Really anxious

• by pmgirl
• 2013-09-10 06:09:55
• General Posting
• 1098 views
• 2 comments

Hi Everyone,

I've been getting sudden bouts of breathlessness and a funny slightly dizzy feeling lately and so my cardiologist had me wearing a small, portable holter monitor for the past 4 weeks. The symptoms disappear as quickly as the come and don't make me feel ill, they are just uncomfortable for a few seconds and then go. Anyway, I had my follow up appointment with him today where they checked my pacemaker (that's all fine, I'm pacing 0.6% of the time and he said the holter didn't show up anything significant) but had me do an echo just to be sure.

Upon speaking to him further, I told him that I think my phrenic nerve occasionally gets stimulated as I get a 'thud' when I lean to my left side every once in a whil,e and so he had the technician see if he could replicate the sensation, which they did, I felt it at 2 volts and then 7 volts. My cardio asked the technician something about altering the settings to which the technician replied (in his technical jargon) that he can't really do it...from what I could tell, it made sense to the cardio and so they agreed to leave it.

After that, he said they should just give me a once over and said my symptoms may be from low blood pressure and told me the importance of sodium in my diet and getting enough (he kept talking, but I should have told him that I eat plenty of salt). He took my blood pressure lying down and sitting up and didn't seem concerned or comment that it was low, but said he'd send me for a tilt table test which will show if there are any issues, as my husband and I are looking to start a family soon and in pregnancy, we should make sure blood pressure is the best it can be. He also felt around my tummy and touched my ankles and wrists.

He then listened to my heart and made a weird face, he told me to lie down, listened again, and then got me to sit up and handed me his stethoscope and said 'Listen to that, it's squeaky'. So I did and sure enough, there was an odd squeaky sound amongst the usual 'la-bub' sound of my heartbeat. He said that in 30 years he's never quite heard that sound (but heard others along that line) and then gave it a long name that I can't remember and said that he thinks that's what's going on. He said 'murmer' so I think that's basically what he believes it to be. The way he explained it was that the noise may be the blood rushing past my lead or sometimes, the leads can damage the surrounding tissue in the heart. I should probably also mention that as he was listening to my chest, my heart was going a million miles per hour as I get extremely anxious whenever I have a check up, I'm usually around 100 beats (sometimes more) per minute whenever I'm in his office.

He then pulled up the 3D echo that they did earlier and said that my valves all look good and the very experienced technician that did the echo found that it was all normal, however he gave it another once over to be sure and didn't make any further comment, seeming to be satisfied with it all. He then said he'd send me for a 'pretty general blood test including a full blood count' just to see if there are any signs of inflammation or infection about. The referral he gave me also said something about 'erythrocyte' which I quickly Googled and understand to be something to do with red blood cells.

Even though my cardio didn't seem overly concerned, encouraged us to start a family, and only said to come back once I had the tilt test done, I can't help but freak out.

Has anyone been told that their leads can cause a heart murmer or any other weird sounds upon being listened to? Now that he has seen that my phrenic nerve gets stimulated, I'm wondering if that could be the cause of my breathlessness and weird sensations, as opposed to blood pressure?

I tried to ask as many questions as I could on the spot, but I was so anxious by the time I left, that I went blank.

Any input that anyone could provide would be really greatly appreciated.