The 6 signs of ‘silent hypoxia’ that can prove deadly for Covid patients

Patients with the condition also known as "happy hypoxia" will display oxygen levels low enough to cause death or unconsciousness, but will still be sat up in bed as normal.

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Many patients are not arriving at the hospital until the virus has progressed due to the silent symptoms and doctors have now said that this could be why younger patients are dying with no apparent underlying health conditions.

The condition will see the body's oxygen concentration levels drop below 60 per cent in patients infected with the coronavirus.

Patients are not likely to feel uncomfortable at this level, which is why the condition often goes undetected.

But what are the signs of silent hypoxia and how can it affect those with the coronavirus?

Tight chest

According to Dr. Richard Levitan, patients who have happy hypoxia will often have light symptoms of Covid-19 for a couple of days before they start to experience a dramatic tightening of the chest. He said most patients start to complain that they are unable to breath deeply or that they have a tight chest.

Low oxygen levels

People who have silent hypoxia don’t usually know they have it. Oxygen levels usually drop below 60 per cent and to monitor this patients would need an oximeter to check their levels.

Dr Levitan added: "Normal blood oxygen saturation is between 95 per cent and 100 per cent, and anything below 90 per cent is considered abnormal".

Pain when breathing

X-rays taken of patients who have hypoxia often look similar to that of pneumonia patients. 

Despite this in most cases patients have remained alert and have still been able to hold a conversation as well as using their phone to scroll through social media. 

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Speaking to Dr Levitan added: "It's terrible because by the time a person realises they are having trouble taking a deep breath and reaches out for help, they are already dangerously sick.

"Some may ultimately require a ventilator. As levels of carbon dioxide rise, fluid builds up in the air sacs and the lungs become stiff, leading to acute respiratory failure."

Rapid and erratic breathing

There are a myriad of breathing problems related to Covid-19 and those who have silent hypoxia may start to feel their breaths increase and the space between them deplete. 

As patients are unable to take deep breaths because of the pain caused when doing this, breathing can become more rapid due to the patient's panicking.

Dr Levitan has now called for the widespread use of oximeters, despite the fact that their levels of accuracy have come into question.

He said the meters could provide an early warning system for the types of breathing problems that are associated with Covid-19.

Dr Levitan said the device could be "extremely useful" for doctors as it would help them determine whether or not a patient needed to go to hospital, therefore leaving critical care beds free for others with more immediate and severe symptoms.

OTHER SIGNS

If you do have "happy hypoxia" there are also other symptoms that you may experience including:

• Sweating: if you are sweating a lot and there is no reason for this such as exercise or a hot temperature then you may have the condition
• Blue lips or a change of colour in the skin: some patients could experience a change in their skin colour and this can range from cherry red to blue as the body tries to work out how to fight the condition.

Hypoxia can also be caused by a severe asthma attack and it can also be a result of lung damage due to trauma.

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DOCTORS DON'T UNDERSTAND IT

Last week a doctor in Manchester said it was "intriguing" to see how hypoxic some patients actually are when attending A&E.

Dr Jonathan Bannard-Smith who works at Manchester Royal Infirmary told that the trust was seeing patients who were unaware of their low oxygen saturation levels.

"We wouldn’t usually see this phenomenon in influenza or community-acquired pneumonia. It’s very much more profound and an example of very abnormal physiology going on before our eyes."

This is while an anaesthetist at Wythenshawe hospital said that patients with other lung conditions would also have hypoxia but that they would usually appear extremely ill.

Dr Mike Charlesworth said with conditions such as pneumonia or a pulmonary embolism, patients would not be able to converse with their healthcare practitioners.

"We just don’t understand it. We don’t know if it’s causing organ damage that we’re not able to detect. We don’t understand if the body’s compensating", he said.

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While there have been cases of people with hypoxis surviving, one London doctor said a patient with a saturation of 30 per cent was placed on a ventilator and died within a week. The doctor said the outcome of such patients tends to be bad.

Even though people are displaying low oxygen levels it is in fact the body's reaction to rising levels of carbon dioxide that could save patients with hypoxia.

If the lungs are unable to clear gas efficiently it could be deadly, as swelling and inflammation of the lungs makes it difficult for oxygen to enter the bloodstream.

In many cases patients are not able to recognise their symptoms in time, which is why the condition is proving deadly.

Dr Charlesworth however said the introduction of equipment such as oximeters would not be useful in detecting hypoxia as he said the legitimacy of some of the machines is questionable and added that transporting the devices would mean more people were out and about on the roads.