One of the biggest Old Wives Tales in medicine is that mouth breathers
dont get the oxygen administered by a nasal cannula. If you put it in
the nose, it will fill the nose and displace the ambient air. THEN,
oxygen will overflow into the back of the throat where it is entrained
with inhaled air and raises the oxygen content of the inhaled air.

It makes NO DIFFERENCE if you are a mouth breather or a nose breather..
all the gasses still pass through the same bottleneck/choke point. - the
back of the throat (laryngopharynx, posterior pharynx or whatever
medical term is in vogue today).

If you MUST succumb to OWT reasoning.. then put the NC prongs into the
gaping open mouth and they will entrain oxygen into the oropharynx
instead.. and just in case the kid decides to mess with your mind and
breath through his nose, while asleep, with his gaping open
mouth..well.. he will still get his O's.

As for the big toe idea.. you do what you have to when you dont have
purpose built equipment.. in the back of an ambulance or in the ER when
your "pedi" room is occupied.. etc..

About the only thing I can think of that would defeat the whole
mouth/nose breathing logic I went through above is when you use a
"pulsed" oxygen conserving system, that senses the drop in pressure when
you inspire, and gives a shot (bolus) of high flow oxygen when you start
to inspire and stops when you stop inhaling... pretty high dollar for
the average recreational flier, but becoming common on your typical home
oxygen user. I actually inquired about using these devices in an
aircraft, but the company that I checked with said they only guaranteed
them to 10K feet (not that I could really see a basis for the
limitation, but hey.. its their gear, and their liability).

Dave

BTIZ wrote:
if he sleeps with his mouth open.. check often for blue finger nails.

I like the tool on the toe idea

BT

"Chris Kennedy" wrote in message
...

We've capitulated and have decided to add O2 to our Collection Of Stuff
(it's tough to file IFR over Northeastern California and the Great Basin
without it) and are trying to figure out what to do when it comes to our
two year old. He's nuts about flying and generally accepting of wearing
his headset, but we're skeptical that he'd wear a mask for any length of
time.

Does anyone know of a vendor of child-sized cannula or mask? Do any of
you folks have any experience flying on O2 with kids in this age range?