| LIFE Have you had heart problems?

[alabamajack]

Still waiting on my chemical stress test results, but just throwing this out there in case anyone else has ever experienced this. Shortness of breath after doing something as minimal as walking through your house but other times, being able to walk around the block with relatively no issues. Along with shortness of breath, having pressure and or ringing in your ears, pain along the top of your chest and extreme fatigue. Also, it's like my fingers tighten up almost like you feel when you are having a bad day with arthritis. The only thing that's showed up on any of my tests and x-rays, ect. so far is a low thyroid level. Hopefully it's not heart related, but if it's not, just want to get an idea of what else it could be.

 

[XXL TideFan]

Checked for blockages? I have afib but was blessed with high cholesterol that hasn’t built up on any arteries. My symptoms were same but not tightening of hands. Atrial fibrillation is random firing of the signals to the heart. You have a fluttering heart that can become woefully inefficient pumping blood. Mine was at ≈28% when I pushed the issue with my GP and got an ekg or something in her office that showed it AT THE TIME. Any times in years past going back to early 30s I was dismissed as having a panic attack. Kirkland Clinic UAB has a separate group of Drs for heart rhythm issues.

 

[footballer]

I had double bypass in July 2010. My symptoms were intermittent chest pains, low energy and shortness of breath. But in my mind at the time, low energy and shortness of breath was probably caused by COPD that started around 1999. I don't remember for sure if my chest pains started in late 2009 or early 2010. In the beginning, the pains were short, lasting a few seconds and go away for days. After several months, they became more regular and intense which worried me. I started seeing a cardiologist in June 2010. and he set up some test. Echocardiogram showed no
problems. I started the stress test on the treadmill and I only lasted about 30 seconds. I stepped off and sat down. I was completely out of breath and was having a mild chest pain. Nurse seemed pissed and told me I had not walked enough to get results. So she then proceeded to administer the chemical stress test. That showed that I was getting around 25% oxygen flow from my lungs to my heart. An arteriogram was scheduled and postponed for three days before I went for the test. That was on July 10'th, 2010, at least 7 months after my first chest pain episode. The arteriogram showed 99% blockage in the two arterities that fed oxygen from my heart to my lungs. A widow maker. One clot in a fork had those two arterties 99% blocked. Nurses unhooked me from the testing equipment and rolled me into the surgery room where they performed emergency double bypass. My surgeon told me that I could have died at any time before that day of the surgery, a sudden death with no time to dial 911. I had not missed any time from my job, (really physical work), before my surgery, having intermittent chest pains which had become closer together and a little more severe as time passed. You never know what is going on inside your body.

I urge you to have your cardiologist to set up appropriate test to diagnose and fix whatever problem you have before it is too late. You will be
glad you did, but especially your family and friends will appreciate you being around a lot longer. I am not trying to scare you, I'm sure you are scared enough already. I now have had the double bypass, I have osteoarthritis as well as rheumatoid arthritis since 2007 and also now have advanced emphysema. So that is my story. I hope you can tell your story many years from now. Good luck.

I now have my 2 longest and best friends have had strokes. Both have clogged jugular veins. First friend had his in 2010, a few months after my surgery. My next friend had his just 2 weeks ago. They both still have the same movement but both have serious problems with their speech, not being able to voice their thoughts like they normally would.

 

[alabamajack]

I had double bypass in July 2010. My symptoms were intermittent chest pains, low energy and shortness of breath. But in my mind at the time, low energy and shortness of breath was probably caused by COPD that started around 1999. I don't remember for sure if my chest pains started in late 2009 or early 2010. In the beginning, the pains were short, lasting a few seconds and go away for days. After several months, they became more regular and intense which worried me. I started seeing a cardiologist in June 2010. and he set up some test. Echocardiogram showed no
problems. I started the stress test on the treadmill and I only lasted about 30 seconds. I stepped off and sat down. I was completely out of breath and was having a mild chest pain. Nurse seemed pissed and told me I had not walked enough to get results. So she then proceeded to administer the chemical stress test. That showed that I was getting around 25% oxygen flow from my lungs to my heart. An arteriogram was scheduled and postponed for three days before I went for the test. That was on July 10'th, 2010, at least 7 months after my first chest pain episode. The arteriogram showed 99% blockage in the two arterities that fed oxygen from my heart to my lungs. A widow maker. One clot in a fork had those two arterties 99% blocked. Nurses unhooked me from the testing equipment and rolled me into the surgery room where they performed emergency double bypass. My surgeon told me that I could have died at any time before that day of the surgery, a sudden death with no time to dial 911. I had not missed any time from my job, (really physical work), before my surgery, having intermittent chest pains which had become closer together and a little more severe as time passed. You never know what is going on inside your body.

