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Why NOT exercise?

Keela Too

Sally Burch
Messages
900
Location
N.Ireland
Dr VanNess suggested we had 2 minutes of reserves max.

The other thing he said was that it seems carbonic acid could be the problem with muscle pain rather than lactic acid. I sort of stored that nugget for later processing. He said this had been a surprise, as it had always been assumed that the acid problem was lactic acid. All interesting stuff

This from when he spoke here in N.Ireland in February.
 

SDSue

Southeast
Messages
1,066
Maybe my 30 seconds is more POTS related? Who'da thought 2 minutes would seem like a luxury lol!
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
The idea that lactic acid causes muscle pain is an old and wrong idea. It was disproved long ago I think .... long in modern science terms, its still a modern discovery. Lactic acid actually increases capacity to cope with energy demand, and especially hypoxia, at least in the short term.

I am unsure why he thinks carbonic acid is a problem, which does matter to me because I drink soda water. This implies that we might be building up carbon dioxide in our tissues. Further, this implies that one of our major problems is a failure in blood supply, either locally in tissues or generally from heart function.

How much energy is stored is variable, individual by individual. Athletes have several minutes. The brain stores very little. Muscles store the most. An athletic heavily muscled person will have a lot of stored energy if they have eaten well and rested.

There are metabolic diseases that negatively impact on such energy storage, including glycogen storage diseases, which are generally genetic disorders and doctors often miss them. My first (wrong) model of CFS compared CFS with Tarui disease.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphofructokinase_deficiency

For a couple of years the docs here were calling me the phosphofructokinase guy, since they didn't recall or were never told my name.
 
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SDSue

Southeast
Messages
1,066
Well, rats. I, too, drink a TON of soda water. I find that I can't tolerate the amounts of flat water required for POTS without getting stomach upset.

Since @alex3619 is way ahead of me in the research department, I'll just stalk this thread - when he gives up soda water, I'll know it's time for me to do the same. What say you, Alex? (In the meantime, looks like I'll be on PubMed this evening!)
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Lol, I drink soda water primarily since its a calorie free way of calming a sore throat, as long as the throat is not raw - and along with many patients I find I like soda water, whereas the general population tends to dislike it. If the throat raw from coughing then its not a good idea to drink soda water as it can be painful. Also carbonic acid in the gut may not be a huge problem in the blood.
 
Messages
15,786
I am unsure why he thinks carbonic acid is a problem, which does matter to me because I drink soda water. This implies that we might be building up carbon dioxide in our tissues.
I've never been able to drink soda, even diluted - it makes my mouth burn.
 

peggy-sue

Senior Member
Messages
2,623
Location
Scotland
Was there not a paper published just very recently, where they injected exercise metabolites into folk's fingers to discover which caused pain - and I thought lactic acid did... ?
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
We do have acid sensors. This might be interpreted as pain. However lactic acid is a weak acid. So it might require a high concentration to induce pain. However we do know our muscles, based on Julia Newton's work, can produce a lot of lactic acid. So the science is not completely clear on this.
 

peggy-sue

Senior Member
Messages
2,623
Location
Scotland
I get what I have always described as being a "lactic acid pain" building up rapidly in my legs as soon as there is a slight incline or I try to go up stairs.

I have to stop, and stand with my legs bent (this eases the pain as it subsides) until it's gone before I can continue.

It if not lactic acid - what is it?
 

Mij

Messages
2,353
@peggy-sue I'm sorry you can't watch. You might find something that explains what you are asking. I think it's gas exchange, CO2 by product of aerobic metabolism.

Other factors that affect Heart Rate. I can power walk for one hour in the evenings and climb 11 floors to my apartment.. In the morning ---> 3pm ish I'm out of breath after walking 3 blocks--can't climb a flight of stairs.

What affects heart rate?

