About to join the PM world

• by ponca34
• 2014-07-10 02:07:55
• General Posting
• 941 views
• 2 comments

I'll start off by giving some information. I'm a 34 year old female with a 4 year old, 3 year old, & 15 month old. I've always had a relatively low bp. 2 years ago when I was pregnant my blood pressure started bottoming out. It would go extremely low and my pulse got low too. My heart then started racing. My OBGYN sent me to a cardiologist where they has me to bump my water intake and salt intake. I was told to take Sudfed PE to help bump my bp and prescribed me Motoprol for tachycardia. After delivery the tachycardia left. My cardiologist continued me on the phenelefrin (sudafed PE) because I was breastfeeding. The sudafed did a fair job of keeping my pressure up. After I stopped breastfeeding my cardiologist put me on Midodrine 4 times a day every 4 hours. The beginning of this year I started becoming incredibly fatigued and my arms were extremely tired. Saw my family dr where he brushed me off to being tired from my kids and said I needed to work my arms out. He tested my thyroid, checked for anemia, and B12. All came back fine. I began working out by walking, moving up to jogging. I'd walk at least 3 miles a day 4-5 times a week. I would get extremely tired but pushed through. I lost 20 pounds in a 3 month time frame. I'm about 15 pounds overweight now. The past 2 months have been dreadful. I have to drag myself out of bed and have trouble taking care of simple household tasks. My pulse has been in the 40-50 range. When it gets into the 40's it whips me out. So my cardiologist put me on Ritalin (10mg) twice a day. It worked well for 2 days. At the end of the day I was a zombie. So he doubled my Ritalin. Again it worked well for about 2 days and I'd crash at night. So he put me on Ritalin LA long acting) 4g daily. It helped for about 3 days. So he had me try a scopolamine patch. It worked 1 day. He said there is no other choice but to place a pm. His nurse told me that it might not help with my debilitating fatigue. They consider me to have autonomic dysfunction with syncope. She said that all the pm would do is maintain my pulse. The crazy unexplainable thing to me is that sometimes I'll feel good when my pulse is in the 50's. Other times my pulse may hit the 60's but yet I feel super bad. I'm concerned that there may be an underlying problem. I've scheduled my surgery for Tuesday July 15. I asked the nurse if she would talk to my cardiologist about implanting subpectoral but he doesn't want to. He said that it breaks down the muscle. I'm concerned that being under the skin that it's going to limit me much more than a subpectoral implant. I like to bow hunt and often ride a four wheeler. I'm afraid that under skin implant will limit me. Never the less I have very small kids of which 2 are rowdy little boys so I know that it's going to take its fair share of blows. At any rate, I'm curious as if anyone else has any trouble with theirs being uncomfortable under the skin. (By the way my skin is sensitive to the touch on my chest and legs.) Should I push for a subpectoral implant? Has anyone else has debilitating fatigue before pm and what impact did the pm have? I'm also having strange coldness to what feels like the veins in my feet and calves. My feet and legs get numb and tingly and ache no matter what position they are in. Has anyone else had any of those feet & leg issues? I asked the cardiologist if it was due to poor circulation but he said no. I'm really afraid to have have the surgery done and perhaps it not help me. What prescriptions have any of you been prescribed for bradycardia (slow heart rate?) I just don't want my dr jumping the gun and placing a pm if I can avoid it. I asked his nurse about phenetrimine as I took it years a ago for weight loss. It always made my heart rate increase. She told me that they didn't prescribe it because it could cause heart valve problems. I hate to have surgery and perhaps there is a drug out there to help. Any info would be helpful! Thanks!!