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Fixing Your Autonomic Function in Long Covid | With Dr Boon Lim (Film 1) — Transcript

by Gez Medinger · 4,668 words · 764 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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  1. 0:00sorry for the radio silence the last
  2. 0:02month or two i have been rather busy
  3. 0:04writing a book anyway uh last week i had
  4. 0:07the great fortune to have a long chat
  5. 0:09with consultant cardiologist and
  6. 0:11electrophysiologist dr boon lim who is
  7. 0:13clinical lead for the imperial syncope
  8. 0:15units at hammersmith hospital if you've
  9. 0:18got a question about dysautonomia and
  10. 0:20tilt tests you really couldn't find
  11. 0:22anyone better to ask there's absolutely
  12. 0:25loads to talk about on the subject so
  13. 0:26i'm going to break it up into a trilogy
  14. 0:28of three films uh in this first film
  15. 0:31we're going to talk about dysautonomia
  16. 0:33which long-covered symptoms it can be
  17. 0:34responsible for how dr lim treats it in
  18. 0:36his clinic and what the hell is going on
  19. 0:39when we wake up in the middle of the
  20. 0:40night with a racing heart in the next
  21. 0:42film we dive into the fascinating world
  22. 0:44of tilt tests and how they give us a
  23. 0:46window into the physiology of
  24. 0:48dysautonomia what's actually involved in
  25. 0:50having one what can you learn from the
  26. 0:52results and do you actually need one to
  27. 0:54be able to get a handle on dysautonomia
  28. 0:57in the third film we're going to talk
  29. 0:58about hrv
  30. 1:00why it's so relevant for long haulers
  31. 1:02what we can do to improve it and what it
  32. 1:04means in terms of managing our symptoms
  33. 1:06and possibly even aiding recovery so
  34. 1:09could we just start with something
  35. 1:11really simple
  36. 1:12and that is to describe what
  37. 1:14dysautonomia is in simple terms so
  38. 1:17dysautonomia is a term that
  39. 1:19describes
  40. 1:21a disorder or dysfunction of the
  41. 1:23autonomic nervous system and i guess the
  42. 1:25two ways of thinking about it your
  43. 1:26autonomic nervous system is that bit of
  44. 1:28the nervous system that controls all the
  45. 1:30activities we don't consciously think
  46. 1:32about subconscious or unconscious
  47. 1:34control things like heart rate
  48. 1:36peristalsis blood pressure regulation
  49. 1:39temperature regulation
  50. 1:41and these things are normally
  51. 1:43automatically regulated quite finely so
  52. 1:47it generally isn't much of an issue now
  53. 1:50any one of us including those who don't
  54. 1:51have long cobait can have a dysautonomic
  55. 1:55uh profile for example
  56. 1:57uh after you've had a lot of alcohol say
  57. 2:00on a night out for your birthday you
  58. 2:02wake up the next morning you haven't had
  59. 2:03covet you haven't had a virus and you
  60. 2:05can feel
  61. 2:06a little bit rough and this is where
  62. 2:08things like the the kind of aura ring or
  63. 2:10your apple watch might tell you your
  64. 2:12readiness score or whatever that score
  65. 2:15is is a bit low
  66. 2:16and and so the autonomic numb system i
  67. 2:19don't want to
  68. 2:21imbue too much uh if you like illness or
  69. 2:25a a
  70. 2:26feeling that this is something that is
  71. 2:28an all-or-nothing phenomena i.e
  72. 2:30long-covered dysautonomia screwed for
  73. 2:33life
  74. 2:34it is something that that
  75. 2:36on a daily basis and sometimes even on a
  76. 2:39minute by minute basis will fluctuate
  77. 2:41and sometimes when it fluctuates in an
  78. 2:43exaggerated manner you can call that
  79. 2:45transient dysautonomia so my view is
  80. 2:48that dysautonomia is a
  81. 2:50is a fairly normal process that can hit
  82. 2:53any one of us even in the absence of a
  83. 2:55viral illness
  84. 2:56for some amount of time when there is a
  85. 2:59particular trigger and a susceptibility
  86. 3:01and of course what
  87. 3:02the viral illness does whether it's long
  88. 3:04corbett or glandular fever is it can
  89. 3:06then provoke a worsening earnings or an
  90. 3:10exaggerated
  91. 3:11autonomic uh dysfunction or autonomic
  92. 3:15nervous system
