Miles and Miles and Miles of Heart
Sep. 21st, 2010 05:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talktoolooseMy periods of atrial fibrilation have been growing more frequent since the middle of August. Despite all my attempts to track triggers, I have to admit I'm not in control of this!
While in Japan, I was fibrillating every other day for most of the day. In fact, I hit my all time record at one point: 36 hours of arrhythmia. My cardiologist had said that I should not let it get to 48 hours because it becomes problematic to convert it back to normal then. I was relieved when I went back to normal sinus rythm so I didn't have to find a hospital in Kyoto.
Once back in Canada, I phoned for an appointment with my cardiologist. But before I heard back from him, I went into another fibrillation that broke the previous record and left me feeling crappy throughout. I went to emerg at Toronto Western Hospital on Saturday morning (I biked there, btw, I wasn't feeling on death's door or anything).
I spent three hours there, and had really great care from everyone (and yes, I have a renewed appreciation for free-for-all public health care). The doctor gave me a beta channel blocker to slow my rate, as I had basically been beating at 150 to 170 bpm for 40 hours (hence my feeling crappy). He said slowing the rate was a better option than converting me, because if a clot had formed in the quivering atria, you wouldn't want to send it suddenly up to the brain. STROKE!
He gave me a prescription for the drugs and I've been taking them since. I've slipped in an out of fibrillation, but with the rate staying between 80 and 100, I haven't felt compromised or uncomfortable. I'm also on low dose aspirin as a cheap and easy blood thinner.
I will see my cardiologist next Monday. I hope that I don't have to take meds full time, because that is something I'm very uncomfortable with. I seem to get periods where I fibrillate a lot and then months without. But eventually, I may fibrillate full time like my dad has for the last 15 years and like my grandmother did. My grandmother did get a stroke from it eventually, but with the newer meds my dad is on, it's not really a problem.
I'm surprisingly calm about this, considering how chronic health problems usually make me feel horribly mortal and weak and unmanly (that last is a weird one coming from me, eh?)
So, no you don't have to worry about me, and you mustn't say to me "Oh, are you okay? I can pick up that bag for you..." or I will get very, very angry.
While in Japan, I was fibrillating every other day for most of the day. In fact, I hit my all time record at one point: 36 hours of arrhythmia. My cardiologist had said that I should not let it get to 48 hours because it becomes problematic to convert it back to normal then. I was relieved when I went back to normal sinus rythm so I didn't have to find a hospital in Kyoto.
Once back in Canada, I phoned for an appointment with my cardiologist. But before I heard back from him, I went into another fibrillation that broke the previous record and left me feeling crappy throughout. I went to emerg at Toronto Western Hospital on Saturday morning (I biked there, btw, I wasn't feeling on death's door or anything).
I spent three hours there, and had really great care from everyone (and yes, I have a renewed appreciation for free-for-all public health care). The doctor gave me a beta channel blocker to slow my rate, as I had basically been beating at 150 to 170 bpm for 40 hours (hence my feeling crappy). He said slowing the rate was a better option than converting me, because if a clot had formed in the quivering atria, you wouldn't want to send it suddenly up to the brain. STROKE!
He gave me a prescription for the drugs and I've been taking them since. I've slipped in an out of fibrillation, but with the rate staying between 80 and 100, I haven't felt compromised or uncomfortable. I'm also on low dose aspirin as a cheap and easy blood thinner.
I will see my cardiologist next Monday. I hope that I don't have to take meds full time, because that is something I'm very uncomfortable with. I seem to get periods where I fibrillate a lot and then months without. But eventually, I may fibrillate full time like my dad has for the last 15 years and like my grandmother did. My grandmother did get a stroke from it eventually, but with the newer meds my dad is on, it's not really a problem.
I'm surprisingly calm about this, considering how chronic health problems usually make me feel horribly mortal and weak and unmanly (that last is a weird one coming from me, eh?)
So, no you don't have to worry about me, and you mustn't say to me "Oh, are you okay? I can pick up that bag for you..." or I will get very, very angry.
