Heart Palpitations Forum http://palps.chemicalforums.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl Heart Palpitations Forum >> Symptoms and other concerns >> Returning with some concerns http://palps.chemicalforums.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1292206065 Message started by George88 on Dec 12th, 2010, 6:07pm

Title: Returning with some concerns Post by George88 on Dec 12th, 2010, 6:07pm Hi everyone, I'm posting once again for the first time in several months. I've not been active for this time for a number of reasons, including a reduction in anxiety, not having any questions that I felt needed answering and not having anything to actually contribute to the threads or other members. My reasons for being here are obvious, of course. I have been having more and more anxiety as of late and I think all of it is attributed to my health status. Some of you may remember my posts about my health from our thread on discovering our anxiety by RLR. Anyway, regardless, it has come back and I have new symptoms relating to my heart that I can't answer. I haven't been to my GP because I am dissatisfied with him. Every time I question him on anything he seems to have no idea what could be wrong. He has never tried to help me with my anxiety beyond telling me that "it will either get you, or you will get it" and that I have to "just deal with it". I had to spend almost a year visiting him from month to month just to get him to try 1.25mg bisoprolol for my constant near tachycardic pulse, and that was after being sent to a cardiologist. Woops, I'm sidetracking a little here. I should give a brief history of this year so nothing can be overlooked. You may remember I had an abscess drained in January, of which I have had some problems with it not healing and the wound getting infected. I will shorten this as much as possible: 1. Jan 28: Abscess drained. Hb: 10.4, Albumin: low (I don't recall the albumin numbers), CRP: 75 2. Feb 3: In hospital feverish, suspected reinfection. Given 2-3 days IV triple antibiotics, CRP 100, Hb: 10.4, Albumin: low. Wound had healed to 3 CM from original 5 CM. 3. Feb 7: Panic attack ended in hospital visit. Hb: 10.4, CRP 34 (supposedly still dropping). 4. Sometime in March or April I saw a cardiologist who gave me the all clear. Went back to GP for bisoprolol at 1.25mg daily (unrelated to abscess) 5. In April at my 3 month out-patient follow up for my abscess drainage, the wound still had not healed beyond the 3 CM mark. The wound was oozing but nothing significant. No action other than a dressing change was taken. 6. In June at my 6 month out-patient follow up for my abscess drainage, the wound still had not healed beyond 3 CM but was slowly closing over. It was oozing but not significantly. No action was taken other than a dressing change. 7. In September, at my 9 month out-patient follow up for my abscess, the wound still had not healed beyong 3 CM but was clearly infected with oozing and a painful swelling. An MRI (pelvic) with and without dye was booked which showed 2 superficial fistulae and an infection. 5 weeks later the abscess was drained and fistulae laid open. During surgery a drop of blood was taken from my finger to check my hemoglobin, I think they used a device similar to a glucose meter to check the level. It was 8.7. The surgeon said this was not completely accurate but I am wondering if certain factors may have limited the test. I often have cold hands and didn't think to ask if this could affect the test results (I'd only just woken up from the anesthetic). 8. In late November I was back in hospital again with suspected pelvic sepsis because of my wound. I was given IV triple antibiotic therapy for 5 days and was given another pelvic MRI which showed nothing was reinfected and was discharged. Had bloods taken upon entering the hospital for: kidneys (normal), full blood count (Hb: 10.4), CRP (150) and they culture my blood but nothing grew. They did some more blood tests on day 3 which were Hb: 10.1, CRP: 50, iron: "slighly low" but I didn't think to ask for the number. I questioned why my Hb had dropped off in 2 days but the doctor said it wasn't significant and was about average over all the tests I'd had over the last 2-3 years. I'm on liquid iron (galfer surup) now so hopefully I can get my iron back up. The doctor did say it was only slightly low, and I put this down to near 9 months of a disgraceful appetite and my 9 month long infection which no doctor seemed to be able to identify. So I have suffered somewhat this year with poor health and medical neglect. I am quite disappointed it took three-quarters of a year for a doctor to decide enough time had passed that an MRI was necessary. So that's my medical history for this year and I am currently taking the following (taking in to account I also have Crohn's): 1. Imodium 2mg capsules 3 x a day 2. Wind-eze chewable peppermind tablets x 4 a day 3. Boswellia Serrata 300mg x 2 a day Unfortunately, the capsules also come with 200mg Commiphora mukul. I don't know what it is or what it does but these capsules are the only ones I could find with 300mg boswellic acid. I know how you [RLR] feel about all things 'alternative' and so I will say just this: boswellic acid one of only two natural/alternative product I have found, out of tens of products, that actually does have efficacy, at least for me. The other being meadowsweet (which we have spoken about before). 4. Galfer syrup. I'm only taking this once a day but will be going up to 3 x daily (5mg spoonful). 5. Bisoprolol 1.25mg x 2 daily. - continued below