  93. 3:17that activates in in a way that causes a
  94. 3:19whole consolidation of symptoms and i'm
  95. 3:21sure we'll expand on that shortly
  96. 3:23um
  97. 3:25so i mean this is interesting because my
  98. 3:27feeling is that
  99. 3:29dysautonomia is
  100. 3:31or dysautonomia as a consequence of long
  101. 3:33covid
  102. 3:34is not something that we're necessarily
  103. 3:36going to be stuck with forever because
  104. 3:37my own experience of it and other other
  105. 3:38people i've seen is that it does
  106. 3:40fluctuate and there may be days where
  107. 3:42actually i'm quite tolerant and i can do
  108. 3:44all sorts of things on other days i
  109. 3:45couldn't do one of the things that david
  110. 3:47petrino
  111. 3:48uh said on twitter recently which i
  112. 3:50agreed with because that's my experience
  113. 3:52too is
  114. 3:53that there's almost this clunking that
  115. 3:55happens between
  116. 3:57okay function and then suddenly bang
  117. 3:59sympathetic nervous system activation
  118. 4:01and then suddenly clunk and it can clunk
  119. 4:03back again i don't know if that's
  120. 4:05sort of
  121. 4:06rather than a smooth transition between
  122. 4:09parasympathetic and sympathetic there
  123. 4:10does seem to be this dial that kind of
  124. 4:14does that is that something you've
  125. 4:16witnessed too is does that sort of ring
  126. 4:18a bell for you
  127. 4:19so i've witnessed on um
  128. 4:21both both states really and there are
  129. 4:24some patients who recognize to the hour
  130. 4:26or to the day that the symptoms started
  131. 4:29and started to get worse and oftentimes
  132. 4:32it is on the background of a significant
  133. 4:36stressful event and now when i say
  134. 4:38stress i don't mean mental stress it
  135. 4:40could be any challenge so for example if
  136. 4:43you think you're recovering from kobe
  137. 4:44three weeks have passed and you think
  138. 4:45you've got over it you go for a 5k run
  139. 4:49that could be the tipping point
  140. 4:51following which you trigger some kind of
  141. 4:53clunking as you say or a transition step
  142. 4:56which is quite a large step in your
  143. 4:58autonomic state and thereafter you find
  144. 5:00it very difficult to recover for a week
  145. 5:02or two after that 5k run and if you try
  146. 5:04another 5k run after two weeks you step
  147. 5:07down even
  148. 5:08greater so i think a lot of what you've
  149. 5:10discussed in your previous webinars jess
  150. 5:13including the pacing the recovery taking
  151. 5:15it nice and slow
  152. 5:16is part of
  153. 5:17um an intuitive body listening exercise
  154. 5:21that we need to learn and i think this
  155. 5:22is one aspect that we
  156. 5:25um don't do very well or people with
  157. 5:27long covered don't don't tend to have
  158. 5:30that intraceptive ability to recognize
  159. 5:33when they're at the incipient or
  160. 5:36threshold stage of clunking because the
  161. 5:38clunking doesn't happen just like that
  162. 5:41you need a few risk factors and
  163. 5:44certain preconditions to push you to the
  164. 5:46state at which you can clunk
  165. 5:49and then it happens you do something
  166. 5:51which it may not seem stupid at the time
  167. 5:53like going for a 5k run when you are
  168. 5:55typically going for 10k runs prior to
  169. 5:58corbett may not seem like such a big
  170. 6:00deal especially if you wake up fresh and
  171. 6:02alert good night sleep sunday morning
  172. 6:04well hydrated you do it and then you and
  173. 6:07then you you step down
  174. 6:09and then you kick yourself so
  175. 6:11uh so yeah yes is the answer but i also
  176. 6:13want to qualify that by saying
  177. 6:15that the other option is also possible
  178. 6:17that some people
  179. 6:19have a gradual deterioration in the
  180. 6:22autonomic nervous system function and i
  181. 6:24i particularly
  182. 6:26like what you've done previously in your
  183. 6:28previous webinars when you talked about
  184. 6:30the impact of previous trauma or
  185. 6:32the kind of personalities that may be
  186. 6:34susceptible to
  187. 6:35uh having a relapsing remitting long
  188. 6:38corvette experience because in my own
  189. 6:41view and experience this is something
