Browser wrote:Thanks -SWS for your concern. It isn't like my family doc would know what the heck I were talking about if I went in complaining of a high % of VB. I forgot to reinstall my card last night so nothing to post. I had a physical a couple months ago and an ee or ecg where they put stickies on your ankles and chest and a machine prints something out-lasts about 30 seconds. No issues noted except high cholesterol,triglycerides.
I will be calling my original sleep doc Monday. I don't think she sees patients anymore so I will probably see a partner of hers that is a Pulmonoligist. Is that a good Dr. to talk to about this?
Thanks
Browser, I fully agree that most doctors would not know what to make of that proprietary Respironics VB statistic. They'd probably dismiss that proprietary statistic for very understandable reasons: VB is not a clinical event, clinical measurement, or clinical statistic of any kind. And it's an
incredibly ambiguous statistic even to those few people who are somewhat familiar with it. Regardless, in such a rare case when VB consistently runs so high, I fear something in physiology may not be just right. Suboptimal PAP therapy may be at the heart of your incredibly high VB rates. If so, the auto BiPAP with BiFlex may help not only with VB and AHI, but perhaps even better sleep architecture. While we see a lot of suboptimal PAP therapy on this board, we honestly don't often have the opportunity to glimpse what VB scores are being presented in those cases. But when we have glimpsed VB in cases of suboptimal PAP, the VB scores have never consistently run as high as yours.
My concern or preference that you find a
sharp doctor is based not only in those extremely unusual VB scores of yours, but also that you have other medicines and treatments in the equation. For instance, we really don't know if OCD might somehow subtly influence the cardiopulmonary characteristics of breathing variation during sleep---which VB is attempting to score. I am very glad that you passed your recent cardiac screening. I also recall dllfo having passed very many cardiac diagnostic tests before finally having a slight hole in his heart properly diagnosed (discovered at a renowned hospital far away from his home). Also, bear in mind that my mother passed all her cardiac imaging and diagnostic tests---only a few short weeks before we rushed her to the emergency room for cardiac surgery. She had been intermittently suffering chronic fatigue and other cardiac symptoms for over a year. Unfortunately when she received her "thorough" cardiac diagnostic suite of tests, she wasn't presenting any cardiac symptoms that day---other than a couple not-quite marginal scores the doctor didn't think was all that unusual. So the diagnostics literally couldn't spot the fact that she was a "transitional" and thus intermittent cardiac case, requiring a pacemaker. She thus traded outpatient cataract surgery that day for emergency pacemaker surgery.
IMO, because you are taking SSRI meds for OCD, you could arguably fare better with a sleep doctor specializing in neurology or a sleep doctor specializing in pulmonology. Either discipline might turn out to be more relevant to what is happening with your VB. Alternately a more suitable auto BiPAP modality might turn out to be more relevant and mitigating regarding those high VB scores. I honestly don't have a great guess to offer---just concern. However, I might favor trying to find a sleep doctor who has an excellent reputation as being a great diagnostician----more so than favoring some lackluster sleep doctor because he/she happens to have a specialty in either pulmnology or neurology. Good luck, sir!
