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DMBand0026
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Chicago
 
2004-07-01, 01:42

The medical reasoning behind all this is way too complicated to go into...but the sleepy part is a lot easier to explain than the other part.

The reason you feel tired now is because your body is under the (obviously false) assumption that you are in an oxygen deficient environment. You were on 100% oxygen for a period of "a few minutes" the air in the room that you're in is 21% (give or take a few %) oxygen. Obviously you can see the difference there. Your red blood cells were probably saturated with oxygen for he few minutes that you were on the pure stuff. So now that you're off of it and back to 21% your body thinks it should still have the extra supply, but it doesn't.

So you start to get a form of hypoxia (lack of oxygen). It's not true hypoxia because you still have a sufficient supply, but your body thinks it should have more. One of the first symptoms of lack of oxygen is a feeling of drowsiness. It'll go away after a while.

This is the short answer behind all this, I could have gotten a lot more complicated, but I chose to spare y'all. If anyone really cares to hear the whole story (including the reason why stevegong felt "dizzy and light headed") PM me or just ask me to post it here, I'll be happy to...but I promise your eyes will glaze over as you're reading it, unless of course you're in medic school like me

Come waste your time with me
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