I had five stents (64 mm total, all on the lateral anterior descending artery, for those medical professionals reading along) placed when I had my first cath. Now that I’m thinking about it, they also did a cath when I had my defibrillator placed, too. The doc had to put the ICD through its paces. I was in the hospital overnight for the ICD, but it was very uneventful. Took a long nap (as I always do after anesthesia) and was able to walk around by dinner time.
It’s good that you are doing this as a diagnostic exam rather than as an emergency procedure. Better to fix things before it becomes a bigger problem.
@Astro77 The bypasses just closed up. Two weeks after bypass surgery my chest was reopened due to staph infection around my heart. I was very sick, lucky to survive. W/son had been told to expect the worst. Why the bypasses closed is unknown, perhaps related to infection. The bypasses failure was discovered a little over year after surgery. When it was determined that bypasses had failed my options at that time were more surgery or a medical approach (ie take meds, reduce stresses on heart, retire). Although both options had their risks, I chose medical approach. Although medical approach has it’s downside as to quality of life, it’s been well over a decade since I made that choice.
Hanging out in recovery. They went through my wrist so I can leave in an other hour. Doctor gave me a lot of versed but I was aware of everything and handled it well.
Bad news is they didn’t discover why my heart rate is so low. But no blockages so that’s good news since my cholesterol runs high.
Been a rough couple of days. Came in through ER on Sunday. Couldn’t do cath til today cause I’m allergic to the dyes and needed pretreatment for that.
I am glad that they didn’t discover any blockages, but unsure why they couldn’t figure that out from cat scans. Hope they put you on Lipitor for cholesterol, if it’s running that high.
How low is your heart rate? My husband’s resting heart rate is mid 40’s, but they don’t seem to be concerned about that (fitness guy). Maybe we should be. I hope that you just have a low heart rate because you are healthy, and that’s it! I know that sometimes the not knowing of things is the worst part, and you almost hope they find something, just so you understand what is going on.
I am glad to hear that you are fine, and I am sure the doctors will figure out the reason for the low heart rate. I am sure there are many possibilities, and it will be a matter of ruling out the most urgent/obvious first & going from there.
If they haven’t already, make sure they check your meds/vitamin/supplements to make sure there’s nothing that could be affecting your heart rate. Ask them specifically to check.
I find that medical staff often don’t check that stuff carefully enough, even though I have a list of meds and health issues that I give to docs/ERs every time I show up.
I’m allergic to IVP dyes which means no CT scans or cardiac caths or such unless they dose me good with prednisone and Benadryl for 24 hours first.
My bloodwork on Sunday indicated possibility of blood clots so they took me to nuclear medicine and used radioactive isotopes to check my lungs rather than wait a day for CT scan. Heart enzymes didn’t indicate heart attack so we waited until a cardiologist came in Monday and ordered the cath for today.
Which other than mild pain in my arm as they inserted the probe was no biggie and over quickly. No lifting more than five pounds or putting my wrist in dish water for two days. No worries about the latter!!
@KKmama, stay away from the dish water. At all times! Any good excuse to not do the dishes.
I am glad the procedure was no big deal. I hope they hurry up and figure this out.
I’ll tell you something we have found out, is that if you have a low pulse rate, you are much more at risk for deep vein thrombosis. Have they put you on blood thinner, or aspirin, or are they not sure yet?
What is aggravating is that they don’t seem to do a good job finding the blood clots. They need to do a comprehensive Doppler of someone’s limbs to figure this out. The first time with my H, they did the legs and found something…so then they stopped. The second time they did the legs and arms, said it was all clear now. The third time they included the groin area, since the doctor found some sort of blockage during the procedure, and indicated there was a blockage in that area (far more serious than the legs). Now they are claiming everything is fine and not releasing the test results promptly.
I am so confused. I feel that you have to follow all this up yourself. I don’t know why they just wouldn’t Doppler your entire body the first time to find clots. Are they looking at your limbs and groin area for blood clots?
I’m glad you’re OK. I am allergic to sulfites, so they’d have to pre-treat me IF I need to use dyes that have them (and many of them do). Sounds like I’d need the prednisone/Benedryl cocktail like you. I hope they are able to figure out what’s causing your low heart rate soon. It IS irritating when they seemingly do one test after another and just keep eliminating different causes. Where is the magic StarTrek detector that Bones used anyway?
Yes, I keep waiting for the medial tricorder. I’ve had fantasies of inventing that and changing the world, but I’m pretty sure I’m not smart enough!
And it seems like one doctor doesn’t always talk to the other, they keep forgetting things, and nobody has the entire picture except for you. We have one doctor who is like House (but nice), yet he doesn’t seem to have all the information, either. It seems to be so hard to get all the data to the same place. I hope KKMama has a Dr. House in her corner!
My doc in Denver did his best to keep everything together for my care but has handed me off to a new doc in SF that he respects and has known for many years. They seem a bit different there but I’ve only been there twice. I will see how things go. I do like that SF is at see level and forces us to see my BIL, nieces and nephews.
My local lung doc seems pretty good and we had a nice 30 minute visit yesterday. We are still getting used to one another but it seems to be meshing nicely. I’m hoping he can refer me to an internist he works well with, as mine is 68 and I have no idea when he’s going to stop practicing. We have a real shortage of good internists in our city and many of them are SRs.
Getting doctors to talk to one another and coordinating care is harder than herding cats. I am the only one who has the full picture, which does noone any good when I’m unconscious. I have a handy-dandy sheet of all my meds, dosages, indications, as well as my medical issues, recent and prior procedures, latest test results, etc. It goes with me everywhere. DH and S2 (who is local) have copies, too. Was in the ER last week and they made two medication errors despite having this info. Fortunately I caught them. I tell them I’m a medical zebra (I probably know a lot more about my conditions than most patients) and they all treat me with suspicion instead of listening.
The docs seem to hone in on their area of expertise and don’t look at the big picture. Oncologist will not deal with anything cardiac, cardiologist won’t deal with anything oncological (but my chemo has cardiac side effects),etc.
So, if you aren’t getting answers, keep raising a stink!
Yes, my lung doc was able to have me seen by cardiologist who specializes in heart-lung issues. It was helpful to get the testing and insights he offered as well as getting my beta blocker changed to a different one that doesn’t affect my lungs as much as the 1st one I was tried on.
I am the coordinator of my care. Fortunately, I like all my docs and can work with them, individually and collectively. They are happy I coordinate.
If and when I become unable to coordinate or unconscious, I hope someone else will be able to, but can’t think of anyone yet.
We had one neurologist that didn’t know an answer to something (outside of his field), and while we were there, googled the answer, briefly read the headlines from a couple of articles, and said, “Nope, that couldn’t cause the issue”. Uh…look a little further down and read the studies, like I did, and yes it could.
I hope KKMama is still doing well, and they have an answer for her soon.
Wow–I would not be happy with that neurologist. I like docs that at least admit what they know and don’t know and will consult others as appropriate–just a quick google search would be so shallow! Uptodate at least summarizes the latest medical research on specific medical topics.
I have to give him that he initially said he didn’t know…but the Google thing was a little weird! I’ve learned not to ask people questions outside of their specialties.