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.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-22 04:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-22 02:24 pm (UTC)Still, it is possible that increased frequency is connected to a general increase in anxiety I've been feeling since the spring. Working to lower my stress might diminish the symptoms and delay the more acute period of the condition until I'm older.
Thanks for the supportive words.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 01:34 am (UTC)Feeling weak, mortal and unmanly is what I've felt like since hit my forties, so I guess it's fairly common?
I think I spent the first 40 years of my life totally denying the grim reaper, and will spend the last 40 years playing dodge ball with the bastard, like everyone else.
A hospice nurse said to me there's only really three ways to die (coming from someone who takes care of the actively dying, it's an opinion worth considering, I guess) when you get right down to it...your brain goes first and leave you a brainless wonder in a still functioning body, your body goes first and you're a functional brain in a failing husk, or you just go all at once, bam.
What lovely choices, but she's right,everything pretty much falls into those three categories.
I pick number three of those choices...but godammit, I don't get to pick. Genetics will choose for me.
But I know a guy who has your problems and eventually had to have a pacemaker/defib which seems to do the trick.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 04:26 pm (UTC)I don't think I'll ever need a pacemaker (at least not for this condition; who knows what other surprises are in store). My dad, who is 85, is in atrial fibrillation full time for the last 10 years or so. He takes blood thinners to prevent stroke and a beta-blocker to keep his rate from getting to fast. He feels generally fine under this regime.