The Pulse Oximeter.

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What's A Pulse Oximeter?  Is It A Good Idea To Buy One?

These are valid questions. A pulse oximeter is a small electronic device that estimates the saturation of oxygen in your blood.  You want a number in the 95% to 100% range.  If the number drops to 92% or lower, that's a cause for concern.  That's generally the level where a doctor might put you on supplementary oxygen and keep you in the hospital for observation.

(Mine just now measured 98%, at rest, with a pulse rate of 73 bpm. My oral temp is 97.8°F. I check daily.)

COVID-19 can bring on what's called COVID pneumonia -- an infection in which the lung's air sacs fill with fluid or pus. And it's possible that someone infected with the novel coronavirus might be in the early stages of COVID pneumonia -- including a drop in blood oxygen level -- without experiencing any difficulty breathing.

In such cases, a pulse oximeter might signal that you're in trouble before you realize it.  Many COVID patients are already very sick with COVID pneumonia by the time they arrive in an ER.  They were breathing rapidly, their blood oxygen levels dangerously low.  Like mountain climbers, the patients had grown accustomed to gradually decreasing levels of oxygen and didn't realize they were in distress.

Many of them said they only recently started feeling short of breath though they had experienced symptoms of COVID-19 for days.  By the time the patients went to the hospital, the virus had already damaged their lungs, and many were in critical condition.  COVID pneumonia patients with oxygen saturation levels as low as 50 percent are showing up in emergency rooms, and for some it's too late.

(Get a Pulse Oximeter, if you can. Having and using one could help you save your own life!)

Source: This NPR Article.

I don't think a pulse oximeter is of any value in the home environment, unless you have something like COPD or require home oxygen therapy.

You can tell a person's oxygenation by looking at the colour of their lips. If the lips are pink/red and appear healthy you're all good!

If I understood the Doctor’s explanation I read, the reason this disease is so insidious is because you are able to expel the byproduct of respiration, CO2, that would normally trigger a lack of oxygen in your body and a frightening shortness of breath. You don’t realize for awhile that you cannot get enough oxygen. Covid 19 interferes/destroys/disables the cells in your lungs that enable oxygen to be transported to your blood - the ones that produce surfactant. But, it does not interfere with the transport of CO2 back out of your body.
It’s not until the oxygen levels in your body are so low that other emergency signals are starting to be triggered in your body that make you feel a need to go the hospital and by then the situation is potentially critical.

Mine seems to fluctuate a decent amount. It goes from 95 to 98 and anywhere in between. I assume that's normal? My heart rate while sitting here is 47 BPM.

If you take deeper breaths does your O2 saturation improve?

Wanted to mention also, many ill patients I’ve worked with have trouble with their oxygen saturation levels when I turn them to lay on their left side. If their levels start to fall I have to lay them flat or onto their right side instead. These are usually quite ill patients by the way.

Yes, according to the pulse ox I have, it improves. I put it on just now and it was at 97. I took regular deep breaths for about thirty seconds and it went up to 99. Heartbeat at 48 BPM.

I’m no doctor but your O2 sat sounds good.
Your heart rate is lower than normal (60-100). Athletic training can lower that range.

Thank you for your feedback. I do exercise often and lately my days have involved a good deal of heavy physical labor so maybe that accounts for resting heart rate as it is. Also, I'm relaxed right now.