It's Official

Thanks, Evan, I always appreciate the thoughts of people who disagree with what I've read from other sources. <Yoda voice> with a grain of salt it is, grateful am I

 

My dad sleeps under oxygen and swears it makes him feel better?.. I don't know.. it looks like the body would get used to it and lower the HCT "hematocrit" like living at a lower elevation?.........then you would be back in the same boat except worse when the O2 wasn't around?

But I did have something funny happen to me however... Several times I noticed my rhythm was irregular while walking around at work....Just felt "funny" and I would take my carotid pulse on my neck and sure enough I pulse was wacky. "this happened to me 3 times before I figured it out" ...My pulse however seemed within acceptable ranges.... Then I put myself on an EKG monitor and walked around as usual and noticed I was throwing frequent PVC's (premature ventricular contractions) like crazy!.. "usually due to irritability of the heart for some reason".

They were frequent enough that I was having them every 2, 3 or 4 beats (Bigemeny, trigimeny or quadrigimeny)
So I also put myself on a PO2 meter to measure my oxygen and found I was walking around with an O2 level of 93 - 95%!.. I simply wasn't breathing enough!...

I do get very relaxed and I try to notice now that I do breath pretty crappy. I had walked around with this for a several hours, nothing I would do would alleviate it.. just for fun I took a nitro, but didn't help... but when I took a few deep breaths it disappeared. Now whenever I feel that happening I just breath a bit better and it goes away.

I do need to mention when I have those episodes, its when I am stressed usually because of lack of sleep for several days in a row of working too much. Coffee didn't help either.. I've pretty much knocked that way down.

I know there have been reports of some people that when they climb a mountain or run etc, their response to breathing more from CO2 building up is delayed to the point that they get winded and when thier stimulus to breath finally kicks in, they are already exhausted. I read if those climbers learn what is going on, they can conciously breath sooner when they know they need to "even though they don't feel like it yet" and they are able to keep up with the rest of the crowd without exhaustion.

My wife also claims I have periods of apnea "stop breathing" when I sleep.... I don't know if that also happens on a totally unconcious level while awake walking around, but I am starting to suspect it with myself?

I have no other health issues other than my back hurts from setting at my computer too much! B)

 

when i played soccer i was always told to be conscious of my breathing. it was helpful and i carried that over to the rest of my daily life. overall i'm a pretty deep, slow breather when at rest. when i was running i tended to take more rapid, shallow breaths that weren't doing me as much good.

as far as i remember the only way you're going to have chronic serious trouble with poor oxygenation is if you have a problem with your RBCs or hemoglobin or myoglobin. evan covered the body's reaction to poor oxygenation in regard to hypoventilation. it's been hammered into my head that tumors have a locally poor circulation and therefore poor oxygenation and acidity but that's the nature of the tumor. usually it's not angiogenic enough to be able to get enough blood to that mass of cells and the hypoxia and acidity are a consequence of that. the whole body under that condition would respond very quickly to restore homeostasis.

of course, if i've misstated anything i hope someone with more in-depth experience will comment.

the airways are designed to filter out almost all impurities in the air. depending on their size they can get into the body (think asbestos), but how you breathe has nothing to do with that.

 

I do get a chuckle out of folks "like my dad" that sleeps under air purifiers etc..... because when I see what a smoker pulls in over and over with every puff..... burning dead leaves!... all the smoke and impurities from the chemicals they used to kill the bugs too!
I am totally amazed at the recoperative powers of the body to deal with foreign agents without dying.... I'm amazed it takes years to kill them off!

People do "IMO" get totally crazy about germs however! Unless your in a hospital setting where you are around the bad of the bad germs... you don't need to beware so much and wash your hands everytime you turn around.
Mothers that keep thier kids sterile are only preventing their normal immune system from learning how to deal with the nasty bugs when they are young and able to acclimate the best to a new environment.

Anyway.. thats just one of my pet peeves..... let your kids eat dirt...hey its good for them! :lol:

 

Well, if you start to lose it, try to remember to fall up instead of down. That sounds silly but you won't fall down the mountain if you fall up against it. I wouldn't try to hit the working heart rate if I wasn't feeling top notch no matter what so that's a smart move. Breathing and sweating and letting the blood flow seems to be celebrating life rather than staying home and letting it slip away. Good job, daniel. I love your cat by the way, I used to have a tiger like that myself.

 

Ok.. brace yourself....
I'll toss in since Evan is not out here right now and he can fill in the gaps....

The Sinus Node as well as all of the conduction nervous system is made up of nerves. These nerves have the intrinsic ability to "recharge" at certain speeds so as once they are "depolarized" or "discharged, they go through a recharge sequence that takes only fractions of a second.

I don't know how deep you want to go with this, but like all nerve cells, there are ion shifts and ATP "Adenosine Triphosphate" that acts as the "ion pump" to accelerate these ion shifts of Potassium, Sodium, and Calcium etc to take place in fractions of a second.

