air hunger/shortness of breath

[Guest guest]

Does anyone have this symptom as part of CFS/Lyme?

I have this feeling of experiencing shortness of breath all the time,

even when doing nothing. It feels as if I am not getting enough

oxygen even when I am able to breathe deeply.

Is there anything that would help this symptom? Any guess as to what

would cause this?

I am doing Oxygen inhalation daily- not much of a help. Can this be

due to low blood volume?

Rich:

Do you think inhaling glutathione using nebulizer or nasal spray

might help this?

I greatly appreciate your responses,

Thanks

Gayu.

[Guest guest]

Hi, Gayathri.

I think that the feeling of shortness of breath arises because the

cells of the respiratory center in the brainstem are not getting

enough oxygen. There are several things that could cause this:

1. The lungs are not putting enough oxygen into the blood.

2. There are not enough red blood cells to carry the oxygen to the

tissues, due to low total red blood cell mass.

3. The blood is not being circulated at a high enough rate, because

of problems with the heart or the circulatory system.

4. The oxygen is not being transported well enough from the red

blood cells into the respiratory center cells, either because of too

alkaline a blood pH (as a result of partial blockades in the

oxidative metabolism of the skeletal muscles, producing too low

carbon dioxide production), or because of fibrin deposition in the

capillaries as a result of hypercoagulation.

Since you aren't helped by breathing oxygen, I don't think number 1

applies to your case. To check number 2, you would need to get a

total red blood cell mass measurement. A conventional complete

blood cell count will not tell you whether this is a problem or not,

because apparently the kidneys lower the blood plasma volume in

proportion to the decreased total red blood cell mass, and a CBC

just looks at the ratio between them, which can look normal, even

though both are low. To evaluate number 3, one indicator is whether

your hands and feet are cold or warm. You could also get a

cardiologist to evaluate your ejection fraction. The two

possibilities in number 4 could be evaluated with blood gases tests

(both arterial and venous) and the Hemex soluble fibrin monomer

test, respectively.

I don't know whether inhaled aerosol glutathione will help with this

in your case or not. It depends on what the origin of the problem

is. If it's number 2 or number 4a (and maybe 4b), I think

glutathione might help.

Rich

>

> Does anyone have this symptom as part of CFS/Lyme?

>

> I have this feeling of experiencing shortness of breath all the

time,

> even when doing nothing. It feels as if I am not getting enough

> oxygen even when I am able to breathe deeply.

>

> Is there anything that would help this symptom? Any guess as to

what

> would cause this?

>

> I am doing Oxygen inhalation daily- not much of a help. Can this

be

> due to low blood volume?

>

> Rich:

> Do you think inhaling glutathione using nebulizer or nasal spray

> might help this?

>

> I greatly appreciate your responses,

> Thanks

> Gayu.

[Guest guest]

Thanks a lot Rich. I hope I can address this problem soon. Along with

the shortness of breath is persistent fatigue and weakness. When the

fatigue gets a bit better at night, so is my shortness of breath. I

wonder if there is a connection to my cortisol levels. I have low

cortisol in the morning and high cortisol at night.

>2. There are not enough red blood cells to carry the oxygen to the

tissues, due to low total red blood cell mass

>>>>

>you would need to get a

> total red blood cell mass measurement.

My Response: Do you know of any lab that does this measurement? I

want to read up more about it before my doc's appt this Friday.

Supposing i test this and find out that I dont have enough red blood

cells, then, what is the treatment for this problem? I dont want to

spend a lot of money on tests if that will not lead to a effective

treatment.

Are there any benefits in doing this test?

> 3. The blood is not being circulated at a high enough rate,

because

> of problems with the heart or the circulatory system.

To evaluate number 3, one indicator is whether

> your hands and feet are cold or warm. You could also get a

> cardiologist to evaluate your ejection fraction.

My Response: My hands and feet are not too cold nor too warm. I think

the bicycle stress test that I took might help us get more insight

about my situation. will post the details at the end of this email.

> 4. The oxygen is not being transported well enough from the red

> blood cells into the respiratory center cells, either because of

too

> alkaline a blood pH (as a result of partial blockades in the

> oxidative metabolism of the skeletal muscles, producing too low

> carbon dioxide production), or because of fibrin deposition in the

> capillaries as a result of hypercoagulation.

My Response:

Again my question is, if I measure my blood gases, will it easy to

decide about treatment options?

