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Dr. Lowe How to Prepare Patient-to-Patient Fibromyalgia Research Foundation
Your Guide to
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I use a high-tech, state-of-the-art instrument called an "indirect calorimeter" to measure a patient's resting metabolic rate. Before beginning the test, the patient spends roughly twenty-to-thirty minutes resting on a padded table in a comfortably warm, softly lit room. The patient is able to relax more deeply if, while resting, he or she listens to a cassette or CD of music or environmental sounds. We encourage patients to bring their most relaxing music or sounds with them for their evaluations. Lying on the table relaxes the patient's postural muscles. This relaxation is crucial to recording the patient's real resting metabolic rate. The reason for the lying position is that postural muscles dynamically contract during sitting and standing, and the contractions keep the patient's metabolic rate higher than a resting rate. If the patient doesn't lie comfortably for twenty-to-thirty minutes, the muscles won't fully relax, and the measured metabolic rate will be higher than his or her true resting rate. If a patient anticipates becoming restless or uncomfortable from lying twenty-to-thirty minutes, I modify the procedure to accommodate the patient and also get as accurate a measurement as possible. Failing to have the patient lie on a table for enough time is a major mistake of many other clinicians when they measure patients' metabolic rates. I have referred patients to many other clinicians for the test in other cities. With rare exception, the clinician had the patient sit in an upright chair or a slightly reclined one, and the room has been chilly. Then, immediately or after in five or ten minutes, the clinician performed the test. These tests have not measured the patients' true resting metabolic rates. It is highly unlikely that the patients' postural muscles were relaxed and their sympathetic nervous systems calmed. Because of this, the tests have been worthless for clinical purposes and a waste of the patients' time and money. For clinical purposes, the test is of use only when patients prepare properly and when clinicians conduct the test correctly. So that patients can prepare properly, I wrote a set of specific instructions that anyone can download at no charge. |
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