Why Are Masks Uncomfortable Even If You Breathe Normally?
It is more comfortable with a bare face than with a mask. And many of us are not used to wearing them, so the first experience of wearing a mask – perhaps in the summer, in the midst of a pandemic – can feel stifling. But relax: the mask doesn’t really restrict your breathing. Promise.
Remember that while some people have a medical condition that prevents them from wearing masks , this has nothing to do with the myth that masks reduce the amount of oxygen you consume. These conditions usually include one of the following: they have lung disease. it can make it physically tiring to draw in enough air; They have sensory or anxiety problems that make it impossible to put a piece of tissue on their mouth or they have other problems that make it difficult to remove the mask when needed (for example, babies should not wear masks). Merely finding the unpleasant sensation of wearing a mask is not a disease.
So what happens when you put on a mask over your mouth and nose? You are not blocking the air supply. You allow the warmth, moisture and the coffee’s own breath to gather just under your nose. You can sweat a little. There may be parasitic tissue that tickles your nose.
In severe cases, a person can be so agitated that they have a panic attack. A panic attack can sometimes involve feeling short of breath, and I truly believe there may be people who have had a panic attack because of their fears about masks and have come to the conclusion that the mask itself was interfering with their breathing.
But the mask does not prevent oxygen from entering the respiratory tract. It doesn’t fill your lungs with carbon dioxide. We’re talking here about surgical masks, N95 and various models of cloth masks, homemade and store bought, that are commonly worn. If you’ve found or made something out of the ordinary – plastic, rubber, or whatever – and you feel like it’s restricting your breathing, you can try a regular cloth or a disposable mask instead.
Look at all this oxygen
However, some people are convinced that masks reduce oxygen consumption so much that they cause drowsiness or confusion. “How, then, can a builder wear the N95 for hours?” these people never ask themselves.
When this myth began to spread, medical professionals everywhere shouted, “ What the fuck ??? “And started doing TikToks, Instagram posts, Twitter videos. Here are just a few examples in which people who wear masks every damn day show you that their blood oxygen levels are okay. For example, surgeon Joshua Volrich tweeted this video :
(Blood oxygen saturation is what these sharp fingertip monitors measure. Healthy people usually have a SpO2 of 95 or higher. If you are much below 90, you should probably go to the hospital.)
Have we forgotten that medical professionals wear masks for hours ? Here Pediatrician Daniel Summers posts oxygen updates over the nine hour shift. Here, the nurse notes that she works 13 hours in an N95 and a surgical mask. Here doctor Maitiu O Tuatail puts on a mask, then another, and then another, and even if six masks are stacked on top of each other, his oxygen is still at 99%.
I mean … if masks were to deprive us of oxygen, surgery would not exist as we know it.
Despite these facts, you will find videos on social media that make sense to show the opposite, but there is always something fishy about them. For example, Pennsylvania Senatorial candidate Jeff Neff uses a gas analyzer ( not a pulse oximeter) to demonstrate that we have less oxygen to breathe inside the mask. However, the manufacturer of the gas detector declares that it is not intended for this type of measurement . And when Neff filmed an additional video of the pulse oximeter , his oxygen saturation level remained at the level of the 90s all the time.