Back in March of 07 I was the poster discussing using oxygen to
"super-charge" the blood so as to reduce hypoxia and also ischemic
pain during certain limited (5 minutes) activities. Well, I haven't
done anything further about this due to inherent laziness but I have
had a couple of mild eureka moments only one of which has any
relevance to breathing.

Breathing heavily...aah...aah...aah..(however one represents the
characteristic intake of air upon exertion). The natural thought would
be that you're gasping for oxygen...trying to get as much air flowing
through the lungs as possible. Put your head out the window. Suck in
that fast moving (presumably) oxygen-rich air. Not so or at least not
a good idea. This happens to me in bed post exertion...there I am
panting away...so I just pulled the sheets over my head. No oxygen or
lowered oxygen and presumably elevated CO2. The gasping and panting go
away and normal breathing quickly returns. Of course you eventually
should "come up for air" but by that time you're at normal breathing
level. Maybe everyone already knew about this but I didn't. Anyone
like to explain why this works?

And for 00doc (only marginally related to breathing and not the sort
of breathing we're talking about on an asthma group):

A) Do you know of a nice low-side-effect dopamine agonist? Obviously
L-Dopa but the side effects are nasty. Another would be apomorphine
but I have no wish to be throwing up all the time and the sc injection
while do-able is annoying. Bupropion has advantages. I already take
300mg SR daily but to achieve the effect I'm looking for I'd have to
up the dose to about 600mg instant release and that puts me well into
the seizure class.

B) For a related problem, how risky is Valium on a long term basis
(one a day for life)? Is there a better more innocuous drug in the
same class? Someone suggested the AD Trazodone to be used for its
anti-insomnia effects. It has the advantage of being non-addictive but
I don't like the risk of priapism. If I went with the latter how easy
is it to inject Ephedra?

If you want to know the rationale, I'm currently creating the insomnia
with a dopamine agonist which also pumps up epinephrine. Question (A)
is to find a substitute so as not to create insomnia however if this
isn't possible question (B) is to see if there isn't a drug other than
Valium which I currently use to counter the insomnia part. I don't
have anything against Valium particularly (it works fine) but I worry
about the addictive qualities in the long term. It's also an Rx pain
due to it being a schedule 3 drug (can I talk the PCP into 12 undated
prescriptions? <g>).

Oh, and I'm now quite certain I don't have PVD and I'd even question
the COPD diagnosis. This is due to another change in
medication...almost miraculous...but questions A and B still remain.