Title: Re: Returning with some concerns Post by George88 on Dec 12th, 2010, 6:11pm - continued from above With all that said, I haven't actually talked about my concerns, so here goes: Bisoprolol doesn't seem to be working anymore. Previously, 1.25mg was enough to semi-cap my heart rate at around 130. Panic attacks would not cause my heart rate to go much over this  and it would take quite a lot ofexertion to get my heart going faster than about 130. Of course, I could make it go much faster with harder exertion but in general it was capped. Over the last month or two I've been having panic attacks again and bisoprolol is not having this affect anymore. A panic attack can cause my heart rate to go up to 200 beats a minute or more and I don't know what's changed. I've upped my dose to 2.5mg a day (morning and night) and this is still not enough to cap my heart rate. I realise these are low doses but their affects seem to have been lost altogether. When I was in hospital in November, minor exertion seemed to have a profound effect on heart rate. Just sitting up in the morning from sleeping some days caused my heart to go to about 150 bmp! Once I stood up to go to the bathroom, it raced even more, I suspect it was going more than 180bmp! I was able to counter this by drinking lots of water and it would stop racing like this after a few hours, so I guess it could have been dehydration, but I was still drinking quite a bit. My blood pressure was also lowered (doctors were not concerned about this drop at all) while in hospital, lowest was 80/42 first thing in the morning. I seem to have also developed another symptom: hand tremors. I can't hold my hands out, stretch them out or hold something without them shaking. It isn't violent, but it's noticable. They also seem to be cold all the time, aswell;which is not so concerning because it has been unusually cold in this part recently, both outisde and in. I literally wake up to a cold bed. I think it could possibly be the humidity, because it has been warmer for a day or so and my hands have warmed up...I think it's the freezing cold air that's making them cold because right down to my wrists are nice and warm, then the exposed hands are cold... I know anemia can do this but how would anemia explain for the warming? Not really a concern I guess. I'm also having a strange symptom where I seem to "phase out" for a split microsecond. It feels so strange, as if someone has pulled the plug on me. I feel like I am about to go in to a fit (I've never had one for reference, though). I seem to get it when I'm having higher anxiety and sometimes it causes me to shut my eyes forcefully, tense a muscle or group or muscles or jerk in some way (like the involuntary jerk you sometimes get when going to sleep). Somtimes, I can even bring it only subtly by purposely trying to blank my mind of everything, I also get it when I'm trying to get to sleep at night. This symptom can also be brought on my certain things like noises and movements. Noises that are unexpected, but not startling, if that makes any sense. For example, I could be watching a film and the shot will change in to a closer scene, where the sound does not change, but new sounds are introduced like talking. It the sudden, unexpectedness that can cause it. Another symptom I've noticed is my face feels hot all the time. I don't know if this is facial flushing but I know it isn't a fever. I just checked my temperature with a tympanic thermometer in both ears (left: 36.4, right: 36). Also, I should note that I seem to be able to get widely varying number with this thermometer and I don't know if I'm using it properly, it is a Genius 2 thermometer. Once, I was able to read 34 degrees and then 36.7 degrees in the same ear. I've moved it around and tried many position and it's definitely not fever temperature. Lastly, and this is my main reason for posting, is something that happened last night. I was having a normal day and something had angered me early evening and I was thinking negatively on it all night. When I got in to bed I started having even deeper negative thoughts about losing family members (which are completely unrelated thoughts to what actually made me angry). These thoughts I think were brought on by my other thouhgts about my own bad health. A little later, I noticed my heart was racing. I don't know how fast but I "feel" it was beating around 1.8-2 times per second. It was definitely not a resting rate and I couldn't get it to slow down. Then, I got up and had a drink of water, got back in to bed and led down, which seemed to make it slow down (again, I wasn't counting beats) to about perhaps 80-85. I then got to sleep and was for the first time in my life, somewhat violently woken. I think I literally "writhed" and squirmed for a second or two and I felt as if I couldn't beathe. Not a smothering sensation, but as if I couldn't use the muscles that control breathing. I was also hot and unusually sweaty (I had to wipe the sweat off with a towel) It was very scary and I have previously had the sensation of not being able to breathe while in states of high anxiety, it happens at that split second before falling in to sleep from wakefulness; neither awake nor asleep. - continued below