  190. 6:42that comes across time and time again
  191. 6:44the likes of you jess who wants to push
  192. 6:46it skiing whilst recovering from long
  193. 6:49coven and seeing how far you can push it
  194. 6:51uh and i think he got away with it uh
  195. 6:53quite nicely but other people may not
  196. 6:56yes yeah and for me i wouldn't have got
  197. 6:58away with it had i not added a set of
  198. 7:00other behaviors to compensate
  199. 7:02for the activity i was doing and
  200. 7:04modifying the activity the way i was
  201. 7:05doing it so short you know 20 seconds
  202. 7:08skiing stop breathe ski a little bit
  203. 7:10further stop breathe and even only an
  204. 7:13hour in total in the day as opposed to
  205. 7:15what i would normally have done is just
  206. 7:16cane it from the top of the mountains to
  207. 7:18both the mountains that needs to be that
  208. 7:20needs to be repeated jess you need to
  209. 7:22tell people that you're not skiing eight
  210. 7:25hours like you used to yeah your skin
  211. 7:27for 20 seconds and just tell me about
  212. 7:29the breath again because that's
  213. 7:30phenomenally interesting
  214. 7:33so
  215. 7:34so basically what i try and do is i i
  216. 7:36mean skiing naturally for skiing with
  217. 7:38the group you would tend to ski
  218. 7:40a distance and then stop and wait ski
  219. 7:41distance top and weights and i was
  220. 7:43simply shortening those distances and in
  221. 7:45the points of time when i wasn't skiing
  222. 7:47i would very consciously slow my breath
  223. 7:49down and do coherence breathing you know
  224. 7:51five seconds in five seconds out
  225. 7:54and make sure i was doing that in every
  226. 7:56one two three four minute period i was
  227. 7:58waiting between each skiing segment and
  228. 7:59on every lift i was getting on suddenly
  229. 8:02now you're sitting down for five ten
  230. 8:04fifteen minutes on my entire lift i
  231. 8:06would just sit there and just focus on
  232. 8:07my breathing and try to not get sucked
  233. 8:09into the conversation that was happening
  234. 8:11around me but just focus on the
  235. 8:12breathing so again i was just calming
  236. 8:14things down
  237. 8:16in compensation for the fact that what i
  238. 8:17was doing was
  239. 8:19very stimulatory otherwise
  240. 8:21yeah so i i fully fully agree that this
  241. 8:24is the way that people should pace when
  242. 8:25they get back to exercise and
  243. 8:28um to your point earlier on when you ask
  244. 8:30me about clunking you don't always have
  245. 8:32to clunk in the wrong way in terms of
  246. 8:34sympathetic activation what you've
  247. 8:35demonstrated there is you can clunk the
  248. 8:38other way so you can you can you can
  249. 8:41automatically reset or actually
  250. 8:43recalibrate your parasympathetic nervous
  251. 8:45system and increase the expression of
  252. 8:47the vagus nerve
  253. 8:48by doing exactly what you've done a five
  254. 8:50second breath in and then a five second
  255. 8:53breath out um and on a continuous basis
  256. 8:55if you can breathe like this
  257. 8:56particularly through your nose and into
  258. 8:58your belly
  259. 8:59so this is belly breathing or
  260. 9:01diaphragmatic breathing i think it's a
  261. 9:03particularly
  262. 9:05useful way to activate the biggest and
  263. 9:07dial down the sympathetic nerve system
  264. 9:08so don't ever underestimate in fact it
  265. 9:11is crucial to the recovery of patients
  266. 9:13with long coverage to really focus on
  267. 9:15breath particularly nasal belly
  268. 9:17breathing and i think that's why some
  269. 9:19long covert recovery groups or exercises
  270. 9:22with either respiratory physio
  271. 9:24or even say
  272. 9:26the english national opera program ian
  273. 9:28o'brief have had some success
  274. 9:31some yoga
  275. 9:33some yoga studios have opened up rest
  276. 9:35recovery
  277. 9:36programs such as susie bowl and there
  278. 9:38are several other yoga programs and the
  279. 9:41focus for all these programs
  280. 9:43is centered around breath work i mean
  281. 9:46there are other things including pacing
  282. 9:48and important holistic strategies which
  283. 9:50i fully believe in but breath work is
