3 ms·
In med school I was surprised at how long it takes for your oxygen binding to drop. Hemoglobin can hang onto oxygen really well, even with a low partial pressur
by dillydogg 3y ago
In med school I was surprised at how long it takes for your oxygen binding to drop. Hemoglobin can hang onto oxygen really well, even with a low partial pressure of oxygen in the lungs.
Doctors aren't always right, of course, but my respiratory professors said that the desire to breathe is largely based on mechanical sensing with a lesser effect based on O2 and CO2 in the blood.
- patmorgan23 3y agoIsn't your breath reflex based more on the presence of CO2 rather than the lack of O2?
- steve_adams_86 3y agoThat’s what I learned in my free diving training. If you lower co2 levels and then use oxygen, your co2-triggered urge to breathe will be delayed. Sometimes it’ll be delayed until you’re hypoxic, at which point you could pass out. This happens due to hyperventilation in free diving (and other reasons, though this is the most common). You exhale more co2 than you would while breathing normally, then dive deeper or longer than you should because your blood isn’t the correct chemistry to trigger an urge to breathe when it should.
- dillydogg 3y agoWe have receptors that are specific for both. I don't know of studies that compare the relative effects of each, but for example, the carotid bodies are more specific for the partial pressure of oxygen in the blood than CO2