Mechanical ventilation appears (to me, a naive observer) to help only push air into the lungs if a person cannot breathe well— that is to say, having difficulty inhaling and exhaling. It makes sense to me that a person who is perhaps paralyzed would need a machine to force the lungs the work, mechanically speaking.
But how does this help someone suffering from injury or disease in the lungs themselves? Is a ventilator better at delivering oxygen than our own normal breathing process?
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Not sure if this will help. I haven’t been intubated but I was on assisted breathing for a while. I was struggling to breathe, my heart rate and blood pressure were up and I was exhausted. The stuck these prongs up my nose and I had straps going over and around my head to hold it in place. The prongs were attached to a big flexible tube that had come through a machine that mixed oxygen with warmth and humidity. I think it was blowing 30L a minute in to my lungs at the start. Imagine sitting in front of a very strong fan, opening your mouth and letting the air push in. The moment they put in on me, I my muscles relaxed. I wasn’t sucking in air or trying to push it out. I didn’t realise it but my diaphragm, back, shoulder and neck muscles were all sore from the effort.
Your body seems to realise it is getting the oxygen it needs so it stops putting in as much strenuous effort and you get a bit of a physical break.
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