The reasoning is not very strong. From "diaphragm problems can lead to all kinds of problems" to "we believe this may have a connection to SIDS" there is no real argument at all. In particular, nothing 'from the other end', the vast body of research and experience with SIDS is mentioned to support your belief. You just throw it out there with a very limited selection of sources, either not connected to SIDS or horribly out of date.
Stefan Potente : Thank you for your comment. You’re right. I should have included this important article below. The author has “revisited” the subject in more recent papers.
Critical diaphragm failure in sudden infant death syndrome (Siren and Siren, 2011)
- May 2011
- Upsala Journal of Medical Sciences 116(2):115-23
- DOI: 10.3109/03009734.2010.548011
Article Critical diaphragm failure in sudden infant death syndrome
Stefan Potente , what are your thoughts about the case report itself? What conclusions would you come to? Re: "recurrent painful bearhug of constant intensity with gasping and complete inspiratory apnea" . Hope to hear from you or anyone else out there. :)
I would expect some morphological findings in the lungs, either macroscopically as subpleural Tardieu's spots or microscopically with torn alveoli in silver staining. Yet nothing of that sort is ever seen in SIDS. As you will know there is a huge difference in between the target group of SIDS and someone living through a pathologic state "his entire childhood and youth". There is simply no reason to extrapolate from one case of a survivor to the whole entity of thousands of cases from a whole different age group and in no way is some all-caps header hinting at some kind of discovery justified.
Had the patient continued struggling against the inspiratory apnea and generated supra-normal, negative intrathoracic pressures by use of his accessory muscles (in a last ditch attempt to inspire), I believe this would have caused the distinctive intrathoracic petechial hemorrhages usually seen with SIDS (Tardieu's spots).
Please recall he experienced inspiratory apnea that he feels almost killed him had he not learned to take positive pressure inhalations (and avoided the negative intrathoracic pressures that typically cause Tardieu's spots (petechiae)).
His story is very concerning and very much consistent with the respiratory theory for SIDS. Also, there's a huge gap of knowledge of the diaphragm in SIDS so there's not much to fall back on in supporting my claim. All I can do then is extrapolate given how serious his symptoms were.
There appears to be a spectrum of abnormalities involving the diaphragm as I alluded to. Adding "tetanic contractions" is not a long shot given the existence of diaphragmatic flutter, belly dancer's diaphragm (undulations seen at bedside and confirmed by EMG) and electricity induced tetany. These are real life examples.
I hope to not be dismissed please given so much is at stake yet I appreciate your comments. We all want the same thing. I'm offering something more than hope. It's a legit theory (as Paul Goldwater, himself, wrote in an email to me).
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