Oxygen ~ What is Oxygen?
Oxygen is a colorless, odorless and tasteless gas. Air is made up of approximately 21% oxygen, so you have been breathing oxygen all your life. It is simply now going to be supplied to you in concentrations higher than the 21% found in the air. It can be supplied in this more concentrated form from Oxygen Tanks of various sizes, by an Oxygen Concentrator or from a Liquid Oxygen System. Each of these three sources of oxygen has different unique advantages. Your doctor has chosen the best one for you.
We all need oxygen. Our body cells require energy to function. These cells get their energy from a combination of the food we eat and the oxygen we breathe. It is much like the process of burning fuel. Food is fuel, but it will only burn and produce heat or energy in the presence of oxygen.
Food + Oxygen = Energy + Carbon Dioxide
The energy produced from this process enables our bodies to function, allowing us to move, to walk, to think, to breathe, and to carry out all other bodily functions.
The Mechanics of Breathing
The visible aspects of breathing appear to be very simple; we just inhale and exhale. Inside, however, a much more complex process is taking place. When air is inhaled into our lungs, the oxygen in the air is transferred to our blood stream. The blood transports the oxygen to all of our body cells. The cells combine the oxygen with nutrients from the food we have eaten to produce energy. A by-product of this process is carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is absorbed by the blood and returned to the lungs where it is exhaled. When everything is normal, the 21% oxygen in the air we breathe is adequate to meet the needs of our bodies.