Oxygen therapy for pets at home

Whilst attending to our house call appointments, we sometimes come across patients who may benefit from oxygen therapy. This is often done at the clinic, but is possible to set it up at home as well

Aim of oxygen therapy is to provide a higher percentage % of inspiratory oxygen so as to oxygenate blood better!

When is oxygen therapy required?

• Dogs with severe collapsing trachea that are not suitable for surgery
• Animals with heart conditions that affected their ability to utilise oxygen effectively
• Lung diseases/cancer

The chamber should be able to achieve between 30-50% oxygen. Normal ambient oxygen levels are around 20%.

There are two ways to provide oxygen, via an oxygen chamber or using a mask, both require different equipment and have different considerations.

1. How to set up an oxygen chamber

• Get an enclosed hard tank or soft chamber. You may get one from Buster brand or a cheaper one from Lazada/Shopee. 
• Ensure that you have an ice pack/cooling pad (included in our set-up). Over heating in an enclosed area is a serious possibility.
• 60% humidity and 24°C is the ideal. You could easily measure this with a thermometer/humidity measurement device (easily available from Shopee/Lazada)
• Set the oxygen concentrator flow rate at 5 L/min O2

2. Providing oxygen with mask

• Oxygen flow rate
  <30min-  4L /min
  longer term- 2L /min

• The mask comes with tubing that could attach to a regular oxygen concentrator 

Where to get specialised equipment

These are the companies that we have found so far which are able to provide the necessary equipment. If you have any personal experience with other companies please let us know, we will update accordingly!