Alyrose2 said...
Well for my heart, I've had tachycardia since this all started. But sometimes I'll feel like I can't take a deep enough breath, or get enough air. I also have some pain on the left side of my ribs (about 8-9 ribs down) that could be a sudden shooting pain or a dull ache. I also get a pain (sometimes dull/sometimes sharp) right under my left breast/rib cage. Lately I've been getting a dull ache that moves all around my chest, sometimes on my left side, sometimes on my right, sometimes in my pec muscles and sometimes in the middle. I've been to a great cardiologist and he has ran blood work, done multiple EKG's on me and has just recently given me a coronary CT scan (with contrast). So he's not thinking it's an actual "cardiac" issue. He feels it's secondary to something else. It's just scary to go from being a normal 24 year old one day to feeling like my body is shutting down one organ after another.
Hey Alyrose2,
I was skimming posts around this topic, this post caught my attention. First let me take you back to 6 years ago when I was a younger Marine. I am 28 right now btw. But back in 2009, I suddenly started having issues concerning the heart mainly. Which should of been extremely rare for me. I have no family history of any conditions not to mention I was extremely in-shape. My workouts I spent roughly 2 1/2 hours at the gym this would include full body workouts usually a 3 - 5 mile run was included. Now I will refer to the main issues that started as "episode" because there is really no medical definitions for the symptoms I experienced.
March 2009, it was a Thursday night (my friday), I had just gotten off work (I worked on jets, was a fun job). I worked the night shift. Shift change took place roughly 11pm and I was out the door. Got home around 11:30pm, walked in the door and my good friend called and we started conversing back and forth joking and laughing. As this was happening I
opened myself a bottle of wine and started pouring myself a glass. I hadn't taken a drink I just poured and let it sit on the table. I continued my conversation but as I stand there, I noticed some tingling in my back (this tingling is a familiar feeling for me, my back issues had started years before this). But as this tingling took place, it seemed to crawl from my middle back and moved up my spine through the back of my neck then spread out around my scalp. I just kind of rolled my shoulders and stretched my neck around to shrug off the sensation and continued listening to my friend.
Not even seconds after this, the only way I can describe this is. I felt an "electric shocking sensation" is my left chest just over where my heart is, it was more surprising than it was painful it definitely made my chest flinch to the feeling of it. Immediately following that was sudden weakness in my legs, which then an "ice cold" sensation through my entire body like my blood was pumping ice water and then that followed up with tunnel vision. All of these happened in a fraction of second of each other.
Now when I reached the point of tunnel vision, I felt a slight bit of panic the immediate adrenaline from this im sure is what got me up the stairs because my legs felt like 1000lb weights when I was getting up the stairs. My only thought was "If I am going to pass out, it WILL be upstairs where one of my roommates will find me". My room was downstairs and it was my weekend no one would of found me most likely for at least 2 days.
Now an even longer story shortened, this was the first "episode" of at least 8 more to follow until I found a doctor searching for Lyme as a cause. After the antibiotics, the episodes calmed down but not all symptoms went away. Prior to the first episode my average heartrate was 60-70 (even through boot camp) and average blood pressure was 107/60 ( even through boot camp, i had a "runners BP"). Now after the first episode in March of 2009 until today, my average blood pressure is 142/95 and heartrate is averaged at 85 on a GOOD day on a normal day its 95 and bad day its 110+. I will tell you that I have seen almost EVERY specialist you can see for these symptoms. My primary military doctor thought I was having anxiety/panic attacks which the 24 hour urine cortisol tests showed no evidence of stress factors. I was sent in circles with no help from these doctors. I was sent to multiple psychologists. Then I took it upon myself to seek out a doctor that happened to be a Lyme Literate Medical Doctor (LLMD). He ran a Lyme Disease Western Blot by Igenex Labs. Didn't come back CDC positive but I hit ALOT of the Lyme specific bands, that was enough convincing for me to go on a course of dual antibiotics. My military doctors and specialists disagreed with this LLMD by the way (when it comes to Lyme you will start noticing a pattern).
Now Im not here to try to convince you that your situation is exactly the same as mine or even convince you that is Lyme, that is on you. I still could not tell with absolute certainty that what I have is even Lyme, Lyme co-infection, or something entirely else. I have conflicting labs between IGenex, LabCorps, and Specialty Labs. Every time I get a Lyme Antibody done by LabCorps, it does not come back the same. Scientifically, this just shows that the test is not accurate enough to reproduce the same results. IGenex however has come back at least on the IGG portion consistently. IGM is another story. I can't give you the science behind methods of Western Blots but I do understand antibodies and their purpose.
In just this past 6 years, I could write the hell out of a book about
this whole experience. What I shared here were only small snippets compared to the rest of what happened just in that year. If you continue to see doctors/specialists you will eventually start getting doctors that stop looking and just spend their time trying to convince you nothing is wrong "its all in your head", "im not sure whats wrong with you, but here take these medications that will hide your symptoms but destroy organs at the same time", "we have a stress reduction class for chronic conditions class i think you should take". Maybe some of what you read here are things you can connect with. But what you need to know is DOCTORS ARE NOT ALWAYS RIGHT.
So in my experience with all this and since this is such a debatable topic this is what I would recommend you did.
1. Ask every doctor you see questions. Write them down and take them in if you have to.
2. Tell doctors to test you! Even if its to rule out things other possibilities thats fine, that just narrows the search for the answer. So when they say "it could a cross-reaction" or "maybe its in your head" tell them to test for the cross reaction or tell them to scan your brain. What I hated the most was seeing a doctor that claimed to not know what was going on then not even checking me for the things they said it could be.
3. Write down what they say or get the notes from the visits and copies of your labs. Do your own research, learn the terminology.
4. Most of all, stay unbiased. Dont go in telling your doctor what you KNOW you have when to him it seems like its based of paranoia instead of factual data like labs.