A Night of Breathing Difficulties

The other night, around the time we were heading to bed, I started having typical mast cell disease breathing difficulties again only days after another miserable night of breathing difficulties.  

This is a fairly common symptom for my primary illness so, at this point, common symptoms like breathing problems alone don't raise any red flags.  If a second symptoms appears while struggling with the first, then that does raise red flags which indicates the start of a cascading of symptoms and I need to start on emergency medications but that didn't happen the other night.  I was just experiencing what I would call and felt were moderate breathing difficulties.

Sheila reminded me to check my O2 saturation level...  so I did and it was at 87%.  That may seem okay and a decent number but it is actually considered very low.  They say that normal breathing is in the 98-100% range.  "Moderate" breathing difficulties are experienced in the range of ±94%.  Once you get down to 92% or lower, this is in the significant category and in the 80s is bad.  So, I was deep into the significant breathing difficulties range.  I've certainly been far lower but this 87% figure was not a good one.

I used my inhaler.  Then used it again a few minutes later.  I checked my O2 level again and it was still around 87%.  I waited another ten minutes before checking again and my O2 level came up to around 92%.  I got up and took some extra medications, just in case.  

Fortunately, no other symptoms appeared so I didn't need to go into emergency mode.  That does happen once or twice a week but it didn't happen this time, thankfully.

When I have nights of breathing difficulties, I definitely don't get a decent night of sleep.  I get up in the morning feeling as though I had been awake all night long and that is how I felt the next morning.  It is how I still feel this morning.