Tag Archives: ms

Is Cycling Healthier for a Lung Patient with Right Heart Failure Than Walking?

I am a patient with questions and one of them is:

Is cycling better or healthier for a lung patient with Right Heart Failure than walking.

Based on medical terminology I clearly don’t understand – it APPEARS to say so to this patient…based on the paper I blogged on and the paper I found using the Google search for:  oxyhemoglobin desaturation.

“Oxyhemoglobin desaturation can be quite severe and can even lead to damage to vital organs, particularly the heart, to the point of being life-threatening.3”

Identifying Sleep Disordered Breathing in Neuromuscular Disorder Patients

by Joshua Benditt, MD, and Louis Boitano, MS, RRT

***

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease is one thing, add bone on bone left hip and a person has to really fight to move it and I’m doing in the pool what I can’t do ‘on land’ easily – leg up and loosen and build muscle around that hip so I can ride again.  One day the muscling should support it and make it comfortable enough to ride my recumbent trikes again.

I KNOW it will work because when I had physical therapy last year, the personable and talented Anna Marx at Kitsap Physical Therapy in Silverdale put me on a machine I could not only tolerate – a recumbent elliptical – over time I actually loosened up enough where I could and did – close my eyes and built speed and a rhythm on that machine – exactly like riding a recumbent trike, a horse…without the pain of the bone on bone left hip!

I’ve begun working out four days a week with an amazing professional swim instructor and I hope and expect to regain much of the function I lost.  There is nothing to lose and everything to gain. It appears to be working – a ‘study’ in itself.  More later.

That said, what about my question:

Is cycling better or healthier for a lung patient with right heart failure than walking?

************************

BACKGROUND: Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exhibit greater oxyhemoglobin desaturation during walking than with cycling. The purpose of this investigation was to investigate differences in ventilatory responses and gas exchange as proposed mechanisms for this observation.

http://pugetsoundblogs.com/copd-and-other-stuff/2011/02/08/a-new-study-for-copders-mechanism-of-greater-oxygen-desaturation-during-walking-compared-with-cycling-in-copd/

Read more: http://pugetsoundblogs.com/copd-and-other-stuff/#ixzz1DTzzcGaW

Read more: http://pugetsoundblogs.com/copd-and-other-stuff/#ixzz1DTzg8nOT

“Oxyhemoglobin desaturation can be quite severe and can even lead to damage to vital organs, particularly the heart, to the point of being life-threatening.3”

Identifying Sleep Disordered Breathing in Neuromuscular Disorder Patients

by Joshua Benditt, MD, and Louis Boitano, MS, RRT

Joshua Benditt, MD, is a professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle. He is also director of respiratory care services, Northwest Assisted Breathing Center, University of Washington Medical Center. He can be reached at benditt@u.washington.edu. Louis Boitano, MS, RRT, is codirector of the Northwest Assisted Breathing Center, University of Washington Medical Center. Boitano can be reached at boitano@u.washington.edu.

The symptoms of sleep disordered breathing in patients with neuromuscular disease can be subtle, but once recognized and treated, symptoms can improve.

http://www.sleepreviewmag.com/issues/articles/2007-01_03.asp

I don’t know how this all fits together for us – I also have sleep apnea and sleep with a bi-pap and concentrator bleed in to the bi-pap.

More later… Sharon O’Hara

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A New Tess, No More Oxygen Tank and Hose in the Nose

Once upon a time, there was a woman called Tess who lives in Port Angeles. She wore a hose in her nose tethered to an oxygen tank that followed her wherever she went.

Without supplemental oxygen, Tess’s blood/oxygen saturation (normal is 100) dropped to 82 with mild exertion. Her FEV1 (standard gage

Tess, Fit and Living Life Without Oxygen
Fat and Sassy No More-.Healthy and Sassy Nowdays
for COPD) was 34.

Tess is an exuberant woman who knew the prognosis was not good.
Luckily, she learned of the University of Washington and UC San Francisco Schools of Medicine, Shortness of Breath Study, applied for the one-year study and was accepted.

COPDers are different and roughly, 10% of COPDers are Alpha. Alphas inherit the disease.
I am a plain COPDer, Tess is an Alpha and has already lost one brother and sister to the disease.

Immersed in the study, Tess began slowly and lasted five minutes on the treadmill. Gradually, with difficulty, she continued to increase her speed careful not to drop below the 90% saturation level.
Tess’ slow five minute beginning had jumped by the end of the first month, to 30 minutes at 2mph, and included increased speed and fast bursts of speed.

By the end of 6 months, Tess had lost 4 pounds and decided to join Weight Watchers to increase her weight loss. Exercise made her able to be more active but the weight loss needed more help. Time passed and Tess got stronger and dropped weight, including her cholesterol. The cholesterol dropped 50 points to a healthier 200 points.

By the end of the yearlong study, Tess lost over 40 pounds and walked a steady 3.5 mph on the treadmill. She nearly tripled her speed in the final study 6-minute walk from the first 6-minute walk.

Now we are coming to the part I do not understand…Tess does not need oxygen anymore, her sats stay above 95 and she had all the oxygen equipment picked up and out of her house.

Until now, I have thought once on oxygen, always on oxygen. Wrong.

