Heart, and Lungs and Doctors..OH MY!!

I suppose I should update here, as I have actually some information to relate and not just inane babbling like I usually do. I don't know why whenever I actually do have news to record, I get so busy with it all I don't update here, but when I have nothing to say, I post. Anyway....



My treadmilling had been going great, my asthma was totally under control, I was getting in shape and feeling great. Then, I started getting wheezier (is that a word?) and a couple times had some stabbing chest pain when I ran too fast without warming up adequately on the treadmill. I also had some general health questions for Dr. Boddy, concerning allergies, St. John's Wort, natural sleeping agents, kidney function and of course my lungs and chest pain.

I went to see Dr. Boddy and he said he thought my kidneys were fine, that my theory about having so much protein during my four pregnancies in five years really wouldn't have adversely affected my kidneys, and that the last time he tested, my kidney function was excellent. He said St. John's Wort was really unpredictable because the time of year it was grown and harvested, the exact part of the plant harvested and the manner of production all affected the potency of the product so much that there was great variation in it, even bottle to bottle from the same company. He said it wouldn't hurt me, but he wouldn't waste my money on it. He was surprised that melotonin makes me sleepy after 20 minutes but then I wake up after sleeping 30, but said I could certainly continue to take it if I wanted to, it wouldn't interact with my other medications.

I asked him if the chest x-ray I had had in the fall when my asthma first started acting up had anything on it that would explain the chest pain or heart stuff and told him that a dr. in the past had told me that my heart was not in the right place in my chest, which was why I had chest pain sometimes. Dr. Boddy said he had forgotten about the pectus excavatum (http://www.pectusdeformity.com/) that I have and that it could be affecting my heart and lung function. Then he asked me if I had ever considered surgery to correct it, that he had two patients in the past that had greatly benefited from it. I had *never* been told by any dr. that there was a surgery to correct this, and now I wish I had had it done years and years ago. My mother said she had never heard from any dr. during my childhood that it could be corrected either. About my heart, he said he really didn't like the chest pain story and wanted to check that out. So, they did an EKG, which showed five abnormalities, including a prolonged qt, which concerned him.

They also did a blood test to check my kidney function and a bunch of other things. Dr. Boddy told me to go back to the full dosage of the Advair 500 twice a day, from the once a day I had been able to go to when I cut out dairy. He referred me to a cardiologist. I made an appt. with the cardiologist for Friday. I wanted to take the readings from the chest x-ray in the fall with me to the cardiologist, so I stopped by Dr. Boddy's. Cara, the nurse said they had the results from my blood test back and that my blood sugar was supposed to be between 65-99, but was 44, which I guess is pretty low. She asked if I felt shaky or dizzy or had been fasting. I said no to all. I had eaten breakfast a few hours previous and felt the same as I always do. So, I had to make another appt. with Dr. Bod to discuss that.

I went to the cardiologist and he asked me a bunch of questions and listened to my heart for a long time. I asked him about the pectus surgery but he said he would think long and hard before jumping into thoracic surgery. He said that it might affect my lung function, but he didn't think it was affecting my heart. He said that all our questions would be answered by an echocardiogram and a treadmill stress test. I did the echo right then, which was extremely uncomfortable. The treadmill guy wasn't there, so I scheduled that to be this week, the same day as the appt. with Dr. Boddy. Dr. Lourie, the cardiologist, didn't actually tell me much, just said that the tests would answer our ?'s. I suppose I will be discussing the results of them Thursday after my stress test. He was very warm and seemed to really listen well.

Friday night I came home after all that and decided to do some internet searching for prolonged qt and low blood sugar and all of that. What I found totally freaked me out. Here is a link talking about prolonged qt: http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/common/standard/transform.jsp?requestURI=/healthatoz/Atoz/ency/prolonged_qt_syndrome.jsp It says basically that there can be too long a space between the beats of the heart, which can cause fainting, cardiac arrest and sudden death. This, needless to say, was what totally freaked me out. One site listed things that set off a prolonged qt episode as: strenuous exercise, emotional excitement, anger, being startled by loud noises such as alarm clocks, or sometimes it can happen while sleeping. This did not do much for my sense of security and to be honest, left me in tears and consumed by anxiety and confusion, at least that night.

The next day I got brave enough to keep researching, and along the way looked up my low blood sugar reading, which seemed to indicate hypoglycemia, possibly, or diabetes?? I have a lot more questions about that, which I will discuss with Dr. Bod Thurs. I researched if any medication I am taking could be affecting my heart function, and I found a resounding "YES!" See here: http://www.healthsquare.com/drugs/105074_2.htm and here: http://doublecheckmd.com/EffectsDetail.do;jsessionid=DEA45ABF8B759EC3A1588E9D184FD568?dname=salmeterol&sid=13389&eid=1692 and here: http://members.kaiserpermanente.org/kpweb/drugency/drugdetails.do?drugID=255421&name=Advair+Diskus+500+mcg-50+mcg%2FDose+for+Inhalation&index=true (Scroll down to Precautions)

So, perhaps I already had a physical predisposition for this and the medication has made it flare up. Now I am very anxious to find something else I can take for my asthma that will not affect my heart. I am interested in this on apple cider vinegar: http://www.earthclinic.com/CURES/asthma.html and oil pulling, which seems to be a general health thing, not specifically for asthma, but will help it as well: http://www.oilpulling.com/ This sounds really weird, but I am willing to give it a try.

So, right now I am just trying to avoid the things that could make my heart stop. Unfortunately, the only one I have complete control over is the exercise, which is the only one I really want to be doing. :( Looking back now on my medical history, it seems I have had trouble with this prolonged qt before. I had to go home from college one semester because I was fainting, and having terrible chest pain. I should mention that previous to this, I had relapsed into my old bulimic habits. I was also taking Serevent and Flovent, steroid inhalers which can do the same thing as the Advair I am on now. My aunt took me to a health food store where a woman did "muscle testing" on me and said I had a severe potassium deficiency, along with some other minerals. My aunt and uncle bought me all the expensive supplements the lady recommended and I started feeling better almost immediately when I started taking them. Now, I have not been bulimic since then, but I do always sweat a lot, and since I have been running about 10 miles a week for about 2 months now, (and sweating like crazy the whole time) maybe I have been depleting my electrolytes faster than I can replace them, and that is exacerbating this. Maybe I need to start taking a potassium supplement. I have already started a magnesium supplement, as I read that could help my asthma.

So, in a really big nutshell (haha) that is what is going on with me. After my appt. on Thursday, I will update. If you actually took the three hours to read all this, you are a better friend than I deserve and I thank you! :)