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Comment by ornel | Hacker News Reader

I measured myself at home in Mexico City and got 93%. I got kind of worried, knowing people sick with COVID-19 can have very low saturation levels without realising it. Then I remembered I was standing at about 2200 m above sea level. Lots of unexpected weirdness happens at high altutude

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I’ll be honest, a lot if the portable oxygen saturation monitors seem to report slightly out of range readings. It often picks up after a few minutes, I suspect they are calibrated poorly tbh. 94-98% is the desired range.

This is only true for people who live close to sea level. At higher altitudes, saturation even down into the high 80s can be normal: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-1...

So was it really your oxygen saturation level, or was the measurement flawed?

even holding your breath for couple seconds will tank saturation, so pretty likely high altitude will do the same until your breathing adjusts to compensate

It shouldn’t effect your oxygen saturation’s at all. Respiration is driven by raised CO2 not drops in oxygen in the healthy (COPD is the classic example of where low oxygen levels drive respiratory effort)

I know I replied to a different comment of yours, but this paper also illustrates how this point, while matching common medical wisdom, is not necessarily correct when accounting for altitude: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-1...

(Summary: Healthy children at higher altitude breathe more rapidly.)

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