My grandma recently started requiring supplemental oxygen at home and the nurse told my family to ensure her SP02 isn’t maintained for long periods of time over 95% because this can lead to oxygen toxicity. She is on a medical grade oxygen concentrator which I have read provides approximately 90-95% pure oxygen. (She uses 1-2 concentrators to provide 4-10lpm as needed to maintain SP02 between 90-95%) How does oxygen toxicity work and how quickly can it occur in a situation like this? Articles I have found online are a bit over my head. Thanks!
In: Biology
Oxygen is a so-called free radical. Oxygen really likes reacting with whatever’s around. This also includes your cells and their proteins. High oxygen concetrations can disrupt cell function by binding to proteins. This causes a change of their properties and is generally not very healthy, it can also cause DNA damage for example. The body is expecting a certain amount of oxygen and can repair damage caused by it to the extent we are exposed to it normally. When we get older or there is too much oxygen the damage cannot be repaired well enough and leads to issues.
Here’s a link if you want to know more about this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_oxygen_species
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