Blood volume testing

[kushami]

It looks like blood volume testing via this method is going to be available at Mayo Rochester:

https://www.mayo.edu/research/clinical-trials/cls-20309535

I would love to see these devices scattered about at the major centres for research and clinical use. They are inexpensive to buy and run (for medical equipment) and can help in many medical conditions.

 

[kushami]

I am not sure whether the Mayo researchers are developing their own device, or trialling the one from Detalo Health that I linked to, or trialling another commercial device.

I think this technique (CO rebreathing) has been around for a while, and I know NASA uses it when studying blood volume loss and replenishment in astronauts. NASA may have built its own device in house many years ago.

I believe the technique has also been used to study the effects of altitude and for various purposes in sports science.

But as far as I know it was not until 2023 that a commercial medical device, available off the shelf, was approved for sale in Europe (i.e. the Detalo Health one).

 

[BrightCandle]

Carbon monoxide? If that is the best way uh fine but can we not have chosen a safer tracer in the blood! Not that the radioisotope answer was any better.

 

[kushami]

It’s much safer than radio isotope testing (for patients and staff). It is equivalent to the amount of CO from smoking one cigarette, but of course without the other nasty stuff. The CO dissipates harmlessly after the test.

The device has been tested extensively in order to be approved in the EU, including studies showing it caused no adverse effects in patients with heart and kidney failure (obviously done after testing on healthy subjects).

You can read the credentials of the company owners here:
https://detalo-health.com/company_information/

Lovely chaps from Denmark who are parlaying sports science into medical science. (The device can help with many serious conditions.)

I wish I could have had this testing in place of the year and a half that I spent fruitlessly pursuing volume expansion measures, getting side effects from some of the medications, wasting time and money, peeing a lot, eating extra salt that I didn’t need, and eventually driving four hours to get saline IVs. (It turns out I don’t have low blood volume.)

All that harmed me a great deal more than a small puff of CO, or even a dose of radio isotope tracer had that method been available to me.

I should have spent the money on flying to Denmark!

 

[cfs since 1998]

I wish I could have had this testing in place of the year and a half that I spent fruitlessly pursuing volume expansion measures, getting side effects from some of the medications, wasting time and money, peeing a lot, eating extra salt that I didn’t need, and eventually driving four hours to get saline IVs. (It turns out I don’t have low blood volume.)

I agree, I don't think most of us have low blood volume.

Caffeine helps my OI and if the symptoms were due to low blood volume it should make it worse since it's a diuretic. Going to try nicotine patches next.