High blood oxygen saturation despite pulmonary failure
Despite having presented local respiratory physicians with a ton of evidence that I experienced respiratory failure 9 years ago it is the constantly high blood oxygen saturation I test for which results in repeated claims that I must be hyperventilating. I have tested positive for hypoxia related (threonyl tRNA destructive) PL-7 myositis antibodies, which the hospital refuses me the biopsy to specifically identify. I have tested disastrously with pulmonary function tests. I have constantly high lactate/lactate dehydrogenase levels. They have admitted to immune depression and a number of other conditions. However, they seem determined to ignore any evidence I present to contend that mitochondrial dysfunction underlies my high blood oxygen saturation and I don't know how to convince them. My condition commenced as a consequence of years of glass coating spray exposures (as I'm now aware; containing engineered silica nanoparticles which no physician had even heard of before I brought the issue to their attention). Of course they have absolutely no idea how to prove, or disprove, such exposure induced disease so they have chosen to simply ignore the claims. The results of my pulmonary function tests, and all other corroborating evidence, were simply ignored. I have run down almost every possible lead to date, in trying to prove that I have respiratory failure, and don't know of any clinical tests which can definitively prove the condition. Is anyone aware of any. My condition involves both alkalosis and respiratory muscle failure, with only partial diaphragm function and diaphragmatic flutter. I posed the possibility of having experienced chronic costochondritis, fitting the pattern of loss of arm function in front of my body, but have been advised that it's a really difficult condition to verify.
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Have you had arterial blood gases tested? My husband had normal O2 but he was retaining CO2. High levels of CO2 (hypercapnia) is what killed him. He had pulmonary fibrosis. Have you had a high resolution CT scan of your lungs? With your exposure to silica, that may be what is going on.
I have had pretty much every test available here performed. Early on, when I was really sick before receiving antibiotics, my pO2 oxygen intake was disastrous in a blood gas test; 18mm Hg (if venous that put me in severe respiratory distress, if arterial it put me close to death). Because my oxygen saturation was close to 100% they chose to ignore the result. Since the antibiotics and cholecystectomy (relating to gall stone induced jaundice) my blood gas test levels appear perfectly normal (including the CO2), leaving me with the anomaly that I still have pulmonary failure. I'm currently looking at information relevant to factors affecting hemoglobin oxygen affinity like silica nanoparticles, insulin resistance, and so on. While it's currently impossible to investigate silica nanoparticle induced disease in the body I am hoping that detailing some of the other factors might help me to get around the problem. The trouble is that I have previously presented doctors with such evidence and they have simply dismissed it all because my blood gas tests look normal and there's no evidence of lung disease in scans. It's a catch-22 which I can't seem to escape from.
You are fighting against the clueless for no reason. Focus on the treatment. They are all supplements like l carnitine and benign things like cpap. Get an overnight sleep study and see a mito specialist who will check lactate pyruvate ratio. There is no medicine or cure.
You seem to have what I have. Did you get MIP MEP in PFT evaluated? Do you use bipap or cpap at night? You may have subclinical neuropathy like sfn and can get a skin biopsy.
You are describing the effects of diaphragm weakness, including rib tightness. Did you get cervical spine mri or phrenic nerve conduction? Was EMG normal? See a nvs specialist like breathenvs.com
Yes, my MIP was 14 and MEP was 11. The investigating physician performed a series of tests which all seemed to have pulmonary hypertension as their only unifying issue. The hospital she works at denied me a muscle biopsy which would have identified the specific type of myositis (an autoimmune myopathy) which underlies much of my muscle weakness and could have helped her to prove the pulmonary hypertension. The PL-7 antibodies I test positive for relate to cells experiencing hypoxia and releasing an enzyme which tries to generate new blood vessels. The body produces the antibodies to destroy the enzyme so that it doesn't cause cancer or fibrosis. I think that I've now found the evidence I need in old test results but will have to see what the specialist thinks.
Because my condition involves occupational toxic exposures and my blood always has high blood oxygen saturation they decided not to recommend any treatment. That's why I've been looking at factors affecting hemoglobin oxygen affinity. If you take a look online for an oxyhemoglobin dissociation curve you will find how these factors can cause blood to be unable to release oxygen to tissues. Mine doesn't look like it's going anywhere.
I don't have neuropathy of any type but initially experienced a proliferation of sebhorreic keratoses. Those eventually disappeared but have been replaced by various skin lesions. My diaphragm is the only respiratory muscle still working but it only has something like half of its original range of motion. I have spinal, brain, lung, and a bunch of other MRI, and the only thing which has stuck out in them was the myositis. I recently discussed things like nerve conduction and electromyography with my GP but he didn't believe it worthwhile because the hospital has already acknowledged the myositis.
I'm fairly certain that I have put together a reasonable case for heat stroke induced rhabdomyolysis which was aggravated by untreated cholecystitis. The constantly high blood oxygen levels just kept getting thrown back at me as evidence that there was nothing wrong with my health, at least until they had to give me antibiotics, and later remove my gall bladder, and later proved I had myositis. All of that and the local hospitals still don't want to accept that anythings wrong with me, except for those things. Funny enough, that's not the story which my old blood tests tell.
Oh, sorry, I missed your first response. My last GP recognised the same thing I had long ago. Although I know of a huge array of natural interventions to improve my condition I can't afford to use any. The local hospitals originally argued that I was faking my condition, denying me any right to worker support and claiming my condition had no relationship with my employment. I became a criminal without any right to trial and have been fighting their claim for the last nine years. Even doctors are suspicious now, with the local hospitals claiming that nothing is wrong with me despite all of the evidence and their denial of investigations on the basis that I'm at high risk if they provide certain investigations (ie muscle biopsy). I haven't yet been able to find any tests which detail my pyruvate levels, though I've been searching for any, but the high lactate levels have been obvious from the start. It also turned out that I have undiagnosed hypoalbuminemia, evidenced in my test results but never acknowledged by the local hospitals. Hypoalbuminemia induces breathing difficulty and is associated with ARDS.
As for the issue of cures; I never believe medical claims when people say that it's impossible to cure a condition. I've heard of cases of virtually every disease being cured. The claims that they can't be cured generally either revolve around rapid progression to death in the disease or pharmaceutical propaganda. Sorry if you're not a believer in alternative medicine like myself; I know I can annoy some people when I say I believe these things.
ialogic,
It might help you to know about the hemoglobin oxygen dissociation curve. This is a graph which shows a standard blood oxygen saturation relating to normal oxygenation of tissues. It's called the dissociation curve because it measures factors which alter the bloods affinity for oxygen, either reducing it's capacity to carry oxygen or preventing the release of that oxygen by the blood. I've realised that I need to try to find if I've ever been tested for an enzyme called 2,3biphosphoglycerate mutase. It's one of many things which can increase the bloods affinity for oxygen. Although I've identified a wide range of factors which could have increased my bloods affinity for oxygen the problem has always been trying to find a way to prove that this has actually occurred. Finding, or obtaining, such a test would go a long way to convincing doctors that I have low oxygen usage by my tissues and muscles and that my high blood oxygen levels are abnormal.