  284. 9:52the central tenet by which you can
  285. 9:54reduce the expression of the
  286. 9:55parasympathetic surface nervous system
  287. 9:58so so another example of pacing where i
  288. 10:00do try and activate a clunk in the other
  289. 10:02direction is even sitting at home and
  290. 10:04working at my desk i'll do
  291. 10:07perhaps 40 minutes if i'm really lucky i
  292. 10:09might manage to stretch for about 40
  293. 10:10minutes at my desk and i notice at that
  294. 10:13point that my cognitive is weird i start
  295. 10:15to feel that my ability to process
  296. 10:17information becomes compromised i can go
  297. 10:19and lie down i put on my alpha stim so
  298. 10:21electrical stimulation
  299. 10:22um theory of a you know slows that long
  300. 10:25wave stimulation something like that and
  301. 10:27i'll lie down on the sofa i'll close my
  302. 10:29eyes trying to remove as much as
  303. 10:30possible do the coherence breathing and
  304. 10:32what i find often happens really quickly
  305. 10:34is i will trigger
  306. 10:36a series of very strong aggressive yawns
  307. 10:39that come through and after that
  308. 10:4110 minute period my eyes are watering
  309. 10:43the horns are attacking and that feels
  310. 10:45like it's a clunk back in the other
  311. 10:47direction back towards a parasympathetic
  312. 10:49once i've done that the heart rate's
  313. 10:51about 10 15 bpm lower
  314. 10:54and my head is clear and i can think
  315. 10:55again and i've got another 40 minutes
  316. 10:57clear and that's how i manage my working
  317. 10:59days so so can can can i can i share
  318. 11:02that um one of the things that i've
  319. 11:04always wanted to study in greater detail
  320. 11:07is the physiology of yawning
  321. 11:09because oh my goodness do we see people
  322. 11:11gone a lot during tilt particularly i
  323. 11:13mean if we have time we can talk about
  324. 11:15the tilt data which i can demonstrate
  325. 11:17your own data but
  326. 11:18the yawning that occurs in people who
  327. 11:21are not otherwise sleepy but the
  328. 11:23opposite people who are adrenergically
  329. 11:25driven or sympathetic nerve system
  330. 11:27overdrive
  331. 11:28is so marked sometimes
  332. 11:30and in the context of that of that
  333. 11:32sympathetic overdrive they start yawning
  334. 11:34and i think yawning is a very very
  335. 11:37complex physiological process
  336. 11:39and um
  337. 11:41you know the dr seuss sleep book if
  338. 11:43you've ever come across it is a great
  339. 11:45way to get your kids to sleep because i
  340. 11:47guarantee you by the time you're halfway
  341. 11:48through the book both you and your kid
  342. 11:51will have yawn at least five or
  343. 11:53a dozen times
  344. 11:55because it is that kind of looking at
  345. 11:57somebody else's yawn can trigger yawning
  346. 12:00you but in this particular case on the
  347. 12:02tilt lab and certainly what you've just
  348. 12:04described i think yawning triggers a
  349. 12:06physiological reset if you like i can't
  350. 12:09really uh prove it yet but it's
  351. 12:12something it's one of the things that i
  352. 12:13have observed as an interesting thing
  353. 12:16that's seen during tilt during synthetic
  354. 12:18there's an argument i read somewhere
  355. 12:20about how actually the process of
  356. 12:21yawning creates pressure on the vagus
  357. 12:23nerve so it's a
  358. 12:25it's a sort of an action that the body
  359. 12:26takes to try and push the body back into
  360. 12:29a parasympathetic state that was what i
  361. 12:31read and it seems to make some sort of
  362. 12:33sense right yeah so it makes sense but
  363. 12:35you know if you think about respiratory
  364. 12:37sinus arrhythmia
  365. 12:39the maximum variability in in the heart
  366. 12:42rate profile which is your respiratory
  367. 12:44sinus erythema and that's what hrv is
  368. 12:46heart rate variability
  369. 12:47is the extent that your heart rate
  370. 12:49varies between the nader the trough and
  371. 12:51the peak over a respiratory cycle so if
  372. 12:54you take a deep breath in
  373. 12:56and you take a deep breath out and you
  374. 12:58monitor your pulse either in your neck
  375. 13:00or your
  376. 13:01wrist then your audience can do that now