Title: Re: Returning with some concerns Post by George88 on Dec 12th, 2010, 6:13pm - continued from above Then I noticed again my heart was racing as before and wouldn't slow down again. I tried forgetting about it and went to sleep again, and was again woken in sweat and heat. Heart seemed to be beating normally. I got to sleep again and I had a nightmare in which I was in a severe fight with someone whom I was friends with in junior school. I won't go in to details,  but I feel the "topic" of the dream to be of some significance since I seem to have bad dreams quite a lot and they always invole my heart. We made each other bleed significantly somehow, all I remember is seeing a large spray of blood coming out of one of our legs (I believe it was his) as we fought. I then looked up at a digital notice board which had the heart rates of 5 people displayed on it. It also seemed to show the total blood volume of these people (somehow it knew). My heart rate was on the board of course, going 128 bpm. I think the volume of blood was also low and I remember someone in the nightmare saying that either me or my friend had lost "about 8 pints" of blood. I know this is almost all of the blood in an average human. After this I woke up several more times, hot and sweaty. I'm worried it's going to happen again tonight. I've had this before, many months ago and once, many months before that. I don't know if it is related to my anxiety and bad thoughts but I sure hope it is. Google searches don't really show anything other than cancer as a cause of night sweats (these are searches performed over a year ago, I try not to do it anymore). That concludes my post. Sorry for the long and maybe unnecassary details but I don't want to miss anything. I guess I can't conclude my heart is at fault here becuase I've had it checked less than a year ago and there's nothing wrong with it. I just don't understand why it seems to have stopped responding to bisoprolol. I'm starting to think these tablets are nothing but sugar tablets or something. Perhaps my doctor has sneakily prescribed me tablets with nothing in them in an attempt to induce a placebo affect. Surely, this is not possible? Thank you. P.S. RLR, would you mind if I was to send you a PM with some off topic questions and concerns? My reason for asking is I am not satisfied with the doctors who've been caring for me recently because I believe them to be drawing face value conclusions of my blood results and symptoms. I've never seen any of these doctors before and feel they are not giving me the chance to explain myself. I know one might conclude I have even less chance of finding information out by asking you over the Internet, but I feel I have learned more from you and this forum than the sum of all the knowledge I have gained from the doctors actually caring for me. For some reason, they just don't like explaining themselves or listening to their patients concerns. Regards, George.

Title: Re: Returning with some concerns Post by emma09 on Dec 13th, 2010, 7:30am hi george just want to say welcome bak :D the waking up sweating & dreams etc etc sounds very familiar to me !!! i can be dropping of to sleep and suddenly i will shoot upright and my heart will race and im clammy ! i usualyl do this 2 - 3 times before going to sleep, i usually get this when im in a high state of anxiety or stressed :/ the dreams are also a nightmare!!! i can have real vivid dreams which are associated with death and my heart, i had one last night where my partners mum died and she came back in spirit but she didnt know only i knew and i could see everyone ignorning her, then it switched to her coffin and stuf like that !!! Real awful stuff, i hope rlr gives u more info ;) xx

Title: Re: Returning with some concerns Post by George88 on Dec 13th, 2010, 4:49pm Hi Emma, thanks. I also get the really vivid dreams, they're not nice. They are always about my heart in some way. Usually my heart is beating extremely fast and I've started becoming paranoid that I'm dreaming about what's actually happening to me in real life while I sleep. My heart rate seems to be going faster than ever, constantly, again. I'm too anxious to actually check it, though, but I suspect it is maybe over 100. :)

