When your O2 sats are good and you're still sob, the usual culprit is what we call air-trapping. With COPD, there are areas in the lungs where the alveoli are damaged and can't exchange CO2 for O2 as quickly and efficiently as they are supposed to. That means that stale air that we should have exhaled gets "trapped' in those damaged areas. That's what makes us sob even though our sats are still good.

The good news is that when that happens, we can simply ignore it and go on with what we're doing. We'll be uncomfortable, but we won't do ourselves any damage. So one solution is to simply learn to work through it and keep going. If you can't do that, slow down, make sure you're doing pursed lip breathing (that gets rid of stale air) and keep going. If you absolutely have to stop, do your pursed lip breathing until you've recovered and then go on with what you're doing.

That's what's happening. Exercise will help you with this problem, especially if you work on continuing your exercise until you're done. The more you exercise and keep going, the easier it will become. As your lungs and heart become more efficient, you will find that you can do more with less O2.

Some people can have a low oxygen level and not even know it. They may be working or just out walking or even just resting. Then you may have people with a 97 or 98 oxygen level but they are struggling to breathe. It all depends on how your lungs are working. It is kind of complicated to explain but my respiratory therapist tried to explain it to me by saying that it depends on how our body takes in oxygen and how our oxygenated blood circulates the oxygen through out our body. If we have copd with a lot of mucus then that makes it harder to breathe and if we have copd with damaged aveoli then we have trouble getting rid of dangerous gases. which makes it hard to breathe. It is still hard for me to understand how my oxygen level can be 98 and i have trouble breathing enough to walk from one room to another. I am just glad that some days I breathe better than other days. I use my good days to get things done and on my bad days I am just thankful to be breathing. I hope this helps you in some small way. Just ask your pulmonary doctor or his or her nurse as I am sure they will explain it for you.

I use an Oxymeter! It tells me if I am getting enough oxygen! It should be 90 or more! Usually mine is 95 -97! 👍

Thank you for explaining this to me. Was a great help

Have a great day and be safe.