  377. 13:03particularly if you follow a slow
  378. 13:05cadence which is said to be a coherent
  379. 13:07breathing pattern the ideal breath as
  380. 13:09james nestor says in his book breath
  381. 13:12which is there which is there
  382. 13:15is is a phenomenal
  383. 13:18way to activate your maximum hrv
  384. 13:21training and this this we can show very
  385. 13:23clearly on tools like heart math and so
  386. 13:26this is something that
  387. 13:28actually with the bio feedback that you
  388. 13:30get and your regulation of your heart
  389. 13:32rate variability
  390. 13:33can help to activate the parasympathetic
  391. 13:35nervous system but it's often thought
  392. 13:37that it's due to the mechanisms not only
  393. 13:39pressure in the vegas but
  394. 13:41intrathoracic pressure expansion and
  395. 13:44contraction lung volume expansion and
  396. 13:46contraction
  397. 13:47and therefore the volume of blood in
  398. 13:50your heart expanding and contracting and
  399. 13:53they are very sensitive both
  400. 13:54chemoreceptors and baroreceptors but i
  401. 13:56think for yawning
  402. 13:58it's not mainly the chemoreceptor
  403. 14:00because it would take too quick for for
  404. 14:02you to change your co2 levels or oxygen
  405. 14:04levels
  406. 14:05but more like immediate stretch because
  407. 14:08the stretch receptor is quick
  408. 14:10and the stretch receptors are available
  409. 14:12for action and reaction in the lung
  410. 14:15in the aortic arch and in the bare
  411. 14:17reflex which are here and that can
  412. 14:19can be activated just like that so
  413. 14:21yawning resets those stretch receptors
  414. 14:24that then give a very complex feedback
  415. 14:26loop into the primitive brain
  416. 14:28which then alters the outputs which are
  417. 14:30vagus
  418. 14:32and sympathetic chain and depending on
  419. 14:34how much your vegas is pulsing up
  420. 14:37and down together with the sympathetic
  421. 14:39chain that dictates your hrv
  422. 14:43so it's it's complex it's wonderfully
  423. 14:46complex and i would say it's so so uh
  424. 14:49nice to see this physiology every day in
  425. 14:51in in the tilt lab uh it's just that um
  426. 14:55the too many variables
  427. 14:58when your sympathetic nervous system is
  428. 14:59yo-yoing and activating the yawn doesn't
  429. 15:01really touch it all that much so trying
  430. 15:03to demonstrate a clear delta is a bit
  431. 15:06more difficult so we need i guess more
  432. 15:08controlled conditions and it's always
  433. 15:10been one of my dreams to do a doctor
  434. 15:13sleep book tilt table
  435. 15:14test control in a normal subject to see
  436. 15:17what the physiological impact of the ion
  437. 15:19is
  438. 15:21absolutely fascinating let's say you've
  439. 15:23got two types of patients who present to
  440. 15:24you one like me who presents with this
  441. 15:27automobile but not necessarily pots and
  442. 15:29another who presents like one of those
  443. 15:31other tilt um
  444. 15:33tests you showed which have definite
  445. 15:36pots as well as dysautonomia how do you
  446. 15:38go about treating them what are the
  447. 15:40first things that you advise in terms of
  448. 15:42behavior and what do you
  449. 15:44is there anything that you go down in
  450. 15:46terms of medication
  451. 15:47so i i would suggest that
  452. 15:50there
  453. 15:51is the
  454. 15:52ability to
  455. 15:54deploy a whole lot of conservative
  456. 15:56strategies so this is my kind of website
  457. 15:58which is a moment charitably run and
  458. 16:01kind of created on a sunday morning with
  459. 16:03my co-conspirators
  460. 16:06pro bono um but uh there's one
  461. 16:09particular autonomic dysfunction sheet
  462. 16:11that you could you could download freely
  463. 16:14from from the website
  464. 16:15and um
  465. 16:17it really
  466. 16:18talks about top tips for improving
  467. 16:20autonomic dysfunction in long covet
  468. 16:22so
  469. 16:23i i don't like to start off with drugs
  470. 16:25and that much i will say i like to start
  471. 16:27off with a very clear diagnosis and
  472. 16:31i don't want to pretend that there
  473. 16:33aren't other multiple diagnosis or