.
Cardiology. 2004;102(2):93-9. Epub 2004 Apr 19

• Variables affecting heart rate response
– Medications
– Ambient temperature
– Environmental noise
– Body temperature
– Elevation
– Time of day
– Illness
http://www.rme.nu/sites/rme.nu/files/snellpp2.pdf
 

peggy-sue

Senior Member
Messages
2,623
Location
Scotland
I seem to get a bit of a surge at around 4pm, when I'm able to do a bit of housework.

And again at around 11pm.

But I don't know how much of the 4 pm one is me being more able

- or just having a panic about having no clean crockery left, but
several huge piles of dirty laundry and cat puke to trip over,
when M gets home from work,

and having an adrenalin rush from that.:redface:

I don't know why I can get active at 11pm.o_O
 

SDSue

Southeast
Messages
1,066
I seem to get a bit of a surge at around 4pm, when I'm able to do a bit of housework.

And again at around 11pm.

But I don't know how much of the 4 pm one is me being more able

- or just having a panic about having no clean crockery left, but
several huge piles of dirty laundry and cat puke to trip over,
when M gets home from work,

and having an adrenalin rush from that.:redface:

I don't know why I can get active at 11pm.o_O
I feel my best after the sun goes down and I've made it thru another day. Because I feel better in the evening, however, I HATE to go to bed and stay up way too late.

I wonder if it's because I know that once I go to bed, the next thing is lying awake, fitful sleep, and waking up the next day feeling like crap again.
 

Keela Too

Sally Burch
Messages
900
Location
N.Ireland
I think I'm rare, once I'm up in the mornings I feel better than later in the day - but the difference is not nearly as dramatic as described above.

I am still quite disabled - not because of hte immediate effects at teh time, but because of PEM a day or two later.

I average only 600 paces a day (240metres) but can do a bit extra - say 900 paces one day - provided I do less in the days before/after to keep to the average over the spread of a few days.

Biggest danger for me is a series of several days feeling "better" and doing only a little extra on each of those days.... I can suddenly crash into PEM even if I've taken a day back to "normal" and thought I'd "got away" with the extra activity.

And sometimes I've never regained afterwards.

I am understandably very cautious. However I rarely have dramatic symptoms at the time - and that makes it so hard to judge.

I now wear a watch that I can use to check my HR, but doing that alone is not enough to keep me right, I have to keep quantity down as well as intensity ...


I do wonder about delayed PEM however, it doesn't seem logical to be just the acid build up thing as that would surely be more immediate and relieved by a day's rest. This makes me think that no matter what is going on with muscles/acid etc, that there must still be some serious immunological response that floors us later. Certainly PEM for me is a cross between migraine and flu.

Interesting discussion folks.
 

Mij

Messages
2,353

Yes definitely, I don`t exercise every week, it depends on temperature, if my immune system is fighting something, appointments, shopping, etc I don`t power walk in the summer months at all, only during cooler months. I believe it has something to do with cortisol levels too. I wish it was the reverse; feeling better during morning-afternoon, rather than evenings.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
The myth of lactic acid and pain is due to it being associated with pain. Its not causative from my understanding. Athletes do better if they can have high lactic acid. VanNess does a good job of explaining some of this, its a shame if you can't watch such videos.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Anything that alters cell and serum pH can have dramatic persistent effects, if the alteration is severe or prolonged. This is because many enzymes have specific optimum pH ranges, and when this changed so does the rate of enzyme activity. Carbonic acid would be similar.

Take lactic acidosis for example. In the short term the increased acidity promotes oxygen dumping, leading to more oxygen in the tissue that is producing lactic acid. If prolonged it changes enzymatic activity, only now oxygen dumping is in decline as a critical substance is depleted. This then creates a positive feedback loop where high lactate drives poor oxygen, and poor oxygen drives high lactate. Untreated this is usually fatal, and sometimes occurs in diabetics. Now I have long suspected we might get something similar but less severe, and I have wondered if any of us have died from lactic acidosis.