Hello all! I'm new to the forum but I've been a lurker for a little while. I'm 29 and have been overweight from childhood. This is gonna be a bit of a life story, sorry!
I'm not officially diagnosed yet but I might as well be. I had an hba1c test in February which came back at 54mmol, then to confirm I did another one a month later which came back at 49, nurse wants to wait 3 months to test again. I've been on a keto diet since September last year, so I should definitely be diagnosed.
Over the years I've had some cardiac and breathing issues, I was a smoker too(I know, I know):
Started getting breathing issues in 2010, it came and would disappear within an hour or two each time but it was so few and far between that I'd forget about it.
Since at least 2010ish, my resting heart rate was always around 90bpm. Nothing I tried reduced it. I felt normal, it was normal for me.
I noticed that after I ate food, sometimes my heart would start racing, like it was trying to jump out of my chest.
In 2013 I was 22, I was diagnosed with prediabetes, Impaired Glucose Tolerance and Impaired Fasting lucose. I asked my doctor if my heart problem was a part of that. He said "it's most likely something wrong with your heart itself". So he sent me to get some tests done and that I should quit smoking, I didn't quit, I was stupid. At the same time I was sent to the asthma nurse to see if I had asthma, I wasn't given any tests or anything she just diagnosed me with asthma and send me on my way with some inhalers.
For the heart tests I had a holter monitor on for a week, and an echo. Both came back with a high heart rate overall but the cardiologist said its nothing to worry about and that when it goes really fast it's probably just anxiety. This was really disheartening.
A year later I started getting issues when I did any exercise, whenever I tried to do any intense excercise, especially lifting heavy objects, my heart would race and I would start to get irregular beats and they would get more and more frequent and my chest would become tighter until I stopped and sat down. Went to the doctor, and the cardiologist. They checked my BP and noted that I might have some hypertension. So I was sent out with a week long blood pressure monitor and yeah it was over 140/90 at some points throughout. If you haven't had one before, its a regular blood pressure cuff that you wear for 7 days straight and it inflates and squeezes your arm every hour or so without warning. It's definitely not the most relaxed I can be.
I decided to get a home blood pressure monitor. After a few weeks of use I noticed that my BP was pretty normal when I'm not in a clinical setting, looks like anxiety mixed with some white coat hypertension. I showed my recordings with my cardiologist and matched it with their machine so he decided that I'm not hypertensive and sent me on my way with no follow up for the rest of my issues.
I had also begun having daily asthma attacks, usually starting about 20-30 mins after my first meal of the day, the blue inhaler worked a little, but I really shouldn't have been taking it every day, it's addictive and can cause damage. When my attacks happened at night, it rarely did anything and I'd still have to wait out the attack before being able to go to sleep. Eventually I got moved onto an inhaler called fostair, it was pink and it seemed to work and my breathing issues went away pretty much all together unless I forgot to take it.
I went to my doctor to get another appointment with the cardiologist and it took over a year and a half to get me an actual appointment. 18 months where I was scared to do the things I wanted to do, or had to do, things you wouldn't think would be that intense, mowing the lawn, vaccuming, light stuff would make my heart skip beats until I sat down and chilled out. Research I'd done said that ectopic beats were meant to go away during exercise and if they came on mostly during excercise it meant you had heart disease of some kind. So I was scared to do anything and couldn't get any help. I got fed up of being scared of everything so I decided to get a little mobile ECG monitor so I could catch it myself when it happened. And I did, I ran up and down the stairs 4 times as fast as I could and there it was: beat, beat, beat, ...., BOOM, beat, beat, beat, ....BOOM. Each one like being kicked in the chest. Only problem was this didn't calm down as soon as I sat down. My partner got scared and rang an ambulance, I was panicking, I thought it was just a matter of time until it just stopped beating all together. I finally managed to catch my breath and it all stopped. The ambulance guys got an ECG, it was relatively normal, just the usual 90bpm heart rate. Told me to go to my GP. GP told me we're still waiting for the cardiologist to see me. That week, I got a letter with an appointment to go do a heart echo and visit a cardiologist.