  474. 16:36mechanisms for long covet that you've
  475. 16:39covered very much and very well in your
  476. 16:41other talks
  477. 16:43but if
  478. 16:45if the patient has got worsening
  479. 16:46symptoms on standing and improving on
  480. 16:49sitting
  481. 16:50and
  482. 16:51and that is a prevailing feature the
  483. 16:54palpitations and everything else we
  484. 16:55talked about
  485. 16:56then i'm going to for a moment forget
  486. 16:58about mast cell immune activation viral
  487. 17:01debris
  488. 17:02uh platelets and all this other stuff
  489. 17:04i'm gonna forget about it because if
  490. 17:06those were true
  491. 17:08then when you stand up or you sit down
  492. 17:10those mechanisms would still be at play
  493. 17:12so this is specific for the patient
  494. 17:14cohort that i'm talking about autonomic
  495. 17:16dysfunction and i recognize that this is
  496. 17:18a
  497. 17:19cohort that obviously i'm biased in my
  498. 17:21experience because when they are
  499. 17:22referred for people are suspecting it so
  500. 17:26it tends to be
  501. 17:27manifested in the tilt data
  502. 17:29but that being said
  503. 17:31that caveat being said i would say that
  504. 17:34fluid increase
  505. 17:35because most of these people have got
  506. 17:37low or low normal blood pressures
  507. 17:40uh but
  508. 17:41with the exception of the the tilts that
  509. 17:43i showed you okay yeah yeah
  510. 17:45if if you are going to be doing an
  511. 17:47activity as particularly exercising
  512. 17:49consider salt intake or consider an
  513. 17:52isotonic effervescent tablet
  514. 17:54which is the isotonic isotabs that you
  515. 17:58can put and it fizzes like a baroque
  516. 17:59dust not broken something like noon
  517. 18:01precision 1500 ors these kind of tablets
  518. 18:05consider wearing compression stockings
  519. 18:07which should be lower limb compression
  520. 18:08to the thigh or to the waist or abdomen
  521. 18:12and
  522. 18:12if you like there are consumer grade
  523. 18:14stockings sporting stockings that are
  524. 18:17pretty compressive such as skins
  525. 18:19uh but then there are
  526. 18:21there are other stockings which are
  527. 18:22medical grades such as bauerfeind
  528. 18:24sigvaris garment and these are stockings
  529. 18:27that you could wear
  530. 18:28because if you think about the
  531. 18:30physiology you're pooling blood right in
  532. 18:32your lower limbs and what you'd like to
  533. 18:33do is squeeze externally so the
  534. 18:35stockings give you some external squeeze
  535. 18:38and then the internal compression is
  536. 18:40quite helpful where
  537. 18:43you learn to perform isometric counter
  538. 18:45pressure exercises i don't know if
  539. 18:46you've ever done this js but just
  540. 18:48squeezing your glutes your quadriceps
  541. 18:50and your calves can immediately give you
  542. 18:53that boost so if you're if you're
  543. 18:54flagging a bit now jazz try and just
  544. 18:56squeeze your buttocks squeeze your
  545. 18:59halves and your and your quads you see
  546. 19:01i'm bouncing in my chair yeah and just
  547. 19:03by squeezing sometimes you see a
  548. 19:05sharpening because what you're doing is
  549. 19:07you're returning the blood
  550. 19:09parked away in the huge reservoirs which
  551. 19:11are your lower limbs
  552. 19:12back into the heart so that could work
  553. 19:15and then
  554. 19:16this is the bit that you already talked
  555. 19:18about and i'm glad you you you raised
  556. 19:20this not me slowing your breath down to
  557. 19:22five or six seconds
  558. 19:24uh in a sinusoidal pattern because then
  559. 19:26you activate or you clunk into vegas
  560. 19:29yeah um and then
  561. 19:31my view is there are two
  562. 19:33approaches one is the bottom-up approach
  563. 19:36where you engage and entrain physiology
  564. 19:38in my mind the autonomic nervous system
  565. 19:40facets
  566. 19:41of which there we said peristalsis blood
  567. 19:44pressure breathing rate temperature
  568. 19:46sweating
  569. 19:47capillary dilatation
  570. 19:49a lot of that is not under your control
  571. 19:51apart from one which is your breath
  572. 19:54so the breath i think is a very very
