This Caught My Attention

Recently scientists found that speeding up the heart rate with a pacemaker can correct apnea. The trouble is, no one knows why it works.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/100880

I guess it is BS, but if you know different then tell us please. Maybe for centrals?

Thanks.

CPAP is not portable?? I travel w/mine. Or did they mean it was rather difficult to sleepwalk when attached to a CPAP? You think?

And I have to wonder if speeding up the heart's rate is healthy for the heart in the long term.

... But there's also an effective low-tech cure: weight loss. With the flab goes the floppy tissue. ...

Say what?

Give that reporter a D for accuracy!

I've had three pacemakers...first one when I was 29. Still had/have apnea.

My understanding is that circulatory delay (bradycardia) causes peripheral-receptor related central apnea in some patients.

When a pacemaker resolves those circulatory delay issues, central apnea is known to improve in some cases. If peripheral-receptor related circulatory delay isn't your central etiology, then a pacemaker isn't going to help.

Thanks, SWS. That makes more sense. That reporter left a lot to be desired. They oughtta take him/her OFF the medical reporting beat!!!

rooster wrote:

Recently scientists found that speeding up the heart rate with a pacemaker can correct apnea. The trouble is, no one knows why it works.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/100880

I guess it is BS, but if you know different then tell us please. Maybe for centrals?

Thanks.

NOT BS at all!!!

I have also heard of it several times nearly curing central apnea and another sleep disorders, while I cannot remember exactly what they called it, it was similar to Cataplexy associated with Narcolepsy,

...where the patient just falls asleep at the snap of a finger, but unlike Cataplexy being triggered by emotion, this disorder had no trigger that they knew of. It is similar to placing someone under hypnosis with a snap of a finger but without the snap.

I watched this on a TV documentary, think it was Frontline or ION health or a similar program, it may have been on ABC, it was about a young teen girl about 12 or 13 years old, she suffered from this disorder most of her life, they could never find the cause. It was destroying her life.

They showed she would be sitting there talking to 2-3 of her friends and it would hit her and she would immediately be as if she was asleep, loss of motor control everything, if here friends were not there to notice this happening and catch her she would have fallen off the kitchen counter she was sitting on to the floor.

In any case, left with no other medical options available and a long life ahead, they implanted a common heart pace maker in her and it completely cured her of that disorder!!

I have also heard of the pacemaker helping those with CSR, more research needs to be done on it, but it is not BS at all. The brain controls all aspects of the heart, so any interruption of the neurological signal going from the brain to the heart makes perfect sense.

More research needs to be done on it.

JeffH wrote:I've had three pacemakers...first one when I was 29. Still had/have apnea.

maybe they were set too slow

I also imagine there would be a similar kind of effect to cardiac workouts - get your heart rate up and your BP goes down, plus you'll generally be in better shape if you're consistent about it. I think that if your cardiac status is good, if you're fit, you may be less likely to have OSA, though I know there are very fit people who do get it.

Fitness is interesting, because GENERALLY fitness and obesity are mutually exclusive. However, that is NOT always TRUE; one can be fat. and possess cardio-vascular (aka cardio-respiratory) fitness.

Click Here for Discussion of Cardiovascular Fitness and Obesity


Karen