oh happy valentine's day

[piranha]

said life, and gave me several hours of heart arrhythmia this morning. i am tempted to blame gay boy, but it's much more likely that the chickens of a lifetime of bad eating and exercising habits are coming home to roost. i should get my thyroid checked again as well.

i've always had arrhythmias, in specific tachycardias, like many people; short periods where my heart beats very fast with the occasional skipped beat. they're over before i can worry much about them. i read up about them after the first time, and that pretty much calmed my fears. over the years now and then, probably no more than once a year, an episode would last 5 minutes or so.

this one lasted for 3-4 hours. i am unclear on it because i didn't have a watch on me, and because, umm, it woke me from one of gay boy's fantasy lovemaking sessions and i didn't really register whether the sun had risen just then or longer ago (and it was raining). you know, it is really annoying when you start to realize that your raised heart beat isn't sexual excitement. i think this will cast a pall on gay boy's makeout frequency. not that he actually cares; i think he wouldn't mind going out in a blaze of hormones. boy, this is your heart too, you dodo.

so ridiculous. i am talking about it here only because really, i'll have to talk to a doctor about it, and this is practice. i'll have to see a doctor about the arrhythmia. and not put it off for a long time either. it got so bad this morning (burning in chest, dizziness, nausea, minor bowel distention) that i finally had the paramour call the hospital hotline to find out whether i should go to the emergency room. that person said i should, but a) the arrhythmia stopped while i was describing my symptoms and b) she was so clearly reading things off a chart instead of listening to what i was telling her that she didn't fill me with confidence about her judgment. and i am ok now, though i feel like i've been put through the wringer.

possible benign cause: i've been eating badly for weeks -- lots of ramen, not enough vegetables. i need to up my potassium and magnesium intake i bet; i've already felt slightly more crampy, which is usually a sign that those are out of whack. drinking orange juice and taking a vitamin pill preceded the cessation of symptoms by 20-30 min, which may have helped.

and hey, i'm alive. lately i've been feeling not so very appreciative of that, to put it in the least scary way i can (cause i don't want anyone to worry that i'll off myself, which i am not planning on). this incident doesn't help with the feeling of being a burden, but it makes my priorities (as regards my attitude) more clear.

Comments

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

It's citrus season. Can you eat lots of oranges and things?

You should just get a general-purposes checkup, and not wait for the next episode, but you know that.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

until 2-3 weeks ago, i have been eating lots of citrus, but then the cases of mandarines stopped coming to the stores here, and i went into a general slump about eating (basically just heating up some ramen).

and yeah, i know. if knowledge truly were power, i'd be a superhero.

thanks. :)

PS: VT

[dochazmat.livejournal.com]

it got so bad this morning (burning in chest, dizziness, nausea, minor bowel distention) that i finally had the paramour call the hospital hotline to find out whether i should go to the emergency room. that person said i should, but a) the arrhythmia stopped while i was describing my symptoms and b) she was so clearly reading things off a chart instead of listening to what i was telling her that she didn't fill me with confidence about her judgment.

Aw, come on. I love Nurseline (http://bchealthguide.org/nurseline.stm). I can always tell I'm in for a treat when a patient says, ".. and then the nurse on the phone said..." 50% of the time, it's an elderly person with some relatively serious problem who didn't want to call 911 or go to the hospital right away because they "didn't want to be a bother"... which cracks me up, at least until I have to run them upstairs to the cath lab to have their arteries opened. And then I wonder if Nurseline isn't just a tool to help those who need to be in denial about their illnesses.. but that's another rant.

Anyway.

Far be it for me to play doctor on LiveJournal, I have to say that with the symptoms you described, you needed to take a little trip to the hospital in a red and white car. I'm totally backing script-girl here. What you described is pretty much classic Bad Arrhythmia stuff, the kind of thing that makes me move just a wee bit faster than I normally don't. The problem is, obviously, that when it's ticking along at >160, your heart simply isn't pumping enough blood, and the symptoms you were feeling were your body's way of saying so. Things aren't likely to get worse, but why screw around with it? You feel bad; we can fix it. (NB: I cannot guarantee that you will enjoy the fixing process -- most people don't -- but it is fixable.) It's an honest emergency.

A visit to the hospital is also useful for diagnostics. I had a patient about six months ago who had had some kind of SVT on and off for a few years, but always converted before anyone could slap some electrodes on and get a good look at the rhythm. When I managed to capture with a proper 12-lead ECG, she was thrilled because here, finally, was evidence of the thing that had been annoying her for so long. (I dunno what she ended up doing, but the fact that we caught it and could show it to her made her happy.) Holter monitoring, which is how we usually try to catch this stuff, is about $1k a go, and it's luck-of-the-draw if you manage to get an arrhythmia on tape. Regardless of whether you end up taking medication, having an ablation, or doing absolutely nothing, it's never a bad idea to get a better grasp of what you're dealing with.

Now that my professional soul has finished spilling its guts (diz-claimer: this is not medical advice, do not listen to the LJ weirdos, I am not a professional, I am not a human, I am not even here), I'm glad you're feeling better, and happy that you're still here.