  573. 19:57nice shortcut or the only way in roads
  574. 20:00into the autonomic nervous system
  575. 20:03to which we can apply our own effort so
  576. 20:06physiologically we take control of our
  577. 20:08breath and we train it to the perfect
  578. 20:10breath
  579. 20:11which is five or six seconds for most
  580. 20:13people
  581. 20:14and that gives you more vagal expression
  582. 20:16but the other component that expresses
  583. 20:19higher
  584. 20:20positive autonomic balance and in
  585. 20:23particular more vegas less sympathetic
  586. 20:25is actually coupling that breath with a
  587. 20:27positive emotion or thought
  588. 20:29and the easiest to elicit would be
  589. 20:32something like gratitude but compassion
  590. 20:34love forgiveness these are also other
  591. 20:37emotions that you could you could bring
  592. 20:39into play as you're focusing on the
  593. 20:40breath
  594. 20:41and the focus on the breath without
  595. 20:44ideally any distracting thoughts about
  596. 20:46what's happening in the future or how
  597. 20:48the day is going to be or
  598. 20:50the past thoughts of anxiety is the way
  599. 20:54i think the best way to try and recenter
  600. 20:57your autonomic nervous system by
  601. 20:59yourself and this means living in the
  602. 21:01present moment and what better way as
  603. 21:03you know
  604. 21:04to be in the present moment than to just
  605. 21:06focus on the air the healing
  606. 21:08kind of nurturing air
  607. 21:11uh coming in through your nose into the
  608. 21:13deep recesses of the lungs in a six
  609. 21:15second breath and coming out
  610. 21:17so
  611. 21:18so that is my bias
  612. 21:20in terms of treatment um
  613. 21:23which is a more conservative
  614. 21:25step-wise not step-wise but a
  615. 21:27conservative
  616. 21:28lot of treatment
  617. 21:30uh there are pharmacological agents that
  618. 21:33i will use in some patients and in new
  619. 21:35jersey you hadn't
  620. 21:37if you were my patient i guess you came
  621. 21:39for a tilt but you weren't referred to
  622. 21:40me but if you were my patient i would
  623. 21:42ask you
  624. 21:43how you're getting along in day to day
  625. 21:44life
  626. 21:45and i would see you are you as a highly
  627. 21:48functioning patient when you want to be
  628. 21:50or when you're not misbehaving like
  629. 21:51going to thor park all day
  630. 21:53or skiing without a break yeah and this
  631. 21:56kind of behaviors that are necessary for
  632. 21:59enjoyment of life
  633. 22:00sometimes
  634. 22:02uh are should be forgiven by yourself
  635. 22:05yeah yeah so you you've gone to thought
  636. 22:07part don't regret a crash that you're
  637. 22:09experiencing now
  638. 22:10in fact embrace the fact that you
  639. 22:12enjoyed top part yesterday and today
  640. 22:14you'll sleep it off or rest or recover
  641. 22:17drink lots of fluids and you know what
  642. 22:19you'll be better tomorrow yeah but you
  643. 22:21have to forgive yourself and this is
  644. 22:23also part of that state that we talked
  645. 22:25about the psychological state that oh
  646. 22:27damn it i did too much and now i'm back
  647. 22:29on
  648. 22:30that is also a very autonomically
  649. 22:32uh unhelpful state of mind to be in
  650. 22:36completely agreed
  651. 22:37yeah the mindset actually affects the
  652. 22:39autonomic a lot more than we think
  653. 22:41so um
  654. 22:43that that being said jess for for you if
  655. 22:46you had done your fluid to salt your
  656. 22:48compression your mindset you didn't go
  657. 22:50to the top part every other day
  658. 22:52and you were still symptomatic then i
  659. 22:53would give you a drug to augment your
  660. 22:55blood pressure something like mediadrin
  661. 22:57which is an alpha blocker which is um
  662. 23:00something that vasoconstricts
  663. 23:02your splenic or the
  664. 23:04blood vessels in your gut or the
  665. 23:06peripheral vascular system which is your
  666. 23:09lower limbs it would constrict that
  667. 23:11return blood to your heart and improve
  668. 23:12blood volume improve blood pressure or
  669. 23:15fluid your cortisone which is a
  670. 23:17mineralocorticoid which serves to
  671. 23:19reabsorb more salt at the level of your
