Little known dangers of OSA.

Hi all,

Many of you may already know this but I thought I'd share it with you for those who may not.

My Doctor is what's known as an "Integrative Physician". This means he "integrates" the best of modern and alternative techniques. He had extensive bloodwork done on me (16 viles of blood!) and some of the results were concerning to both he and I. And some of the things he said showed in my blood work and physical exam may very well be caused by OSA.

1. Elevated Fibrinogen. This is a clotting factor in the blood. Too much of it can lead to Stroak, Heart attack, pulmonary thrombosis, etc. The physiological stress of OSA can cause your body to overproduce Fibrinogen.

2. High blood pressure. Apparently, there is a strong correlation between HBP and OSA.

3. Weight Gain. OSA can cause in increase in Cortisol which tells the body to store fat.

4. Elevated Insulin Related Growth Factor. He feels OSA can also cause an elevation in IRGF. Tumor growth has been associated with elevated IRGF.

I'm sure there are many more dangers of OSA but I found these to be motivation enough for me to get on the program. My equipment arrives tomorrow!

Thanks all.

Mtnman

Glad your doctor clued you into all this. Most of us did hear this from our doctors/sleep techs, but it's good information to share with all.

Cheers,
B.

Well, you are the lucky one. What is his/her name? What state he/she is practicing in?

Very interesting set of points & observations.

Again, highlights the newness of even the experts understanding of OSA and its relationship to other problems. Also of interest is which causes which.

I like the sound of your doc. Looks like you struck gold.

Good luck

DSM

Mtnman wrote:Hi all,

1. Elevated Fibrinogen. This is a clotting factor in the blood. Too much of it can lead to Stroak, Heart attack, pulmonary thrombosis, etc. The physiological stress of OSA can cause your body to overproduce Fibrinogen.

One of the PhD students in my lab is currently undertaking a study looking at the effect of apnea events on coagulant factors in the blood. She is then going to put the patients on CPAP to see what happens to these factors as well

I did get lucky with the Doc. His nam is Dr. James Biddle of Asheville Integrative Medicine. http://www.docbiddle.com He practices in Asheville, NC. I drive 3 hours and stay in a hotel overnight to see him. My impression is that he tries to find the cause of an unhealthy condition rather that just treat sypmtoms. It's nice finding a Doc that doesn't try to treat everything with a scapel and perscription pad.

COngrats on the doctor and your new machine! I live in the upstate of SC, so not too terribly far from your area. I was in Ashville during June visiting the Biltomre during a class I took. Beautiful area!

drummergirl410 wrote:COngrats on the doctor and your new machine! I live in the upstate of SC, so not too terribly far from your area. I was in Ashville during June visiting the Biltomre during a class I took. Beautiful area!

What a cute avatar, drummergirl! Welcome to the hosehead club

Mtnman wrote: He practices in Asheville, NC.

Glad to hear you found a good Doc!

I'm not at all surprised to hear he's in Asheville.
Besides being one of the most beautiful places in the USA, it has quite a reputation for alternative medicine.

Thanks for the reminder. Perhaps if we could assemble a list of every problem we can think of that OSA can create or exacerbate or is linked to in some way, maybe in this thread, then we could add it to "Our Collective Wisdom." I know I'd love to see something like that there.

Mtnman wrote:High blood pressure. Apparently, there is a strong correlation between HBP and OSA.

I have a hypertension. Since I didn't seem to fit into any obvious high-risk categories (age, smoking, etc.), my cardiologist referred me to the Sleep Clinic.

Doug.

yep it is what I call "thick" blood. What does it show your platelet counts to be? They should be under 399,000, mine were over 850,000, could be why I had two strokes.

Hypoxia from untreated OSA can cause many of those problems, red blood cells become smaller and deformed, don't carry as much oxygen.

16 vials? sounds like a Hematologist work up, should include then Factor V Leiden results which can be associated with the following complications:

Venous Thrombosis blood clots in veins, such as:
Deep vein thrombosis (DVT), veins in arms and legs
Superficial thrombophlebitis
Sinus vein thrombosis, veins around the brain
Mesenteric vein thrombosis, intestinal veins
Budd-Chiari syndrome, liver veins
Pulmonary Embolism (PE), blood clots in the lungs
Arterial clots (stroke, heart attack) in selected patients (some smokers)
Possibly with stillbirth or recurrent unexplained miscarriage
Preeclampsia and/or eclampsia (toxemia while pregnant)

http://www.fvleiden.org/

Another long worded version of "thick blood".

It is the main reason I take a 325mg Ecotrin Aspirin every night. Ask your doctor about an ACE inhibitor for the hypertension, you want something that relaxes the blood vessels.

Go on CPAP and your blood work should improve in as little as 10 to 20 days, takes about 20 days for your blood to turn over (deformed cells to die off and be replaced with healthy ones).

The aspirin will stay in your blood stream for up to 7-10 days, reason you have to take it every night to keep it effective long term. They had me on 75mg of Plavix for a couple years, I didn't feel good with taking it and got rashes, was bruised everywhere, took some nerve to stop taking it after having 2 strokes already but I finally did to have some dental implants put in, never went back on it after that.

Look for CRP results on that test, should tell you your C-Reactive Protein level, which can indicate your current level of arterial inflammation.

You can do a search online and find out the normal and abnormal results of your blood work. My Hematologist said those tests are only about 60-70% accurate, all depends on how soon the tech processes the samples and gets them under refrigeration. Usually if you test positive for anything, they repeat that particular test again and compare results.

Difficult to control your Hypertension with drugs or it remains all over the place?

That would be a perfect example of Essential Hypertension or Hypertension without a known cause.

Go to this link download the PDF, and scroll down go to Table 2, compare your elevated blood test results to the Hematologic and biochemical findings shown there:

http://www.aafp.org/afp/20020115/229.html

Mtnman wrote:I did get lucky with the Doc. His nam is Dr. James Biddle of Asheville Integrative Medicine. http://www.docbiddle.com He practices in Asheville, NC. I drive 3 hours and stay in a hotel overnight to see him. My impression is that he tries to find the cause of an unhealthy condition rather that just treat sypmtoms. It's nice finding a Doc that doesn't try to treat everything with a scapel and perscription pad.

Hey I think my brother Mike still lives in Asheville, NC he's an old Viet Nam vet, probably still wearing his old fatigues to this day, he had a rough time at Bien Hoa airbase when they were launching mortars at them every night.

Research like this is very interesting to me. Strokes don't just run, they gallop in my family. A great-grandmother died of a massive stroke at age 42. 3 other great-grandparents died of strokes in their 80's but began having small ones in their 70's. Two grandparents died of stroke in their 70's. My mother and father both had serious strokes in their early 50's. When my mother had hers, they were trying to pull some blood to determine what the cause was, but her blood was so thick, they could only draw a few clots into the syringe. They had to administer blood thinners and clot busters before they could get any information really. All of these strokes took everyone by surprise because none of them were obese, most didn't smoke, they mostly ate food that they had grown themselves, they worked hard and were in good shape, and none of them had high blood pressure. My sleep doc said having OSA tripled my odds of having a stroke. I now wonder if OSA was a factor in these early strokes, causing otherwise healthy people to have sticky blood?

Susan M

I recently got my cholesterol results. Everything is totally normal now, except triglicerides which are only slightly elevated. Best its been in 10 years.
Shari