Does anyone experience shortness of breath while using oxygen? This happens to me from time to time so I wondered if anyone else has these "not so good" days"? Thank you
Everyone has those. And remember, O2 won't cure your being sob; it will ensure that even if you're sob, your heart and brain will be getting enough O2 to avoid damage. I use O2 to exercise, and daily get sob when I'm working out. The huffing and puffing isn't a problem as long as my O2 sats are up where they're supposed to be. In fact, making yourself sob isn't a bad idea because it allows you to get stronger by exercising harder. As long as your O2 sats are good, you can work through being sob and it won't hurt you a bit.
Your need for O2 has nothing to do with where you are in the disease progression. It has everything to do with your O2 saturation levels. There are people whose COPD is in the mild range and they need O2 because their sats are lower than 88 at rest or with exertion. And there are people whose FEV1 is in the teens who don't use O2 because their sats remain just fine. Granted, those are outliers on both ends of the spectrum, but don't make the assumption that because someone uses O2 that they are necessarily at a very severe stage of the disease.
I was told it causes "over breathing" - that your lung don't work on there own. Anyone else heard this?
I was told by a coupe of docs that too much oxygen is not a good thing. Why????? Don't know.
Oxygen won't necessarily cure your sob. If you want to improve things, talk with your doc and begin a good, aggressive exercise program. That will help you reduce your sob as you get stronger and can do more with less O2.