ABG #'s and respiratory from hospital stay
 

I finally received some paperwork from the hospital but I don't have the full reports from respiratory, just some preliminary #'s from the doctor's report. The early #'s are expiratory and inspiratory pressure was -40cm of water, vital capacity 3.3L. 4 days later, max inspir. pressure is -34, exp. is greater than 60, vital capacity is 3 L.

What that means I would love to know. Also, I only did one round, as in one breath, and then I was so short of breath I heaved for ten minutes and they had to stop testing so that was the end of the session. I suppose it doesn't matter much what your capacity is if you can only use it once and then you are too winded to function, huh?

My ABG #'s were pH artertial H7.49 (7.37-7.43), PCO2 arterial L25 (34-44), PO2 arterial H122 (75-95), O2 SAT H >99.0(95-98)% The rest of the numbers were normal.

my d-dimer was high at 567 (0-551). This was the reason for the emergency CTA chest last month to rule out a pulmonary embolism. They did not address it this time. Why might it be high??

Does these #'s mean anything to anyone? They gave me very little information. . .thank you : )

debra

it is very hard to interpert results of tests without actually seeing what is going on. but, if you just want a possible interpertation.

from those results it appears that you have a moderate degree of respiratory muscle weakness, which leads to shortness of breath. which is probably the feeling that you have to put a lot of effort into each breath. so, although you are able to have a reasonable volume of air (although not normal), it requires a lot of effort, that you can't sustain for long. it seems that the way you compensate for this is by breathing faster, to the extent that you may appear anxious to someone watching you and not knowing of your underlying disease. this also leads to a drop in the CO2 below the normal levels and may cause dizziness and numbness. and it can also make you even weaker, and more short of breath. I suspect that the ABG was done when you were recieving oxygen. (I am not sure why).

hope this is helpful/makes sense to you.

best,

alice

wow thanks for this Alice, elxplains alot from my hospital visit yesterday, I was dry reaching, then breathing fast, as well as trying to breath. I was told to slow down your breathing....uh huh, like that was going to work.....I tried to explain, but we all know the story. Still I here, and resting resting resting.