Title: Re: Returning with some concerns Post by Typer on Dec 14th, 2010, 8:25am Wow George, you have had a lot to contend with. I hope RLR can help with the symptoms. I just want to say how hard it is to separate what is physical and what is more psychological. Illness, in my experience of me, is worsened by anxiety and anxiety is worsened by illness. Your dream depicts fear of loosing ones very life source I would say. Its as though you have lost faith in your own body. Its as though you feel let down by it almost. Certainly it feels as though you see things as beyond your control How can you turn things around a bit? For me the worst part of any of what I suffer, is the fast, hard beats. Mostly it happens for a few seconds to a few minutes...but I hate it and feel very light-headed when it happens. Iv had those zaps too...where its as though you've been switch off and will just black out, but its for moments. George..welcome back, even though I am sure you'd rather not be here

Title: Re: Returning with some concerns Post by George88 on Dec 17th, 2010, 3:30pm Hi Typer, Late reply here, I've been ill again... having flu like symptoms (cough, sore throat, fever, etc). I haven't thought of it that way before, but you're actually right about losing faith in my own body. Since I have actually been sick for a long while now and I think it could have been avoided if I'd had proper care. My abscess wound still has not healed. It will be 1 year old in a month and I just feel neglected by the "professionals". Still not been monitoring my heart rate but it feels fast. I wake up to a fast feeling heart rate almost every day, go to bed with it and have it most of the day. I'm still not going to check it because I'll just get more and more anxious. I'm debating with myself as to whether or not I should go to my GP and ask him for something to help with my anxiety. I really don't want to be on drugs but overall I have made no progress since the beginning of this over 18 months ago. Sure, there's times when its better and times when its worse, but I'm no closer to the end now than when it started. Thanks for the warm walcome Typer :)

Title: Re: Returning with some concerns Post by Typer on Dec 17th, 2010, 6:21pm There is this horrid bug around...sounds like you have it. Oh no! We can do without that as it does seem to make these things worse. You know, with your abscess problems, and everything that's gone on, maybe you've lost faith in the treating doctors too. So sorry to  read how ill you have been. You can turn this around though, or at least that is what I believe. my husband works for a doctor sometimes. She cured her husbands leg ulcers with manuka honey. It took a long while but it cured it. I know its a bit unconventional, but they are using it in hospitals for mrsa etc. Would it be worth looking into?

Title: Re: Returning with some concerns Post by George88 on Dec 17th, 2010, 7:36pm Hi Typer, Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately for me a nurse tissue specialist already tried using honey on my wound with no luck. I think I am going to have to wait... it's healing, but it's healing very very slowly.  :(

Title: Re: Returning with some concerns Post by Typer on Dec 18th, 2010, 6:45am The honey must be manuka and it has to be of high potency to work. It takes a few months also...some people give up after a week or so. here is one article http://www.manukahoney.co.uk/howtouse.html and here http://www.mamaherb.com/abscesses-home-remedy-using-manuka-honey It must be active manuka and a strength of 15+ or even higher. They sell it in Holland and Barrett.

Title: Re: Returning with some concerns Post by RLR on Dec 18th, 2010, 6:33pm Alright, I'm going to interject here because this posting is suggestive of treatment recommendations that would typically exist outside the awareness of the medical doctor treating the condition. This forum is not an adjunct alternative therapy resource. I very recently spoke to a group on the NoMorePanic forum because medical treatment advice had been advocated to someone who was taking medication that strictly contraindicated the form of medication being suggested. Had the individual not elected to casually contact me by way of private message to seek my opinion, the results could have been quite unpleasant. While discussion of various forms of treatment from a self-relevant standpoint is entirely permissive, the frank discussion of specifically what to use, how to use it and where to obtain it for treatment purposes is advisory and directive in content. Again, that sort of comment structure is not permitted on the forum. Best regards and Good Health

Title: Re: Returning with some concerns Post by Typer on Dec 19th, 2010, 3:42am I mentioned it because a doctor suggested it. It is used in our hospitals also. Apologies if it is not appropriate.

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