I urge you to have your cardiologist to set up appropriate test to diagnose and fix whatever problem you have before it is too late. You will be
glad you did, but especially your family and friends will appreciate you being around a lot longer. I am not trying to scare you, I'm sure you are scared enough already. I now have had the double bypass, I have osteoarthritis as well as rheumatoid arthritis since 2007 and also now have advanced emphysema. So that is my story. I hope you can tell your story many years from now. Good luck.

I now have my 2 longest and best friends have had strokes. Both have clogged jugular veins. First friend had his in 2010, a few months after my surgery. My next friend had his just 2 weeks ago. They both still have the same movement but both have serious problems with their speech, not being able to voice their thoughts like they normally would.

Did you have days, maybe even hours where you could do something strenuous like walking and feel fine, but do it awhile later or the next day and you felt like you were going to fall out

 

[alabamajack]

Checked for blockages? I have afib but was blessed with high cholesterol that hasn’t built up on any arteries. My symptoms were same but not tightening of hands. Atrial fibrillation is random firing of the signals to the heart. You have a fluttering heart that can become woefully inefficient pumping blood. Mine was at ≈28% when I pushed the issue with my GP and got an ekg or something in her office that showed it AT THE TIME. Any times in years past going back to early 30s I was dismissed as having a panic attack. Kirkland Clinic UAB has a separate group of Drs for heart rhythm issues.

Did you have a mixture of good times and bad times where you could do the exact same thing and feel fine one time and feel so bad the next

 

[footballer]

@alabamajack For the last 20 or so years that I worked, around 1990 - 2010, I probably had more days that I had to drag myself out of bed to go to work, bad days, than good days. There were tons of days that I just did not feel well. I didn't mention in my previous post that I have had 2 surgeries for diverticulitis, 1997 and 1998. Since around 1999, I have had very serious lung problems, giving out of breath at the drop of a hat. Believe me, that is enough to take the wind right out of your sails. 2006 brought a laser back surgery, which put me down for about a month.
The next year, 2007, rheumatoid arthritis showed up. 2010 brought the chest pains from the blockage that I wrote about. So I had two major diseases going when the heart problems began. The chest pains were not very long in duration, 3 maybe 5 seconds to begin with, I would have to stop what I was doing until the pain went away. I was working a heavy duty, physical job, but the work was not causing the pains. I would have them in bed just rolling over to my left side. I had 2 episodes while on vacation in Gatlinburg. My chest pains were not debilitating, but were bothersome and the worried me plenty. They bothered me enough that I would need to stop what I was doing or sit down until they subsided.
Yeah, I guess they did make me feel bad, especially with the other 2 diseases that I was dealing with at the time. I could have chest pains while in bed, while working or just plain walking. I don't believe what I happened to be doing at the time made any difference in me having the pains or not. Yes to your question above. There were times, no matter what I was doing, that I felt light headed, like I was not all there mentally, I thought that probably I was not getting enough oxygen to my brain. There were also times that I went from feeling half way decent to feeling terrible, like flipping a switch and turn a whiter shade of pale. That is a heck of a song isn't it?

 

[XXL TideFan]

Did you have a mixture of good times and bad times where you could do the exact same thing and feel fine one time and feel so bad the next

Sure. Any time your heart is fluttering blood circulation is greatly impacted. My health app on my old S9 took heart rhythms and blood oxygen levels as accurate as the dr office. The heart rate wave would be clean when not in AFIB but in AFIB the wave would be “dirty looking”.

 

[rick4bama]

@alabamajack You may need to ask your doctor to check your ribs. I had this and it felt like i was having a heart attack. Also our granddaughter had the same thing. She was only 17 at the time.

Pain caused by costochondritis might mimic that of a heart attack or other heart conditions. Costochondritis is sometimes known as chest wall pain, costosternal syndrome or costosternal chondrodynia. Sometimes, swelling accompanies the pain (Tietze syndrome).