Welcome to My Page!!!

Hi, my name is Sue and this is my page!!

I bet you are wondering why I chose to do a web page?? I decided to do a web page to let others learn a little bit about me and my family. I am 36 years old, married with 2 wonderful (sometimes they don't act so great) daughters...ages 15 & 14. I am married to a hard working loving guy. He is 38. I go to a good, caring church in Missouri (which is also where I live.) I love the Lord and He loves me. What better relationships can I get? I have great supportive friends and a great family. I am building this web page in my spare time and when I'm not doing this...I'm playing Spite and Malice with my good friend. I am disabled...so I have all the time in the world. You may wonder what could make a person who is 36 become disabled. Well, it all started a few years back when I took a diet pill and didn't know about the warnings that Ephedra can cause terrible things to happen to your body. About 6 months after taking the diet pills, I ended up with Pulmonary Hypertension (PH). There are many different types of symptoms to this disease...I have listed a few of the symptoms at the bottom of this information...if you experience any of them...get to your doctor right away! Don't let it go untreated.

Ok, now you may be asking yourself, "What exactly is PAH anyway?" Pulmonary Hypertension (PH) is a rare disease. The true incidence of PH is unknown. However, it is estimated that there are one to two cases per million people. This means that information about PH is not always easy to find, and, in fact, many doctors and other medical personnel have little or no experience in diagnosing or treating PH. Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a rare lung disorder occurring as a primary idiopathic disease or as a complication of a large number of respiratory and cardiac diseases. PH can occur with or without an identifiable cause.
When a person has PH, the blood pressure in the pulmonary artery rises far above normal levels. The pulmonary artery is the blood vessel carrying oxygen-poor blood from the right ventricle, one of the pumping chambers of the heart, to the lungs. In the lungs, the blood picks up oxygen and then flows to the left side of the heart, where it is pumped by the left ventricle to the rest of the body through the aorta.
Hypertension is the medical term for an abnormally high blood pressure. Normal mean pulmonary-artery pressure is approximately 14 mmHg at rest. In the PH patient, the mean blood pressure in the pulmonary artery is greater than 25 mmHg at rest and 30 mmHg during exercise. This abnormally high pressure (pulmonary hypertension) is associated with changes in the small blood vessels in the lungs, resulting in an increased resistance to blood flowing through the vessels.
This increased resistance, in turn, places a strain on the right ventricle, which now has to work harder than usual against the resistance to move adequate amounts of blood through the lungs.

The preceding paragraphs were adapted from the following sources:
-National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
-Guam Memorial Hospital Mortality and Morbidity Conference, June 24, 1998 Pulmonary Hypertension, by Rosie Villagomez, M.D.
-The information was taken from www.phcentral.org .

Symptoms of pulmonary hypertension include shortness of breath with minimal exertion, fatigue, chest pain, dizzy spells and fainting. When pulmonary hypertension occurs in the absence of a known cause, it is referred to as primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH). This term should not be construed to mean that because it has a single name it is a single disease. There are likely many unknown causes of PPH. PPH is extremely rare, occurring in about two persons per million population per year. Secondary pulmonary hypertension (SPH) means the cause is known. A common cause of SPH are the breathing disorders emphysema and bronchitis. Other less frequent causes are the inflammatory or collagen vascular diseases such as scleroderma, CREST syndrome or systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Congenital heart diseases that cause shunting of extra blood through the lungs like ventricular and atrial septal defects, chronic pulmonary thromboembolism (old blood clots in the pulmonary artery), HIV infection, liver disease and diet drugs like fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine are also causes of pulmonary hypertension.
Pulmonary hypertension is frequently misdiagnosed and has often progressed to late stage by the time it is accurately diagnosed. Pulmonary hypertension has been historically chronic and incurable with a poor survival rate. However, new treatments are available which have significantly improved prognosis. Recent data indicate that the length of survival is continuing to improve, with some patients able to manage the disorder for 15 to 20 years or longer.
This information was taken from www.phassociation.org .