CPAP May Reverse Cardiac Symptoms in Sleep Apnea

[varkam]

Medpage Today
Peggy Peck
March 31, 2006
5:00pm EST
Link

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ANTWERP, Belgium, March 31 - Six months of nightly treatment with continuous positive airway pressure can reverse structural and functional cardiac alterations associated with obstructive sleep apnea, researchers here report.

In 25 patients assessed before and after treatment, CPAP treatment improved structural and contractile parameters in both ventricles, reported Bharati Shivalkar, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues of University Hospital Antwerp in the April 4 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

But those improvements did not reach statistical significance and improvements were not observed in all patients.

Improvement was, however, observed in the absence of reductions in body mass index. This suggested that the improvements were "most likely associated with treatment with CPAP, which abolishes the apneic episodes and reduces the sympathetic activity. Treatment with CPAP is analogous to the effects of chronic beta-blockade in heart failure."

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[slackmaster]

1. Major relief - I read "CRAP May Reverse..."

Time to clean the monitor.

[varkam]

2. LOL! That wouldn't be fun would it? n/t

[mom cat]

3. I did too, and I use a CPAP every night! LOL.

[morningglory]

4. I can not sleep with the cpap because my nasal passages dry out

and become painful. I use the humidifier. Maybe the problem is that I have lived in the South all my life and am like a baby in an incubator, have to have 300% humidity. I could make it through the night if I vaselined my nose, but nurse sister-in-law had a cow and said it would give me pneumonia. What do you do for the dryness?

[Sgent]

5. Talk to the DME store

and tell them to find one with a humidifier.

[varkam]

6. Do you use a heated humidifier or a cool / passover humidifier? n/t

[morningglory]

9. cool passover

[varkam]

11. If your nasal passages drying out are the problem...

You might try talking to your DME and getting a heated humidifier. It works a lot like the passover, but like the name implies - it's heated. The short end of it means that the air is more humid than with a cool passover. I find it works well for people who complain about dryness with the cool passover. The DME should be all about nything that helps people with wearing CPAP - if not you might consider getting a new DME as well....

[medeak]

7. set up CPAP's for years...

your sisinlaw is full of crap. There is no way you can get pneumonia from vaseline in the nose. jeesush chreest...is she a school nurse or some such?

anything to help patients be compliant with cpap is great...hardest device to keep pts on. kudo's to you for staying with it.

[varkam]

8. True that n/t

[morningglory]

10. She is an RN trained in NOO Yawk City 40 yrs ago, retired now.