I got my Hemex test done.

ISAC PANEL- FLOW ONLY

PLATELET ACTIVATION BY FLOW

CD62P; 16 (1-27)

CD62P + ADP: 59 (40-100)

Plt Activation Index: NORMAL

ISAC PANEL- COAG ONLY

FIBRINOGEN: 385 H (180-310)

FRAGMENT 1 + 2: 0.6 (0.4-1.1)

T/AT COMPLEXES: 1.9 (1.0-4.1)

SOLUBLE FIBRIN MONOMER < 8 (0-17)

I will post my bicycle stress test results in my next email.

Thanks a lot for your time,

Gayathri.

[Guest guest]

Gayu,

Air hunger is always a sign that my thyroid levels are off. Have you

had them checked lately? It's a common symptom.

penny

>

> Thanks a lot Rich. I hope I can address this problem soon. Along with

> the shortness of breath is persistent fatigue and weakness. When the

> fatigue gets a bit better at night, so is my shortness of breath. I

> wonder if there is a connection to my cortisol levels. I have low

> cortisol in the morning and high cortisol at night.

>

> >2. There are not enough red blood cells to carry the oxygen to the

> tissues, due to low total red blood cell mass

> >>>>

> >you would need to get a

> > total red blood cell mass measurement.

>

> My Response: Do you know of any lab that does this measurement? I

> want to read up more about it before my doc's appt this Friday.

>

> Supposing i test this and find out that I dont have enough red blood

> cells, then, what is the treatment for this problem? I dont want to

> spend a lot of money on tests if that will not lead to a effective

> treatment.

> Are there any benefits in doing this test?

>

>

> > 3. The blood is not being circulated at a high enough rate,

> because

> > of problems with the heart or the circulatory system.

> To evaluate number 3, one indicator is whether

> > your hands and feet are cold or warm. You could also get a

> > cardiologist to evaluate your ejection fraction.

>

> My Response: My hands and feet are not too cold nor too warm. I think

> the bicycle stress test that I took might help us get more insight

> about my situation. will post the details at the end of this email.

>

>

> > 4. The oxygen is not being transported well enough from the red

> > blood cells into the respiratory center cells, either because of

> too

> > alkaline a blood pH (as a result of partial blockades in the

> > oxidative metabolism of the skeletal muscles, producing too low

> > carbon dioxide production), or because of fibrin deposition in the

> > capillaries as a result of hypercoagulation.

>

> My Response:

> Again my question is, if I measure my blood gases, will it easy to

> decide about treatment options?

>

> I got my Hemex test done.

>

> ISAC PANEL- FLOW ONLY

> PLATELET ACTIVATION BY FLOW

> CD62P; 16 (1-27)

> CD62P + ADP: 59 (40-100)

> Plt Activation Index: NORMAL

>

> ISAC PANEL- COAG ONLY

> FIBRINOGEN: 385 H (180-310)

> FRAGMENT 1 + 2: 0.6 (0.4-1.1)

> T/AT COMPLEXES: 1.9 (1.0-4.1)

> SOLUBLE FIBRIN MONOMER < 8 (0-17)

>

> I will post my bicycle stress test results in my next email.

>

> Thanks a lot for your time,

> Gayathri.

[Guest guest]

Hi penny,

I am on compounded timerelease T3 for my thyroid. I am low normal on

T3 levels and high normal on Reverse T3. Thats why my doc wrote a

script for T3.

There is a good article in the recent newsletter of the website

www.fibroandfatigue.com for the rationale behind this, incase if

anyone is interested.

It helps a little bit with fatigue but not with the persistent

shortness of breath. I am wondering if it might be due to adrenal

insuffieciency.

Thanks,

Gayu.

>

> Gayu,

>

> Air hunger is always a sign that my thyroid levels are off. Have you

> had them checked lately? It's a common symptom.

>

> penny

>

>

[Guest guest]

Hi, Gayathri,

Sorry to be so slow in getting back to you. I'm kind of swamped

with e-mails right now.

I understand your desire to know whether getting tests will lead to

any effective treatment.

Concerning the red blood cell total mass test, this test is usually

run by nucear medicine departments in hospitals, because it requires

use of a radioisotope. As a result, it could be fairly expensive.