In other words, when the electrical charge of a nerve is expended, the process moves ions to different parts of the cell similiar to a battery. When they are recharged the ions move back to where they belong and are poised to be depolorized again. "again similiar to a battery"

Now once they "depolarize" or expend thier energy, they cannot "depolarize" again until they are first "polarized" (charged back up again)

The Sinus Node has the ability to recharge the fastest.... rates above 60 times per second come from the Sinus node. The Junctional area of the heart is the middle of the heart between the atrium (top) and the ventricles (bottom). That Junctional area can recharge as fast as 40 to 60 times per second. And lastly the bottom or ventricles can recharge at the rate of about 20 to 40 times per second. The conduction area in the ventricles is called the Purkinje Fibers.

Now after saying all that... realize that all these areas when depolarized will attempt to repolarize at their respective rates or abilities.

So normally the Sinus sends a charge "faster" than the lower parts of the heart can repolarize. So the lower parts never get to fire!... because the Sinus keep stealing the show.

Now if the Sinus stops or disappears, that gives time for the next line of defense to kick in "the Juctional area' so as long as the junction does not fail, the heart can still beat at a rate of 40-60.. plenty to sustain life. When beats happen because the Sinus has failed, these beats are called "escape beats".

Now if the Juctional area could not beat, then the heart has a third line of defense or "escape", and thats the ventricles or rather the conduction pathway there called the Purkinje Fibers. So in that case the heart would beat at a rate of 20-40 beats per second..... maybe not enough for conciousness, but enough to sustain life in most cases.

Drugs affect all these recharge rates.. The Digitalis or Digoxin merely extend the recharge rate these cells repolarize, along with other factors such as some beta qualities cause the heart to beat stronger and more forceful, yet slower because the conduction is geared down. So a little Dig can calm down the irritable atrium so the Sinus dominates without backtalk and chatter.

The whole surface inside the heart has the ability to take over and spark an electrical stimulus should other parts fail.... the problem is that when some of these areas fire the spark often does not find its way down the normal conduction pathway, so the heart does a piss poor job of beating in a syncronous unified rhythm..... so little blood is pumped.

Thats exactly what is happening with A-fibb!... the atrium has so many multiple electrical stimulis's firing at once that the heart only "quivers" rather than beat with a unified motion that can move blood.

Fortunately even though the top part of the heart is only quivering, the bottom still beats as normal and blood is still pumped. But without the help of the top part of the heart, about 30% output loss is realized.

So, in answer to your question... if the normal pacemaker fails, yes there is another that beats slower, and if it fails, there is a third that beats slower yet. These other areas are also called nodes, but not meant to be primary.. but only as backups.
The Good Lord knew what he was doing when he made us!

I haven't taught this stuff in about 20 years, so I hope I didn't make too many mistakes.
I think I"ve made a circle now so I'll stop.... I hope all this makes some sense someone can use.

 

a few things the neuropharm geek has to throw in:

the 'recharging' is typically called repolarization

ATP powers the ATPase pumps that run against the gradient

the ions are moved across the membrane (not just redistributed throughout the cell), which generates the membrane potential, which provides setup for the action potential, which transmits the message for the muscles to contract when the signal reaches the neuromuscular junction. the ATPase pumps and etc are in place to restore this potential when it is used up and restore the ability of the neuron to fire.

i am not good at teaching... i tried though

 

thanks for the fillin.....In an attempt to be thorough yet simple, I tend to get very long in my explanations and bore or lose people in the process. Using full medical Jargon makes it quick and easy, but only a few can understand. We have the same problem with the prius jargon.. it can get quite technical!

 

Daniel, I hope you get better and/or get good treatment.

 

Keep us updated......

 

Ok.. we'll pray for you and wish the best...

 

ooh, there it is. that strange pain in my chest. i mentioned it earlier in this thread.

feels like my lungs are expanding too far and crushing the rest of the contents of my chest when i breathe in, not even when i breathe very deeply. pain all the way up my throat to my lower jaw and under my left clavicle. very deep breathing hurts enough to make me avoid doing that.

overall a tolerable pain, but sure as hell obnoxious. it'll be gone in 5 minutes, actually it's going away already.

man, all the strange things the body can do. if it lasted long enough i'd head over to urgent care to get it looked at, but it's always so short term that by the time i get my shoes on it's gone.

 

please post again shortly so we'll know you're OK. DH there?

 

i'm fine, thanks jack. pain was gone by the time i hit the "add reply" button. i just have no idea what causes it. like i said, if it were something that lasted i'd head over to urgent care and get it diagnosed. for now i'm attributing it to a back injury but have no idea if spinal nerve damage could cause that.

 

Thanks for posting. I was afraid we might have to activate PriusCat to call 911 for ya.

Nobody takes baths any more. Can you go soak your, er, self in a hot tub for a bit? Supportive water, you can "contort" a little.

 

priuscat to dial 911... :lol:

eh, i feel fine right now. probably will feel great for another couple of weeks. think it's about time to spend a few hours on the tempurpedic anyway. (and no, it's been going on longer than we've had the mattress!)