Tag Archives: walking

The Legs Have It – Our Heart – Happy February Heart Month!

As a person with chronic lower leg issues who recently called 911 believing I might be having a heart attack the following article shows the relationship between our heart and leg vascular disease. Educating ourselves can make the difference between living and living a quality life.

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“Approximately nine million Americans over the age of 50 are living with a disease that affects their legs and raises their risk of having a heart attack. Unfortunately, many with the disease do not even know they have it. February is Heart Month, and the Vascular Disease Foundation and its P.A.D. Coalition are urging Americans to listen to their legs and be alert to the signs of peripheral arterial disease, or P.A.D.

P.A.D. occurs when arteries in the legs become narrowed or clogged with fatty deposits, reducing blood flow to the legs. This can result in leg muscle pain when walking, disability, amputation, and poor quality of life. If you have blocked arteries somewhere in the body, you are likely to have them elsewhere. Thus, P.A.D. is a red flag that other arteries, including those in the heart, are likely affected – increasing the risk of a heart disease, heart attack and even death.

In many, P.A.D. is a silent disease, causing no recognizable symptoms. People with P.A.D. may have one or more of the following symptoms:

– “Claudication” – fatigue, heaviness, tiredness or cramping in the leg muscles (calf, thigh or buttocks) that occurs during activity such as walking and goes away with rest.

“Often, people think leg discomfort or slow healing sores are just a part of aging, yet they can be signs of a serious disease,” stated Joseph Caporusso, DPM, Chair of the P.A.D. Coalition. “Through early detection and proper treatment, we can reduce the devastating consequences of P.A.D. and improve the nation’s cardiovascular health.”

Everyone over age 50 is at risk for P.A.D., and your risk increases if you:

– Smoke, or used to smoke

– Have diabetes

– Have high blood pressure

– Have abnormal blood cholesterol

– Are African American

– Have a personal history of coronary heart disease or stroke…”

Source: Vascular Disease Foundation

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/216803.php

More later… Sharon O’Hara

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

Sharon O'Hara

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

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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?

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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

“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 Study for COPDers: Mechanism of Greater Oxygen Desaturation during Walking Compared with Cycling in COPD.

Sharon O'Hara

Do COPDers desaturate more walking than they do cycling? I’ve said ever since I discovered the recumbent trike existed that the recumbent trike was God’s gift to the COPDer…indeed, anyone with physical limitations.

Pedaling around the bay from the ferry on Whidbey Island with the American Lung Association of Washington’s Trek Tri Island three day cycling trip one early morning a few years ago was the first time I felt ‘normal’ again in about 7 years and the same length of time I’d gone anywhere overnight since a stay in Harrison Medical Center in 1997.

In those days I didn’t have a hip problem so I could walk without a problem other than shortness of breath but the recumbent trike lets us take our comfortable seat everywhere we pedal and stop whenever we need to take a break. It also builds the legs muscles better and faster (my opinion) than walking and it is sure more fun and faster.

My point is wondering what the following study means in practical terms – to us, the patient. I am one of those who do not desaturate enough for oxygen while awake.

Is cycling less strain or easier on our lungs than walking?

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“Chest. 2011 Jan 27. [Epub ahead of print]

Mechanism of Greater Oxygen Desaturation during Walking Compared with Cycling in COPD.

Mahler DA, Gifford AH, Waterman LA, Ward J, Machala S, Baird JC.

1 Section of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, NH, USA.

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METHODS: Arterial blood gases and lactate were measured in 12 patients with COPD (age, 68 ± 6 years) during incremental treadmill and cycle exercise. The primary outcome to assess the ventilatory response to exercise was the partial pressure of alveolar oxygen (P(A)O(2)). The primary outcome to assess impairment in exercise gas exchange was the difference between partial pressures of alveolar and arterial oxygen (P(a)O(2)) (AaPO(2)).

RESULTS: P(a)O(2) was significantly lower at peak exercise for treadmill walking (51.4 ± 6.8 mmHg) compared with cycling (60.4 ± 10.7 mmHg) (p = 0.002). The initial increase in P(A)O(2) with cycling occurred prior to the onset of the anaerobic threshold. At peak exercise, P(A)O(2) was significantly higher with cycling compared with walking (p = 0.004). The anaerobic threshold occurred at a lower VO(2) during cycling than walking (p = 0.001), and peak lactate levels were higher with cycling (p = 0.019). With progressive exercise, AaPO(2) increased similarly during treadmill and cycle exercise.

CONCLUSIONS: The higher P(A)O(2) during cycling minimized the magnitude of oxyhemoglobin desaturation compared with walking. The enhanced respiratory stimulation during cycling appears due to an initial neurogenic process, possibly originating in receptors of exercising muscles, and a subsequent earlier onset of anaerobic metabolism with higher lactate levels during cycling.”

PMID: 21273296 [PubMed – as supplied by publisher]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21273296?dopt=AbstractPlus

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I do not have a financial interest in any bike company including the recumbent trike.

More later…. Sharon O’Hara

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