Yay for heart disease in 2018

Well crap I just spoke a whole entry into text and then asked Denteley deleted the entire thing by clicking the select all thing and I guess heading back space on my phone. Fuck sake’s.

Let’s try that again Shall we?

So I went to the doctor because I thought I had Ménière’s disease, I had a lot of weird hearing things going on, lots of vertigo, dizzy spells, could barely hear out of my right ear. I had a resident Doctor who really thought that’s exactly what it was and wanted to put me on drugs to try to get rid of it or settle down the symptoms, or at least rule out if it was that or not. But the doctor convinced him not to do that, because he stupid I guess.

Anyway while I was in for one of my appointments to do with that, A different doctor checked my heart and noticed a couple weird Things going on and told me that I should make an appointment with my family doctor and go see a specialist. Now, for years I’ve been feeling this weird fluttering and odd heart beat heart palpitations in my chest, actually probably since I was a young child. And of course I googled the shit out of that, and figured out that it was probably just a minor heart palpitations and it was nothing to worry about unless experience pain, Which I never did. And a lot of the times I pass it off as my anxiety, and of course no one listen to me so what was the point of talking about it.

So when I got to my family doctor appointment, he listen to my heart for what seemed like 10 minutes straight, I decided to put me on a Holter monitor. Which is basically just a portable heart monitor that I was to wear for two weeks straight. I got it around the time my grandma passed away but didn’t put it on during the funerals and stuff because I didn’t want my emotions to register as something that they weren’t on the heart monitor.

During this two weeks, of course I didn’t feel any of those weird heart beats or regular heartbeats the entire time. I was certain that the doctors would see absolutely nothing on the heart monitor, and I almost wanted to cancel my appointment because I knew there was nothing to be seen.

Turns out I have premature ventricular contraction’s, which are extra heartbeats that begin in one of your hearts two lower pumping chambers. Apparently these occur and many people, But if They are frequent they could be a sign of an underlying heart disease… And of course, mine are frequent. Even though I barely felt anything during the heart test, they showed up, which means that I have them far more than I’m aware… I only feel the big ones.

I guess the scariest part of all this is because my grandma had this exact same thing. Her heart was always miss firing for as long as I can remember. The doctors asked me if I was on any medications, if I did any illicit drugs, if I smoked cigarettes… I do None of these things. Then he went on to tell me that the risk factors include all of these things plus anxiety, and he asked if my family had a history of congenital heart failure or congenital heart disease, and yes my grandma had congenital heart disease.

Still not a very risky thing to have, apparently… But because I’ve had these palpitations so long he’s concerned that it might’ve given me cardiomyopathy, which just means my heart muscle could have become weekend because of the PVCs, which leads me to the next issue… Sinus tachycardia.

Yep, I also have sinus tachycardia. I was somewhat diagnosed with tachycardia when I gave birth to my oldest daughter almost 10 years ago now… but at the time they dismissed it as my body going through a lot of stress. Anxiety?

Im no heart specialist but of course once I got home from my appointment I started doing exactly what every doctor probably does not want you to do, and I googled the crap out of everything. And I really didn’t find anything other than what he already told me. I have a couple more test to do, bloodwork, they’re sending me for an MRI, couple more specialist appointments.

But in the meantime, I’m supposed to stay away from illicit drugs alcohol too much caffeine etc. which I would do anyway… The interesting thing is I remember my grandma getting told every single one of these things, so I guess were related. I assume that I have congestive heart failure, because heart disease runs in my family on both sides… Both of my grandfathers died of a heart attack, both of my aunts have had heart attacks, And if I remember correctly my mother also is a bit tachy.

I think this is what’s prompting me to take control back over my life… Well not so much control because I think lack of control is what causes anxiety… But what I need to do is take control of my anxiety, because from what I’ve read anxiety is a huge factor in all of these things. I’m a very introverted person being out in public is an something that I like to do, I don’t have a lot of friends, and a lot of the time I push off not wanting to be out in public as just part of my introvertedness. But now I’m thinking that maybe it has a lot more to do with anxiety than I first thought… And one of my friends just started taking medication for anxiety and she says that it has made such a huge change in her life, and I think it’s time for my life to change a bit.

I was telling Chris yesterday how the things that I do take a lot out of me, I’m tired a lot and cold a lot, And sometimes it’s all I can do to get out of the bed in the morning and get the kids to school, and after that I want to completely shut down. But it up forcing myself to do other things, go out in public, go to work, and I don’t know if that’s helping or hindering… Maybe I’ll carry this on a different entry.

Kristen <3