Tess has lost 52 pounds to date and looks forward to her son’s wedding in two weeks without worry about running out of oxygen nor the hassle and worry of dragging a tank around.

The opportunity to join the University of Washington’s Shortness of Breath Study ends this month, March 2010.

I wholeheartedly recommend and urge COPDers to apply…your life will change for the better. More importantly, the combined results of the study will benefit COPDers who come after us – our children and grandchildren.

Who are the researchers?
“The study is under the direction of Dr. Ginger Carrieri-Kohlman, Professor in the School of Nursing at UC San Francisco and Dr. Huong Q. Nguyen, Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing at University of Washington, Seattle. Dr. Carrieri-Kohlman is an internationally known expert in the research and treatment of dyspnea. She has led the Dyspnea Research Group on studies of shortness of breath self-management in patients with lung disease for over 15 years. Dr. Nguyen’s research has been focused on developing and testing Internet-based education and support interventions for people with chronic illnesses.

Our collaborators include Drs. Steve Lazarus and Josh Benditt from UC San Francisco and U Washington Schools of Medicine, respectively. They are both well known for their excellent research and clinical practice with people who have chronic lung disease.

We have a stellar research team: UCSF: DorAnne Cuenco, RN PhD, Krista Sigurdson, BS; UW: Pam Weisman, RN, MS, Lynn Reinke, RN, MS, Sarah Han, RN, and Cheryl Beardsless, BS. “

https://www.managesob.org/RS/StudyII/

More later… Sharon O’Hara

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Unhealthy Excess Fat Is Worth $1,298.

Oh Fat Ones!

A few comments and a challenge.
Be aware that a move is afoot to tax soda pop as a primary reason this nation is top heavy with obese folks causing increased Health Care costs. The idea is that the extra 12-cent or so tax will cut down on the fatty folks buying soda thus we would lose weight and need less medical care.

It is strange the authorities do not look elsewhere to find better high calorie items to increase tax. Perhaps they could take a hard look toward chocolate covered donuts, Prednisone, Big Macs, a Frosty, French fries, Sara Lee pastries, Colonel Sanders chicken, ChezeIts, Butterfingers, Almond Roca, Hershey bars and other high calorie waist expanders rather than look toward soda pop as the blimp builder.

Drug addicts can hide their addiction, drunks too.
The public, until caught, does not see the human predator. Most people can hide addiction or criminal ways from public view until caught.
Not so, the fatties of the world. They have no place to hide. The fat of the obese is up, down, front, back, and everywhere.

The public judgment is there, as well. A recent study according to two Mayo clinic nutritionists, Jennifer Nelson, M.S., R.D. and Katherine Zeratsky, R.D. showed the evidence of obesity stigma.

The “July 2008 “International Journal of Obesity” …study developed a tool that could be used to measure bias, and to also rank biases from being a strong bias relative to others that are weaker. The three targets of bias that were chosen to measure and compare were: obesity, homosexuality, and Muslims. …The authors chose these three because each are widely known minority groups — …, they are documented targets of discrimination.
…
What emerged was that that there was strongest prejudice against obesity, followed next by bias against homosexuals, and then against Muslims. (If you wish to see the statistical details and strengths of the rankings you may access the using the link below.)

Laws and other protective policies have been put into place over the years to discourage — even punish — discrimination against race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion. It is pointed out that there is widespread documented evidence of weight bias in employment, educational, interpersonal — and yes — in medical settings. However unlike these other targets, no laws or protective policies are in place to discourage or punish bias against obesity.

The study concludes that weight bias is significantly stronger than bias against homosexuals and Muslims. It also concludes that much more research is needed in the area of prejudice and its causes and solutions.
For now, at the least, don’t you think social advocacy is needed to decrease the disproportionate attitude — and acceptance — of bias toward obese individuals? The authors — and I — applaud the efforts and progress made in protecting other minority groups against prejudice and discrimination. And, I also agree with the authors that “it is unacceptable that the obesity stigma is still so pervasive, strong and under recognized.”

It is time to prove – again – that most patients, if educated to what may well be their medical future if they do not change personal habits WILL make the changes needed to avoid future medical conditions.
After smoking forty years, I quit and discovered the true meaning of addiction and a gut-wrenching craving to smoke.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/comments/MY00586_comments#post

Losing the excess pounds will not change the lung diseases or add a lubricant between the bones of my left hip…but it will make a difference for one or more of the other medical conditions.

I am committing here publically to begin the Dash Diet http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/hbp/dash/new_dash.pdf on Thursday, September 24, 2009.

Women100 pounds or more overweight are welcome to join in the weight loss quest to the healthiest we can be through good nutrition, fewer calories and exercise.

I will meet with anyone interested, weekly or whatever works to make the goal for better health AND for the challenge that the first of us to lose the 100 pounds and keep it off for six months will win $1,295.

We can work out the details.

The beginning is Thursday, 24 September 2009. My plan is the Dash Diet but yours can be anything your doctor approves. Let me know…and change our health lives. It is time to take those lemons and make lemonade.

Can I do it this time? I bet I can.

http://www.wiredprnews.com/2009/09/14/obesity-a-focus-of-health-care-reform_200909145726.html

More later… Sharon O’Hara

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