I'm just going to keep going with that naming scheme until I drive it into the ground, or until we're 100% finished with it. Probably the latter. :V
So I was upset with my doctor last week; he had me schedule an appointment too early, then had no test results for which to have called me in, and finally told me to schedule my next appointment for three months away. It very much felt like he wasn't taking my case seriously.
Then, on Monday, his office finally got the test results from both an echocardiogram I'd taken the end of February, as well as the new Holter monitor results we got thanks to the Holter monitor company admitting their earlier mistake and allowing me another test with it without billing me. As soon has he saw the results, his office called me up and insisted I come in as soon as possible, even wanting me to come in that day. There was no way I could do that (I live about an hour's drive away from their office), and Tuesday and Wednesday both had full plans, but I was able to schedule for yesterday, Thursday.
I've now been recommended to a cardiologist in El Paso (and have a consultation appointment scheduled for early April). Both the echocardiogram and the Holter monitor results agree that I appear to have a bundle branch block, basically a blockage of the electrical signal that regulates my heart beat; additionally, the Holter monitor discovered a rather serious accelerated supraventricular tachyarrhythmia, likely as a direct result of the aforementioned block. Basically, my heart very suddenly jumps from a relatively average rate to ~120bpm; this causes intense feelings of anxiety, as well as a hindering muscular weakness (and possibly even brain damage) due to oxygen not moving properly. In more serious cases, such as my own, this can even lead to presyncope (feeling like you're going to faint) and syncope (actually fainting). These symptoms are exacerbated with stress of course, which explains why it was so bad when I was in Seattle; additionally, constant stress makes the underlying condition that much worse, meaning my time working at Walmart back in 2009 was literally killing me.
At the cardiologist, most likely I'll be subjected to testing of my cardiac electrophysiology, meaning I'll be put under (I hope) and the doctor will poke around inside my heart with a small electrical probe to determine the exact nature of my heart failure; with that information, he might be able to determine the cause and nature of the bundle branch block, and we might even be able to move towards a treatment plan.
On the very plus side, this 100% covers the symptoms I'd been experiencing and, with the frequency and severity they saw on the Holter monitor (I have the readouts, and every time I reported symptoms, the recorded impulses went absolutely nuts), this could very easily completely rule out the possibility of ALS. (I say "could" because it's not been "confirmed" yet, but it's pretty solid based on evidence.) It might even be treatable, depending on the underlying cause. We'll just have to see.
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9 years, 9 months ago
14 Mar 2015 04:38 CET
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