Sleep apnea and thickening of the blood

[jinNE]

Hi all,


I was on a school field trip for my son's school and chatting with another parent who is an oncologist/hematologist. We were talking sleep apnea and he said that sleep apnea can cause a thickening of the blood. Basically, the body is starved of oxygen and produces more hemoglobin in an attempt to fuel the body better.


As many of you know, T therapy can cause this as well, and I've personally had to donate blood to address high hemoglobin. I had never heard of sleep apnea causing this, however, and thought I'd share with the group.


If you run into high hemoglobin a lot while on T therapy, you might want to consider a sleep study...

[PeakT]

Hi all,


I was on a school field trip for my son's school and chatting with another parent who is an oncologist/hematologist. We were talking sleep apnea and he said that sleep apnea can cause a thickening of the blood. Basically, the body is starved of oxygen and produces more hemoglobin in an attempt to fuel the body better.


As many of you know, T therapy can cause this as well, and I've personally had to donate blood to address high hemoglobin. I had never heard of sleep apnea causing this, however, and thought I'd share with the group.


If you run into high hemoglobin a lot while on T therapy, you might want to consider a sleep study...

Thx, JinEE.  I'll put this on the site as well.

[jinNE]

We're all in this together!

[SteveT]

Here's a couple of references:  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3267624/  and   http://bloodflowonline.com/medical-briefs/review-role-blood-viscosity-obstructive-sleep-apnea-and-cpap-therapy

[PeakT]

We're all in this together!

Amen brother!

And thx SteveT for the references. 

Btw, this makes a lot of sense.  We had one guy who had to go off of TRT cuzz of this issue.  I'll bet you he had apnea.  Wish I'd known that then...

[SteveT]

Wish I had too!  Last father's day I had a DVT that resulted in a bilateral pulmonary embolism.  The iliac vein in my left leg is totally blocked now but being fed by collaterals.  It's amazing what the body can do.  Prior to that I had to donate blood every 2 or 3 months to keep my numbers down.  I had missed about 3 donations prior to the DVT.

It comes with about a 20% survival rate but I'm really glad it happened.  Now I know more about an issue that could have killed me.  The two main factors are stay hydrated and never sit for more than 45 minutes without standing for at least 30 seconds.  Clearly apnea has to be addresses too.

I use to mainly use T injections and occasionally switch to cream.  Now I use compounded cream exclusively and my clotting blood counts are staying in high normal range.  Since I am now using an APAP it will be interesting to see those numbers in a couple of months.

[PeakT]

Wish I had too!  Last father's day I had a DVT that resulted in a bilateral pulmonary embolism.  The iliac vein in my left leg is totally blocked now but being fed by collaterals.  It's amazing what the body can do.  Prior to that I had to donate blood every 2 or 3 months to keep my numbers down.  I had missed about 3 donations prior to the DVT.

It comes with about a 20% survival rate but I'm really glad it happened.  Now I know more about an issue that could have killed me.  The two main factors are stay hydrated and never sit for more than 45 minutes without standing for at least 30 seconds.  Clearly apnea has to be addresses too.

I use to mainly use T injections and occasionally switch to cream.  Now I use compounded cream exclusively and my clotting blood counts are staying in high normal range.  Since I am now using an APAP it will be interesting to see those numbers in a couple of months.

Wow - well congrats on survival I guess!

So why do you think the compounded cream is helping?  Just lower T levels or what?

[SteveT]

Hey Peak - There is some anecdotal stuff on the internet that implied that creams don't raise hematocrit levels when done correctly meaning daily in the mornings. 

Here is my guess, nothing scientific - compounded creams (not commercial gels) are usually bio identical and applied every morning.  Like the normal body cycle the T levels rise in the blood over the day and begin to drop as night approaches.  The climb and fall are fairly normal and the T is  identical to what your body produces.

T injections climb for several days and fall for several days.  I think the half life of Cyp is 7 days.  The molecule is not identical to what your body produces and the rise/fall is way out of sync with the body's normal cycle.

I haven't tested this but it's possible that a tiny injection daily would resolve the bump in hematocrit levels and other clotting factors.  That's just a guess that I have not tested.

When I was on one and later two injections per week my hematocrit levels were through the roof.

Opposite of what most people do, I only apply the cream to areas of fat like butt checks.  Use to use it there and sort of internally but there was no real gain so why bother.

At the time I had no idea how close I came to the grim reaper but glad to have dodged that bullet.  I know it's strange but I'm grateful for the experience and of course the outcome...

[PeakT]

Hey Peak - There is some anecdotal stuff on the internet that implied that creams don't raise hematocrit levels when done correctly meaning daily in the mornings. 

Here is my guess, nothing scientific - compounded creams (not commercial gels) are usually bio identical and applied every morning.  Like the normal body cycle the T levels rise in the blood over the day and begin to drop as night approaches.  The climb and fall are fairly normal and the T is  identical to what your body produces.

T injections climb for several days and fall for several days.  I think the half life of Cyp is 7 days.  The molecule is not identical to what your body produces and the rise/fall is way out of sync with the body's normal cycle.

I haven't tested this but it's possible that a tiny injection daily would resolve the bump in hematocrit levels and other clotting factors.  That's just a guess that I have not tested.

When I was on one and later two injections per week my hematocrit levels were through the roof.

Opposite of what most people do, I only apply the cream to areas of fat like butt checks.  Use to use it there and sort of internally but there was no real gain so why bother.

At the time I had no idea how close I came to the grim reaper but glad to have dodged that bullet.  I know it's strange but I'm grateful for the experience and of course the outcome...

My two cents:

I think most guys on creams and gels have lower average testosterone levels than the typical guy on cypionate.  So that's my theory for what it is worth...

[SteveT]

That could certainly be true - my total T was 495 and my Free T was exactly in the middle of the scale.  My E was actually very low without the use of anything to bring it down.  I'm guessing that the E test was wrong. 

I have an appointment in a couple of months and plan to ask my doc to increase the concentration in my cream.  I plan on pulling my numbers again before that to see if CPAP/APAP therapy is making a difference.

[PeakT]

Guys,

Thanks for the info and I added that to the following pages:

http://www.peaktestosterone.com/ways_to_lower_hemoglobin

http://www.peaktestosterone.com/apnea_testosterone

[Hydranted]

This absolutely makes sense. 

The body is not able to adequately perfuse vital organs during apnea.  Oxygen saturation drops during apnea, which means that the blood being circulated to the organs/tissue is not "fully" oxygenated as it would be in a healthy adult who is breathing adequately.

The human body is always attempting to achieve homeostasis and compensate for any unwanted changes...especially when it comes to perfusion of vital organs. 

The body's natural response would be to create more hemoglobin in an attempt to deliver more oxygenated blood to the various bodily systems.


Thanks for sharing this.