Dr. Barry Hurwitz (part of Klimas's group in Miami) reported

at the AACFS meeting that they have found quite a few PWCs who have

a low number of total red blood cells. In fact, nearly 2/3 of the

patients they have studied have significantly low total red blood

cells. Among women patients, that figure is over 3/4. The red

cells are normal cells, but they are fewer in total number than

normal. This type of anemia is associated with low secretion of

erythropoeitin by the kidneys. They are supplementing synthetic

erythropoeitin (Procrit) in these patients, but they did not report

on the results of this yet.

I don't know for sure why the erythropoeitin secretion might be low

in PWCs. I suspect that it results from oxidative stress in the

kidneys as a result of glutathione depletion, and I suggested this

to Barry after he gave his talk. He told me that they have been

looking into oxidative stress.

Another possibility is that because of partial blockades in the

oxidative metabolism of the skeletal muscle cells (again because of

glutathione depletion, in my opinion) the muscle cells are not

demanding as much oxygen from the blood as they normally would.

Consequently, the kidneys detect that there is plenty of oxygen left

in the blood, and they decrease their erythropoeitin output to

signal the bone marrow to make fewer red blood cells because not as

many are needed as normally.

I don't know for sure which, if either, of these hypotheses are true.

It sounds as though your coagulation situation is not too bad,

though the fibrinogen is high.

I will have to study your exercise test results, since I'm not too

familiar with the parameters they report. Did they have a pulse

oximeter clamped on one of your fingers during this test? If so,

how low did it drop? This would tell us whether your lungs

continued to put enough oxygen into your blood during the exercise

test. That's really what I would like to know. But maybe if I

study the results of your pulmonary function tests I can figure this

out from them.

Rich

>

> Thanks a lot Rich. I hope I can address this problem soon. Along

with

> the shortness of breath is persistent fatigue and weakness. When

the

> fatigue gets a bit better at night, so is my shortness of breath.

I

> wonder if there is a connection to my cortisol levels. I have low

> cortisol in the morning and high cortisol at night.

>

> >2. There are not enough red blood cells to carry the oxygen to

the

> tissues, due to low total red blood cell mass

> >>>>

> >you would need to get a

> > total red blood cell mass measurement.

>

> My Response: Do you know of any lab that does this measurement? I

> want to read up more about it before my doc's appt this Friday.

>

> Supposing i test this and find out that I dont have enough red

blood

> cells, then, what is the treatment for this problem? I dont want

to

> spend a lot of money on tests if that will not lead to a

effective

> treatment.

> Are there any benefits in doing this test?

>

>

> > 3. The blood is not being circulated at a high enough rate,

> because

> > of problems with the heart or the circulatory system.

> To evaluate number 3, one indicator is whether

> > your hands and feet are cold or warm. You could also get a

> > cardiologist to evaluate your ejection fraction.

>

> My Response: My hands and feet are not too cold nor too warm. I

think

> the bicycle stress test that I took might help us get more insight

> about my situation. will post the details at the end of this email.

>

>

> > 4. The oxygen is not being transported well enough from the red

> > blood cells into the respiratory center cells, either because of

> too

> > alkaline a blood pH (as a result of partial blockades in the

> > oxidative metabolism of the skeletal muscles, producing too low

> > carbon dioxide production), or because of fibrin deposition in

the

> > capillaries as a result of hypercoagulation.

>

> My Response:

> Again my question is, if I measure my blood gases, will it easy to

> decide about treatment options?

>

> I got my Hemex test done.

>

> ISAC PANEL- FLOW ONLY

> PLATELET ACTIVATION BY FLOW

> CD62P; 16 (1-27)

> CD62P + ADP: 59 (40-100)

> Plt Activation Index: NORMAL

>

> ISAC PANEL- COAG ONLY

> FIBRINOGEN: 385 H (180-310)

> FRAGMENT 1 + 2: 0.6 (0.4-1.1)

> T/AT COMPLEXES: 1.9 (1.0-4.1)

> SOLUBLE FIBRIN MONOMER < 8 (0-17)

>

> I will post my bicycle stress test results in my next email.

>

> Thanks a lot for your time,

> Gayathri.

[Guest guest]

Hi, Rich,

Please take your time in responding to my emails. You are doing us

all a favour by your active participation in the CFIDS research. We

are very grateful for that. But, I am very glad to have received

your response :-)

I am doing IM glutathione shots. From your response here, it seems

like, if the partial blockade in oxidative metabolism of teh skeletal

muscle cells (due to glutathione depletion) is one of the reason for

low erythropoeitin output from kidneys, then glutathione IM shots

would be helpful to me. So I will probably give myself the shots

everyday and see how I feel. I do feel a bit better after the shots.

