I've been working on a time-line for the development and progression of my symptoms. In looking at the time-line, I realized that the onset of the stiffness and rigidity (my first symptoms) seem to coincide with the onset of sleep apnea. Well, sleep apnea causes hypoxemia (inadequate oxygenation of the blood). I started wondering if the lack of oxygen in the blood could have somehow played a role in the degeneration of the cells that produce dopamine. I know that sleep apnea causes some seriously painful headaches.

Does anyone know of any studies that suggest or support that hypoxia, especially chronic hypoxia, may contribute to PD?

Karl

Hi Karl,
I was interested in your post since I have sleep apnea, so bad my wife says I stop breathing for minutes. I think I have got her worried I am not going to restart!!!!
I was curious since I had not realized that sleep apnea causes hypoxemia, so I did a search. When you Google "hypoxemea Parkinson's", I got over half a million references. It seems there is a definite link between PD and hypoxemia.
Best wishes
Ron

I read somewhere that older folk in general often have hypoxia due to shallow breathing. Given our diaphraghm rigidity and lack of exercise, it is bound to be a factor.

Dear gang;

The research in China and the UK is much more advanced than America. They have clearly recognized that the person who has Parkin mutations symptoms are clearly recognized as different than Young onset juvenile Parkinson's disease from ideopathic Parkinson's disease.

America, who has been focusing on fighting about embryonic stem cells, suddenly is discovering the UK is on the right path. Now suddenly American reseachers have stopped batteling for money for embryonic stem cell research to genetic research. What I question is why America has to redo the Europeon nations research instead of helping to work with the other countries to find a cure? Why spend so much money and time remaking the research?

Vicky

....could explain a lot.

The symptoms of PD are noticable when there is already loss of 60-80% of the dopamine cells.

If your apnea coincided with the other symptoms, it argues for it being a symptom rather than the cause. Hypoxia may accelerate the process however.

Sleep breathing disorders in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease
Our results suggest that sleep breathing disorders, predominantly obstructive, seem to be common in PD and those events correlate with the severity of the disease.

Ronhutton, isn't hypoxia associated with BBB damage?

By the way-

Ronhutton- get to a sleep center ASAP!!! Apnea like that is extremely serious. You truly may not restart. It happens. And you're doing major damage to your heart pumping deoxygenated blood around like that.

All your PD research will be for nothing if you drop dead from a heart attack next week!

And Vicky-
It's all about the patents. Nothing else. I worked for a pharma co, believe me- treating sick people is only a side effect of the business.

whose driving conviction was that reduced blood flow to the brain resulted in - or at least was a major causitive factor in developing PD symptoms. His experience with EECP prooved this to him -as he would say - "beyond the shadow of a doubt." His symptoms were instantly alleviated by the pumping action of the machine.

for those who may not know, EECP is a cardiac therapy - termed the natural by-pass - that increases blood flow (oxygen) to the heart - and brain. That this was helpful with PD symptoms was discovered by chance by a patient - who told his cardiologist - who then did a study to see if it worked for other PD'ers.

It does...however it must be repeated periodically as effects typically wane.
There is more but I haven't enough Oxygen myself to continue tonight. zzzzzzzzzzzz

Ibby

Hello. There is no evidence of which I am aware that sleep apnea can in anyway contribute to or cause Parkinson's disease. I wrote a little blog on the topic at my own site in response to this discussion. Here is the link:

http://www.revolutionhealth.com/blog...ers-and-p-8215

Thank you for a nice forum. -Steve Poceta