Re: PS: VT

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yeah, you're absolutely right. i agree that it was bad emergency stuff -- for me to even call means that i knew it was. if it hadn't stopped then, i would have taken that trip in the red-n-white, despite the nurse sounding so scripty (and i would tell anyone asking me for advice that they should go). (and i am not really complaining about her being scripty, i think she did come to the right conclusion, it's just that our rapport was lousy. but it's so easy to rub me the wrong way when i feel badly.)

and really, i should have called for an ambulance after it went on for longer than normal, when i had pretty much figured out the symptoms. but at that time i was mainly trying to stay calm and formulate a course of action that wouldn't panic the paramour. :) that's possibly not the most sensible thing to do, but if people around me panic, it makes things much worse very quickly for me, and so i try to minimize any chances of that happening. it's kind of a complex decision process, and it includes prior experiences with body malfunctions, and what medical training i've had.

but when i had decided i should probably go to the ER, it stopped. that means i didn't need anyone to fix it anymore, nor would anyone catch the abnormal rhythm for diagnostic purposes. and i really don't like taking up ER space when the emergency is past.

but i _will_ get a checkup, and if that doesn't find anything, the next arrhythmia that comes along will have me call the paramedics pretty much right away, now that i know we've passed the point where they're clearly pretty much harmless.

hey, now that we've established that you're not a professional for LJ purposes, *heh*, what do you actually do?

[janetmk.livejournal.com]

That's scary. Good that it went away but...get that checkup soon, OK?

[frobozz.livejournal.com]

Gods above, that's terrifying stuff. I know how scary and alone-making it is to have your heart racing a mile a minute for much, much longer than it should be. Here're the hopes that the benign cause is the case... because man are Holter monitors just a total pain to wear! Oh, and for the whole 'I hope your health is good' reason too.

I'm also glad that there's a tiny bright spot in the form of helping with priorities. Sometimes there's nothing quite like a swift boot to the head to make things fall into place. And all it took was... fear and panic and... erm... hrm. Like I said... -very- tiny bright spot.

Anyway, best of all wishes for ya.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yeah, panic attacks also have a real similar effect, don't they. *sigh*. stupid bodies!

and yeah, i like to make even crappy stuff into learning experiences, because that alleviates just a little of the crappiness.

thanks for your good wishes; they're very much appreciated.

that icon of yours is still the cutest. :)

[crystlyte.livejournal.com]

As others have said, hie thee, hie thee ho.

Speaking from a wealth of experience, thyroid can do a number on the heart so make sure that the bloodwork includes a check of the levels (ime, it has to be specified as it doesn't come with routine bloodwork).

Also ime, heart problems are often missed because signs are not clear. Don't take anything for granted.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

[huashan.livejournal.com]

I'd yell at you to go to doc immediately, but the hypocrisy would probably choke me to death.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*cackle*. yeah. i have a high threshold for doctor visits because i can actually self-diagnose sufficiently in most cases. and when i can't, i do go. which means i will definitely go, because any number of serious things could be wrong here, and i'd rather know what's up.

[huashan.livejournal.com]

For me, it's a habit from growing up that I'm trying to kick. I've done a lot better, especially when I have good health insurance and I'm not living on the bare edge of financial ruin. But I'm still really hesitant. I've found a fantastic doctor here though, and that helps a ton. But it still takes a good deal of trouble for me to finally think "Oh, hey, I should go see a doctor."

And then it's compounded by my apparent lack of mental ability. Doctor says "arthritis, maybe bursitis or tendonitis. Ice, compress, rest until it's healed." My brain said "Right! Tendon problem...when it stops hurting, go back to kung fu!" Repeat cycle for 2 years with ~75% of that time having me almost unable to walk.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*hands you an oar to better navigate de nile with*. :)

i wish i had a good doctor. i do so well when i do. but looking for a new one is so very much effort.

[huashan.livejournal.com]

It really is amazingly difficult to find a good doctor. After my pediatrician as a child, i never found a good doctor or even acceptable one in Illinois. Then it was like my luck completely changed. The first doctor I went to in Phoenix was excellent. And the first doctor I went to in Denver was excellent. In Denver I had my friend who is a Med Student ask the doctor he was training with who would be a good doctor for me, because my friend knows me well and knows I'm a mutant. He said to go to an OD because they generally look at the person as a whole and don't make assumptions and so are better at dealing with exception cases. And that's what my doctor is like. He's excellent, didn't even blink when I told him I was heavily into martial arts, waited to see my lab results before trying to tell me how unhealthy I was, etc.

I hope you find a good doctor. If you know any people in the area, recommendations are always a good way to find a good doctor.

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

I hope you make an appointment and see your doctor ASAP -- although there might not be anything for her to do now that your heart rate is back to normal, you can at least get guidance on what to do if it happens again, get your thyroid checked, and listen to the mandatory lecture about taking care of your health!

[beelavender.livejournal.com]

I'm a very bad role model but I definitely think you should go to the doctor!