I have great success with simply calming the patient, asking them to breath with me, as I slow down my breathing, lower my voice and talk slowly, having them breath in through their mouth slowly and slowly exhale through their nose. I would say within 5 minutes most, if not all individuals experiencing hyperventilation syndrome would break the cycle.
I learned this technique just last year at the Citizens Fire Academy. I specifically asked what is done in this situation for the obvious reason.
A pulse oximeter can give a faulty reading if the patient is wearing nail polish or if blood vessels in the fingers are clamped down due to being cold. An O2 sat of 88% is pretty low for normal (non-COPD) individual and would have prodded me to consider causes other than hyperventilation syndrome.
Faulty readings from pulse oximeters are perplexing considering the warm weather (it was around spring) and, to the best of my recollection, I did not have a cold drink or handle anything cold. Of course this was seven years ago so unless I was aware of something that is significant, I most likely would have forgotten it. If fingernail polish was the cause of the faulty reading then wouldn't the pulse oximeter in the emergency room also give a faulty reading?
Anyhow, as I said, I was fine by the time we arrived at the emergency room and I have attributed that to the fact I was given oxygen on the way to the hospital.
Jeanette Isabelle
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