  672. 23:20kidney and again expanding your plasma
  673. 23:23volume and not allowing this push or
  674. 23:25this pull gravitational pull to occur
  675. 23:28so that that is what i would i would
  676. 23:30suggest um in terms of the guidance from
  677. 23:34tilt testing because the tilt testing
  678. 23:36will give me an idea whether you're low
  679. 23:38or high blood pressure if you're high
  680. 23:39blood pressure i wouldn't give you
  681. 23:40midogram if your high blood pressure is
  682. 23:43the dominant symptom and
  683. 23:45not dominant symptom but the dominant
  684. 23:47physiology together with palpitations as
  685. 23:49your dominant symptom or maybe chest
  686. 23:51pain i might give you something to slow
  687. 23:53your heart rate down
  688. 23:55so this is then guided by the tilt
  689. 23:57because i don't want to give you
  690. 23:58mediadrin your blood pressure's already
  691. 24:00high i give you propranolol which is a
  692. 24:02non-selective beta blocker in the
  693. 24:04loadout something like 10 to 20
  694. 24:05milligrams twice a day
  695. 24:07or i give you evaporating
  696. 24:09if i'm concerned that i don't want to
  697. 24:11push your blood pressure down because
  698. 24:13propane oil can reduce your blood
  699. 24:14pressure a bit but generally propanol
  700. 24:16and ivabridine
  701. 24:19and vapordine by the way is 2.5
  702. 24:21milligrams twice a day
  703. 24:22these are the drugs that we would give
  704. 24:24for patients predominantly suffering
  705. 24:26with tachycardia on standing
  706. 24:28but it can also have a very calming
  707. 24:31effect and then very interestingly uh
  708. 24:34well interesting for me is that those
  709. 24:35patients who have palpitations at night
  710. 24:38and i'm seeing quite a lot of them who
  711. 24:40describe pop stations in a day
  712. 24:42but also palpitations at night you might
  713. 24:44ask me why
  714. 24:46when you're lying flat do you activate
  715. 24:48the autonomic nervous system there's no
  716. 24:50reason for it right because you're not
  717. 24:51being tilted and you're not sleepwalking
  718. 24:54and the answer is
  719. 24:55not the answer but in my anecdotal
  720. 24:58experience i think there is a degree of
  721. 25:01overlap between the mast cell story so
  722. 25:04as i said i'm open to other theories
  723. 25:06yeah
  724. 25:07and in in the in the realm of mass cell
  725. 25:11degranulation or histamine intolerance
  726. 25:14what we get is a spontaneous
  727. 25:17release of histamines at night
  728. 25:20which may be triggered by a dream or may
  729. 25:22be triggered by just
  730. 25:25the ongoing insensible losses at night
  731. 25:27in sensible losses means when you
  732. 25:28produce urine you sweat under the sheets
  733. 25:30you're breathing you're not drinking
  734. 25:32anymore at night and so the blood
  735. 25:33pressure tends to fall triggers an
  736. 25:35autonomic nervous system surge whilst
  737. 25:38getting dehydrated mast cells suddenly
  738. 25:40degranulate because it's reached a
  739. 25:42critical point because one of the
  740. 25:43sensitizes of mast cells is a heightened
  741. 25:46sympathetic nervous system
  742. 25:48then
  743. 25:49you suddenly get a pooling like this is
  744. 25:51a clunk occurrence because it's not like
  745. 25:54gradually getting tax cut you wake up
  746. 25:57and your heart is racing those patients
  747. 25:59can do very well with a nocturnal
  748. 26:01antihistamine or even bd antihistamines
  749. 26:04and i don't mind a h1 in h2 blocker and
  750. 26:07i do prescribe that this in my practice
  751. 26:09as well with that specific syndrome
  752. 26:11profile but also if you get a rash and
  753. 26:13hives and all these other more typical
  754. 26:15features of mast cells i hope you found
  755. 26:17that discussion as enlightening and
  756. 26:19fascinating as i did
  757. 26:21next up is going to be the film on tilt
  758. 26:23tests where we go through my results as
  759. 26:26well as
  760. 26:27a healthy control and two other long
  761. 26:29haulers and see exactly what's going on
  762. 26:31in terms of malfunctioning physiology
  763. 26:34until next time
  764. 26:44you

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