Sunday, June 18, 2017

Tachycardia is so Pleasant (sarcasm)

Oh how I so enjoy the tachycardia. :P

I love shivering when I'm not cold, struggling to remember to breathe, feeling my heart rate skyrocket and punch my throat in slight stress, feeling my heart rate skyrocket from just laying down, having purple mottled legs, heart burn from a digestive tract that freezes up on me when blood isn't moving well, bloating that never ends, falling over because I'm too weak to keep standing, seeing spinning colors when I stand up, saving up all my energy and strength for only the hours I go to work and ending up collapsing at home...

Yeah, I've been suspicious of POTS for years. I didn't bring up my suspicion to my doctor, but he tested my heart rate and blood pressure long enough and careful enough to find POTS symptoms.

Right now I've been laying on my back for 2 hours, talking on the phone for some of that time (talking always winds me up because it takes energy - I don't like to sit and talk anymore, too draining), and I counted my resting heart rate a few times. 92, 96, 105. Laying down!

I think I've had symptoms for years, but in the last 6 months or so symptoms have been most obvious and exagerrated. I was complaining to my doctor about how sore and achey my heart was. It hurt a lot! I wasn't used to that kind of heart pain.

I was born with a heart murmur: pulmenory stenosis. It never went away. I still have it. Cardiologists have needed me to get echocardiograms every couple of years my whole life. Every one I've seen has always been startled and confused by how loud my heart is and the gurgling noises it apparent makes. My heart has always been in good health according to the tests, but the fact that the murmur never went away and it makes weird noises worries cardiologists. After reading up on POTS I found that it's fairly common for POTS patients to have a murmur too. I have not decided what this means yet, but it's interesting.

I'm writing this on my phone out of anxiety and chest pain. Really not feeling well. I'll consider going into more depth on the subject later. 

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