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What You Need to Know About Sleeping with an Oxygen Concentrator

Summit Oxygen is an innovative company specializing in the sale or rental of quiet oxygen machines and respiratory equipment, providing oxygen bars for private and corporate events.

Any professional oxygen company can tell you that you breathe differently when you are asleep compared to the norm. Some people take shallow, erratic breaths, others breathe through their mouths. At any rate, the oxygen level in the blood drops down during sleep, and this is normal up to a level.

However, if you suffer from various medical conditions, such as asthma, sleep apnea, obesity or heart diseases, you may not get enough oxygen during sleep. And low oxygen levels lead to complications of your pre-existing conditions, as well as the occurrence of new health issues, such as:

Sleep disorders, including insomnia
Cardiac arrhythmia and heart failure
High blood pressure
Type 2 diabetes
Potential brain damage due to depressed brain function.

In the worst-case scenarios, low oxygen levels can lead to loss of consciousness, coma, or sudden death.

Signs that You Don’t Get Sufficient Oxygen while Sleeping

The question is: how do you know that you do not get enough oxygen during sleep? Most people are not aware of what they are doing during sleep. However, there are many signs you can identify yourself or find out from others, indicating poor levels of oxygen during sleep.

Some of these signs are:

You wake up choking or gasping for air
You feel dizzy, drowsy, and fatigued during the day
You experience shortness of breath
You have moments of confusion and disorientation
You feel anxious or depressed for no reason
You have trouble recollecting events and experience memory loss.

Also, if your significant other complains of your loud snoring and restlessness during sleep, these are other telltale signs of low oxygen during sleep.

What Are Oxygen Concentrators and how do They Work?

Fortunately, there is a solution for the issue of not getting enough oxygen during sleep: the quiet oxygen concentrator. These are specialized devices that deliver pure oxygen into your lungs through a nasal cannula attached to a machine that stores oxygen.

There are four main types of oxygen concentrators in use:

Standard oxygen sleeping machine, running on electricity, weighs around 50 pounds; it intakes regular air and separates the oxygen from other gases;
Portable oxygen concentrator, equipped with a battery pack and weighing between 3 and 20 pounds;
Liquid oxygen tank, weighing around 100 pounds, it has to be refilled once every few weeks;
Compressed oxygen gas tank, which is an older and more inconvenient choice, as it is not movable, and requires replacing the tank once every few days.

What You Need to Know about Oxygen Safety

Whether you opt for a portable oxygen concentrator or an immovable machine to use at home, you need to follow several precautions for your safety. Oxygen fuels fire, thus you must:

Never smoke, or allow others to light up cigarettes around the oxygen sleeping machine;
Never use open flame near the oxygen concentrator;
Keep the oxygen concentrator at least 5 feet away from heat sources;
Never use flammable products, including paint thinners and cleaning solutions on or around the quiet oxygen concentrator;
Always keep the oxygen tank in an upright position;
Stop using products containing oil, petroleum or grease, including topical ointments, such as Vaseline;
Always have a fire extinguisher within reach.

Benefits of Sleeping with Oxygen Concentrator

Now you may wonder: can you sleep with a portable oxygen concentrator? The answer is yes and people who already use an oxygen sleeping machine have noted several significant benefits for their health and wellbeing.

Sleeping with oxygen concentrator offers:

A significant improvement in sleep, allowing the organism to rest properly;
A mood boost, by reducing anxiety and depression caused by insomnia;
More stamina, energy, and alertness during the day, as a result of a healthy sleep;
A significant decrease in the risk of developing health problems triggered by low oxygen levels.

What You Can do while on Oxygen Therapy

Supplementary to using an oxygen machine for sleeping, you can also alter your lifestyle and create healthy sleeping habits. Specialists recommend the following:

Not drinking carbonated drinks in the evening, as the carbon in the stomach pushes on the diaphragm and makes breathing difficult;
Going to sleep at around the same time, in order to establish a regular sleeping/waking cycle;
Exercise for at least 30 minutes each day;
Practice huffing (forcefully exhaling) before bedtime to clear your airways.

So, Should You Consider an Oxygen Concentrator?

Sleeping with an oxygen concentrator can help a lot of people solve their breathing problems during sleep. However, since sleep apnea and the related conditions that cause low blood oxygen levels are life-threatening health problems, you must see a doctor and get a correct diagnosis and treatment. While the oxygen sleeping machine is a part of a solution, you must get your doctor’s approval for using it beforehand.