But I give it only twice a week- so wil increase the frequency and

see what happens.

My doc Dr. Larry Sharp wants to address the high fibrinogen levels

by a trial of a supplement called Baluoke(lumbrokinase) from

http://www.canadarna.com/b_fib.htm. I will give it a trial and see

how it goes.

About the bicycle stress test, they did measure with pulse oxometer.

I am unable to figure which is the value. May be it is teh spO2 value

that I gave.

spO2 rest: 96 max: 96

Dr. Sharp also measured with pulse oxometer recently and these were

the values 99-96.

Thanks again for your time, energy and effort,

Gayathri.

>

> Hi, Gayathri,

>

> Sorry to be so slow in getting back to you. I'm kind of swamped

> with e-mails right now.

>

> I understand your desire to know whether getting tests will lead to

> any effective treatment.

>

> Concerning the red blood cell total mass test, this test is usually

> run by nucear medicine departments in hospitals, because it

requires

> use of a radioisotope. As a result, it could be fairly expensive.

>

> Dr. Barry Hurwitz (part of Klimas's group in Miami) reported

> at the AACFS meeting that they have found quite a few PWCs who have

> a low number of total red blood cells. In fact, nearly 2/3 of the

> patients they have studied have significantly low total red blood

> cells. Among women patients, that figure is over 3/4. The red

> cells are normal cells, but they are fewer in total number than

> normal. This type of anemia is associated with low secretion of

> erythropoeitin by the kidneys. They are supplementing synthetic

> erythropoeitin (Procrit) in these patients, but they did not report

> on the results of this yet.

>

> I don't know for sure why the erythropoeitin secretion might be low

> in PWCs. I suspect that it results from oxidative stress in the

> kidneys as a result of glutathione depletion, and I suggested this

> to Barry after he gave his talk. He told me that they have been

> looking into oxidative stress.

>

> Another possibility is that because of partial blockades in the

> oxidative metabolism of the skeletal muscle cells (again because of

> glutathione depletion, in my opinion) the muscle cells are not

> demanding as much oxygen from the blood as they normally would.

> Consequently, the kidneys detect that there is plenty of oxygen

left

> in the blood, and they decrease their erythropoeitin output to

> signal the bone marrow to make fewer red blood cells because not as

> many are needed as normally.

>

> I don't know for sure which, if either, of these hypotheses are

true.

>

> It sounds as though your coagulation situation is not too bad,

> though the fibrinogen is high.

>

> I will have to study your exercise test results, since I'm not too

> familiar with the parameters they report. Did they have a pulse

> oximeter clamped on one of your fingers during this test? If so,

> how low did it drop? This would tell us whether your lungs

> continued to put enough oxygen into your blood during the exercise

> test. That's really what I would like to know. But maybe if I

> study the results of your pulmonary function tests I can figure

this

> out from them.

>

> Rich

>

[Guest guest]

Hi Gayu,

Could be cardiac insufficiency too? Have you looked into your

homocysteine levels? They are usually high with us, and SAM-e

can help with that -- it's just so expensive. There's definitely a

poor oxygenation problem with us CFIDS folks.

I've had cold feet for years -- especially when under stress, which

is now about 14 hours out of the day -- and even though my

thyroid tests always come out " normal " , my body temp is low.

My chinese docs, and naturopaths said that is due to my

" stagnant, sluggish " liver function. I don't quite understand,

except to say the shin bone's connected to the you know what...

I did find substantial relief -- lasting 9 months, after seeing an

acupuncturist for 2 months, back in 2000...

d.

> >

> > Gayu,

> >

> > Air hunger is always a sign that my thyroid levels are off.

Have you

> > had them checked lately? It's a common symptom.

> >

> > penny

> >

> >

[Guest guest]

Substantial relief from imuplus a gluthatione precursor.

Also from gookinaid www.gookinaid.com it increases

your blood volume. A better than gatorade drink called

the oral IV. Used by Dr. Cheney.

Good luck.

> > >

> > > Gayu,

> > >

> > > Air hunger is always a sign that my thyroid levels are off.

> Have you

> > > had them checked lately? It's a common symptom.

> > >

> > > penny

> > >

> > >