What are the symptoms of hypoxemia?
Hypoxemia symptoms vary depending on the severity and underlying cause. Some hypoxemia symptoms include:
- Headache.
- Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath (dyspnea).
- Rapid heart rate (tachycardia).
- Coughing.
- Wheezing.
- Confusion.
- Bluish color in skin, fingernails and lips (cyanosis).
What is the most common cause of hypoxemia?
Hypoxemia has many causes, but its most common cause is an underlying illness that affects blood flow or breathing (like heart or lung conditions). Certain medications can slow breathing and lead to hypoxemia.
Sleep apnea and mild lung disease can cause nocturnal hypoxemia — when your blood oxygen levels drop during your sleep.
Being at high altitudes can also cause hypoxemia, which is why it can be hard to breathe when you’re in the mountains.
Medical conditions that can lead to hypoxemia include:
- Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
- Anemia.
- Asthma.
- Bronchitis.
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
- Congenital heart defects.
- Congestive heart failure.
- Emphysema.
- Pneumonia.
- Pneumothorax (air in the space around your lung or collapsed lung).
- Pulmonary edema (fluid on your lungs).
- Pulmonary embolism (blood clot in your lung).
- Pulmonary fibrosis (lung scarring).
- Pulmonary hypertension.
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What are the five causes of hypoxemia?
Heart and lung function issues can lead to five categories of conditions that cause hypoxemia: ventilation-perfusion (V/Q) mismatch, diffusion impairment, hypoventilation, low environmental oxygen and right-to-left shunting.
Ventilation-perfusion (V/Q) mismatch
For oxygen to get to your blood, you need both airflow into your lungs (ventilation) and blood flow to your lungs (perfusion) to pick up the oxygen. If one of these isn’t working, you’ll end up with plenty of oxygen in your lungs but too little blood flow to pick it up, or vice-versa. This is called ventilation-perfusion, or V/Q, mismatch. It’s usually caused by a heart or lung condition.
Diffusion impairment
Even if you have good airflow and good blood flow, sometimes it’s difficult for the oxygen to pass — or diffuse — from your lungs to your blood vessels (diffusion impairment). Diffusion impairment can be caused by emphysema, scarring of your lungs or diseases that impair the blood flow between your heart and lungs.
Hypoventilation
Hypoventilation is when you don’t breathe deeply enough or breathe too slowly. This means not enough oxygen is getting into your lungs. Many lung conditions and some brain diseases can cause hypoventilation.
Low environmental oxygen
If there’s not enough oxygen in the air around you to breathe in, your blood can’t get the oxygen it needs to keep your body working. Locations at high altitudes have less oxygen available in the air than those at lower altitudes.
Right-to-left shunting
Deoxygenated blood flows into your heart from the right, gets pumped out to your lungs to get oxygen, then comes back in from the left to get pumped out to your body. In some people, deoxygenated blood can get pushed over to the left side of your heart and go out to your tissues without getting oxygen in your lungs first. This is called right-to-left shunting and it’s usually caused by an abnormality in your heart.
