Many of us who have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) need a little extra oxygen to get by. Others need a lot of oxygen to maintain their lives.  All these people have issues with supplemental oxygen.  In another column, I referenced the best way that I have found for me to get the oxygen that I need to remain active.

Research is lacking as it pertains to the long-term use of oxygen by people with lung diseases like cystic fibrosis. People with pulmonary hypertension may not always benefit from oxygen therapy. People with Pulmonary Fibrosis probably require high-flow oxygen to be active. More research needs to be done to determine best practices.

People who need more than 2 lpm of oxygen are severely limited in their ability to move around, go to the grocery store, go to doctors’ appointments, or visit a friend. The answer in the past for those people in the United States and throughout the world has been liquid oxygen. Liquid oxygen is no longer a viable alternative for most people in the United States.

Liquid oxygen would not solve all the issues for those who need higher levels of oxygen.  In order to fly a person is required to have a concentrator with enough batteries to make the flight 1 ½ times.  There are no portable concentrators that produce enough oxygen to be taken on a plane for those who need 5 liters of oxygen.

In the United States, people with higher needs for oxygen are often tethered to a concentrator and chained to their homes unless they can pull a large oxygen tank behind them.  The size and weight of the tanks limit the places that they can conveniently navigate.  Try to imagine taking one of these big tanks to the movie theater.  It may be doable, but most people will probably not try.

Now that I do not require oxygen when sitting as I am now, I have become aware of how aggravating it is to have to turn the portable concentrator on and off constantly.  We need a device that will automatically regulate the oxygen flow according to our needs.  Very little has been done to advance oxygen therapy into the automated digital world.

We also need lightweight, portable concentrators that can produce more than 2 liters of oxygen on continual flow.

Because of all of the things that have been previously mentioned, the COPD Foundation and their global partners are sponsoring World Oxygen Day.  We are hoping that by bringing awareness of the problems with our current supplemental oxygen system, we can move the conversation forward and improve the lives of people who use supplemental oxygen.

As a member of the Oxygen 360 team, I want to invite you to participate in World Oxygen Day on  O2 or October,2. Our fearless leader Mike Hess came up with the date which I think is quite ingenious. You can watch a short kick off video on Facebook.