One of the things we discovered during wheels’ many trips in to the doctors office was the long wait for the oximiter to read the O2 levels. The nurse would clip the sensor to his finger and get an error. The issue was simply cold finger tips. To read correctly, the finger has to be at 33 c or 91f. Dad’s fingers were not. Mom would have to rub his hand until his fingers were warm enough for the sensor to work.
The solution was a battery powered hand warmer. As soon as we got to the waiting room we would give dad the hand warmer. By the time we got called and the nurse did the normal weight and heart rate, his fingers would have warmed up and the oxygen level would be done in seconds. Huge improvement to waiting an hour.
Handwarmers can be purchased at sporting goods or camping supply stores, in retail stores like Target or Walmart in the outdoor goods departments. There are also individual hand warming packets available in those stores or hardware stores in the winter time – often near the cash registers during a cold snap.