Yeah, perrier above said that Van Elzakker said that lying down flat just makes things worse...@cigana What made you mention this. Is it referenced elsewhere in this thread? I can't see where it applies. Thanks
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Yeah, perrier above said that Van Elzakker said that lying down flat just makes things worse...@cigana What made you mention this. Is it referenced elsewhere in this thread? I can't see where it applies. Thanks
Interesting read indeed. Thanks.
Two questions: 1) has anyone tried putting bricks at the head of their bed? Has it helped? He is suggesting that lying flat just makes things worse. Yet many folks are bedbound. 2) has anyone tried vagus nerve stimulation with say a biomodulator? Is there any evidence this device helps ME folks?
I can lower my heart rate with slow, deep breaths. When I exhale, my heart rate goes down. When I inhale, it comes back up, but not as high. After several repetitions, my heart rate is lower.I was also told that I have respiratory sinus arrhythmia - a benign condition in which the heart speeds up when inhaling and slows down when exhaling.
I was not an athlete, but was active and fit when I got ME/CFS. My resting heart rate stayed low for several years.Indeed, early in my illness, my doctor assumed I was an athlete due to my low resting pulse rate.
I'd never noticed that my heart rate was slow until a couple of weeks after the onset of ME when a doctor put me on a beta blocker - presumably for "anxiety." This sent my heart rate down into the high 30's and I was I quickly taken off the drug. It then became obvious that my resting pulse was only about 50 - something neither I nor any doctor had noticed prior to the onset of ME.
Same here, mid-low 40s resting, down to 38bpm after taking a small dose of bisoprolol. Did your doctor give any reason for thinking it was too low? My GP wasn't happy about it dipping into the 30s but the electrophysiologist I saw wasn't concerned, presumably because it doesn't seem to cause overt symptoms for me.
I also have a low resting HR and am taking a drug that can lower it further. I wanted to monitor what was happening during sleep so got a Polar A300 HR monitor which syncs with a smart phone or computer and give me my HR as a graph for the period monitored. I find this very helpful--I can check the graph every morning.I think my doctor was concerned with how low my pulse might be getting while I slept, so he just told me to stop taking the drug.
.... I had a 24 hour Holter monitor to see how low it went during sleep.
I'd never noticed that my heart rate was slow until a couple of weeks after the onset of ME when a doctor put me on a beta blocker - presumably for "anxiety." This sent my heart rate down into the high 30's and I was I quickly taken off the drug. It then became obvious that my resting pulse was only about 50 - something neither I nor any doctor had noticed prior to the onset of ME.
After trying to take smaller doses of the beta blocker, I woke up one morning with my hands feeling cold as ice.
Yesterday, my fingers turned a combination of blue and white -- a return of Raynaud's symptoms that improved post-ME.