their brilliance questioned. People from the pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical lab instrument worlds would often snicker at their naive arrogance.

It looks like Apple contracted a medical device validation company to design the study, collect the data, and do the analysis. Even though it looks like they didn't submit their data and analysis to the FDA for actual clinical device validation, they followed accepted methods. Good for them!

People are usually surprised to learn that the FDA does not have iron-clad standards of just what data is acceptable and what isn't. It's up to the submitting company to convince the FDA that their data is good enough. If there isn't any other such device on the market, Apple's new toy could be considered as state-of-the-art, establishing the standards that any competitor had to meet. Thanks to @Verdinut I now know that other oximeters are sold, so if Apple wants to sell it as a clinical device, it is up to them to show that their device produces at least as good results as the Withings ScanWatch.

Usual caveat: These are my personal opinions. I do not have professional expertise on instrument validation that it would allow them to be considered widely acceptable for clinical use.
 
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Dan

Dan

Audioholic Chief
I found this article. In sum many are crap and a few are quite good. I wonder which I have?
 
Alex2507

Alex2507

Audioholic Slumlord
My girl's sister got it.
I remembered the thing about the Paxlovid.
No thing could have fallen on deaf ears quicker.
Lesson learned.

How am I not to judge? Can you imagine being judged by a monkey?
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
Hard to know what the long-term effects are after only about 2 years out there. Takes time. I would think the experts can make an educated prediction but not from
actual effects.
Nearly 70 years after the Food Pyramid came out, they're still debating it. There's no way anyone is certain of every aspect of this.

I await comments from the peanut gallery. :)
 
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