what happens with respiration

in IBM the diaphragm can be weakened and during the day, extra muscle action is unconsciously used to inflate the lungs. Again we can see this -- when you inhale the shoulders rise as the skeletal muscle helps to inflate the chest cavity. But when the diaphragm is weak, we have something called paradoxical breathing -- again laying flat, in this case, the abdomen does not rise, in fact instead it falls. this action generally gives you enough air during the day that you don't notice any problems

During sleep the skeletal muscle is paralyzed and you rely only upon your diaphragm for breathing. People with weak diaphragms end up becoming shorter and more shallow breaths during sleep and waking up due to inefficiency. This is essentially sleep apnea. The person may not notice this but a partner often reports that the person is going through periods of snoring or snorting that lead to a partial arousal.

These problems can also often result in pneumonia which may be difficult to treat or may recur and as well, a condition where the lungs begin to fail to fully inflate and begin to partially collapse.

People often report being extremely tired especially during the day when this phenomena is occurring because they are not getting a proper night's rest. Second, we should clarify that the real problem here is not that people are not getting enough oxygen, the problem is that there is not enough volume of air going past the lung tissue to adequately expel carbon dioxide. Over time, carbon dioxide levels slowly rise in the blood eventually causing problems in the part of the brain that controls respiration and leading to death.

There are two very simple tests, one is a computerized machine that you blow into that measures your volume of air and compares it to the norm. I was quite shocked that my reading was 30% of normal. The second main test is an arterial blood gas reading--this test measures the amount of the different gases in the blood. I was lucky that my carbon dioxide level was near normal at 35 and that we had caught this problem quickly enough.

There's also a complicated test that is usually required called a sleep study. In this test, you are hooked up to a number of different machines that measure respiration and vital functions and you're then required to go to sleep while the machine measures things. This catches the episodes of sleep apnea and oxygen deprivation and they can actually see how during the night your levels of carbon dioxide shoot up. This test can either be done in a sleep clinic, usually part of a hospital, or sometimes it's done at home.

The treatment for this problem is simple -- the use of a bi-pap machine at night. this is a major advance -- it's a little machine that pumps ordinary air into a tube that's attached to your face using a mask. A puff of air pushes into your lungs inflating them for one second followed by a 2 second relaxation for exhalation. This produces approximately 18 breaths per minute. Although this sounds uncomfortable, once you're on the machine there is an astounding difference in how you feel and I personally have not had much trouble adapting to using the machine.

there is another simple treatment that's often used and this is described on my website better than I can describe it here -- it uses a bag to help keep the lungs fully expanded and inflated to allow maximum air intake. Normally you would use this bag with the help of an assistant to three times a day to exercise the lungs. See the link below for more information.