Monday, April 16, 2012

Doctors and more confusion

I think I'm pretty much just going to scrap the HAWMC Challenge. I can't really relate to the prompts. Maybe I'll just pick and choose if I get bored later.

The appointment was both annoying and confusing (and perhaps pretty pointless). It WASN'T the doctor I assumed. Whoops. Oh well, that's a plus in my eyes, though I'm not sure exactly how much better he is. They did the whole blood pressure, heart rate thing. My heart rate was 99 and the nurse was like "You're heart rate is kind of high." Which is when I asked what it was and she asked "Is it normally *that high*". Ha. Ha. Funny. I wish it never got higher. I just kind of laughed and said that was my normal (feeling well) heart rate but was actually LOW for me when I'm symptomatic. THEY had the results of my sleep study, I didn't ask, I'll get to that in a few.

Dr. K listened to my heart, had me breath normal, deep then hold my breath (on the inhale and exhale), asked if I had chest pain or palpitations. The appointment was largely talking. He said he agreed with Dr. M's treatment plan and for me to follow up with Dr. M but that he didn't see the need for me to see both if they were in agreement on the plans, at least long term, unless I needed to. I asked questions, he said I have the neurocardiogenic syncope and inappropriate sinus tachycardia (which I knew), the mitral valve prolapse syndrome (also knew), but said I also have sick sinus syndrome?!? Basically my sinus nodule thing (??) is "set higher". The hearts natural pacemaker? I don't know.

My other problems listed are GERD (knew it), anxiety (knew), palpitations (knew), syncope (knew), arrhythmias (knew it), and the 2 murmurs (prolapsed valves - hence the MVPS and one other but I can't remember).

Here is where I get confused. My dx/problems list also included "obstructive sleep apnea". But the tech told me I had less than 5/hour so normal/very very mild. And now they want a different sleep study (deprived sleep EEG). So what gives? Guess that's a wait and see. I rescheduled the deprived sleep EEG for the 26th, I didn't get much sleep last night, I can't stay up today and tonight plus however long tomorrow on no caffeine and take care of kids. I need more than 4 hours of sleep in 46 hours (woke up at 10 yesterday, got 4 hours last night, then be up until the sleep lab at 8 which I've heard lasts about 2 hours so I'd be awake 48 hours at least with the exception of those 4 hours. Sure that fits the deprived sleep definition but I can't. I'd end up falling asleep tonight and having to reschedule anyways.

But the thing that stumps me the most was on my list of "chief complaints". Coronary Artery Disease (CAD). No one has mentioned that, diagnosed that, anything. Nothing. I don't understand. I do have chest pains occasionally but that's the only thing I can think of for that to show up on the CC list.

Anyway, I'm hungry and tired. More later.

2 comments:

  1. It's always fun to freak out unsuspecting nurses with high heart rates and low bp, isn't it?! Haha! Although more a facepalm moment when you've just spend 10 minutes explaining why that is!

    That sleep deprivation study sounds unnecessarily torturous! Who the heck can honestly stay up that long?!

    Sorry to hear you've got a few more diagnosis to add to the list as well, thats never fun to find out.

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    1. It really is, shortly after I had J I went to my obstetrician for a check up and my heart rate was 150+bpm. She just kept looking at me, at the monitor then back to me. Asked me to hold REALLY still etc. Finally I asked her what was wrong and she told me and I laughed. But apparently someone didn't do their job because they'd marked that one of my visiting hr's were in the 60s. Even feeling like I'm super woman it's never been that low. But it was amusing to freak out the nurse.

      And you're right, it's very annoying to have to explain things over again. Even more irritating that I've seen this guys former partner for over a year and everything is on my chart. Is it that hard to do a brief glance at the chart before speaking?

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