Researchers are looking at how we breathe and how this might affect blood flow and pressure in the brain.

I've had a theory for awhile, since Jeff was a professional trumpet player for many years, and I'd like your feedback.  So, if you wouldn't mind, read this note and give me your ideas in the comments.

"Valsalva manuever" is when we exert air pressure over a closed airway.  Like when you plug your nose and try to pop open plugged up ears.   It was named for an Italian physician, Antonio Maria Valsalva, who studied how this breathing manuever changed pressure in the eustacian tube.  Using valsalva manuever increases airpressure in the chest and creates temporary slowed perfusion (bloodflow) in the brain.

Activities that use this type of breathing are playing wind instruments, lifting heavy objects, bearing down during labor, straining on the toilet, orgasm, unplugging clogged ears, sneezing,  Many people use this type of breathing when they are angry, stressed out or in emotional distress.  It's a type of breath holding pattern, and it often happens without us thinking about it.  But I want us to be more conscious of this type of breathing, because I think this might be one area people can voluntarily control and potentially avoid.

Why might this matter to people with CCSVI or slowed venous return issues?  Valsalva decreases cerebral perfusion.  Here's an EMT site discussing why EMS crews might find people who have had strokes collapsed near the toilet after trying to have a bowel movement.  Seriously.

Basically, a Valsalva initially creates a low intra-aortic pressure which stimulates the sympathetic nervous system. Following the release of the breath, a vagal (parasympathetic) response is triggered to decrease the heart rate. This vagal influence is what may break the SVT and lower the heart rate, or cause a decrease in cerebral perfusion pressure and cause the patient to have a syncopal episode while straining to have a bowel movement.

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Valsalva maneuver leads to periventricular (around the veins) brain motion

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Researchers are studying how it increases intracranial pressure and slowed venous return and may lead to Alzheimer's.  This periventricular brain motion that occurs during Valsalva may result in low strain mechanical deformation of hippocampal neurons.

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Chronic increased intracranial pressure due to valsalva and Alzheimer's risk

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Without getting too bogged down in the science---let me explain that people with CCSVI have shown venous reflux back into the brain WITHOUT valsalva manuever.  Dr. Zamboni's testing methods used regular, relaxed breathing.  What I am wondering about is how temporary valsalva may create those "venous back jets" that Dr. Schelling is often referring to.  How these brief episodes may further damage a brain with slowed cerebral perfusion and a faulty blood brain barrier.  Because I have a hunch that it is not going to be just one event or cause--and that everyone will have a different scenario creating slowed cerebral perfusion.  And that MS is simply the immune system responding to a lifetime of slowed perfusion and refluxive flow. 

Here's a note I wrote on breathing, stress and MS

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And here's what I want to ask you.  Can you connect ways in which this type of breathing may be part of your life?  As I said, Jeff was a trumpeter and played daily for over 20 years.  He doesn't play much now, as a composer, and is careful not to use valsalva when he does play.  I don't think playing trumpet gave him MS....I just think it might have made his cerebral perfusion even slower.

Are you a valsalva breather? If so, do you think you can consciously find ways to replace this practice with deep, relaxed breathing?  Let me know.

thanks!

Joan

Dizzy--what a trumpeter!