I did the echo, he couldn't read it on the day or get the measurements because my heart was beating 122bpm at the time. Ended up seeing the cardiologist afterwards and he said the echo was fine and didn't see anything wrong with my heart, but took a look at the ECG I took, he said that it could possibly be ischaemia but didn't really know. He gave me some beta blockers (Bisoprolol) and sent me on my way. The fear of ischaemia made me immediately quit smoking (Yay).
A couple of things happened when I quit. Immediately from day 1, I didn't need an inhaler. my breathing problem disappeared immediately and I had no asthma attacks after that day for another 2 and a half years. The day before I'd had 2.
The other thing is that my heart rate plummeted, in the morning it was now 75 at rest. This was unheard of for me. I couldn't believe it. I began been substituting smoking with mint imperials. That week, I ended up in the hospital with heart issues! Crazy high and lots of ectopics. Again, sent on my way.
I decided to let my body get used to not smoking again before starting on the beta blockers, so I didn't take them the first month. My heart rate seemed to return to it's regular rate of 90 over that month.
Started taking the beta blockers and it did massively reduce the ectopics. Now, I was terrified to do anything physical so I don't know for sure if it would have stopped them at that point. The main side effect was that getting up too fast nearly knocked me out, and another I thought was a side effect was eczema appeared on my left leg? I started getting hugely depressed. I thought it was the situation I was in, not able to do anything, having no information and my doctor didn't seem bothered, seeing my friends lead normal lives while I was stuck not really able to do anything. One day again I'd had enough and just started doing stuff again, and it came back in force, so many ectopics in a row. These were premature atrial contractions, I'd caught them on my mobile ECG. I rang my doc and demanded another cardiologist appointment.
This was a new cardiologist. He looked at the ECG and saw the atrial ectopics, he said its nothing to worry about, atrial ones are pretty much always benign. I was relieved a bit from that. He sent me for a stress test.
I arrived in the room and sat on the bed my heart rate was 100bpm. Cardiologist didn't seem bothered about that, he said that my heart could just be reacting because I had to come off my beta blocker the day before. I walked from the bed onto the treadmill before the test and it shot up to 145 just from that. The operator there seemed shocked and asked the cardiologist if they should still go ahead and he said yeah its nothing to worry about. I did the test, did about 5-6 minutes and they said I could stop. I sat down and had some water and they caught a premature ventricular contraction. I hadn't had any of those before. The cardiologist said its fine it could be just one that happens to everyone once a month or so. He said that even if I don't have answers right now at least I know how much exercise I can do so I'm not as scared of it. He took me off the bisoprolol.
Over the next week, the 2 year long depression I'd had disappeared completely. It was bizzare. I checked the side effects of the beta blockers and depression was right there. I had no idea that was causing it. My outlook became much brighter and I became happier. During my depression I didn't give a **** about myself, my health or anything because I saw no way out. Now I was thinking about there being an actual future and wanting to change things, better myself. The eczema on my leg is still with me though.
continued in next post (character counts)
I'm not officially diagnosed yet but I might as well be. I had an hba1c test in February which came back at 54mmol, then to confirm I did another one a month later which came back at 49, nurse wants to wait 3 months to test again. I've been on a keto diet since September last year, so I should definitely be diagnosed.
Over the years I've had some cardiac and breathing issues, I was a smoker too(I know, I know):
Started getting breathing issues in 2010, it came and would disappear within an hour or two each time but it was so few and far between that I'd forget about it.
Since at least 2010ish, my resting heart rate was always around 90bpm. Nothing I tried reduced it. I felt normal, it was normal for me.
I noticed that after I ate food, sometimes my heart would start racing, like it was trying to jump out of my chest.
In 2013 I was 22, I was diagnosed with prediabetes, Impaired Glucose Tolerance and Impaired Fasting lucose. I asked my doctor if my heart problem was a part of that. He said "it's most likely something wrong with your heart itself". So he sent me to get some tests done and that I should quit smoking, I didn't quit, I was stupid. At the same time I was sent to the asthma nurse to see if I had asthma, I wasn't given any tests or anything she just diagnosed me with asthma and send me on my way with some inhalers.
For the heart tests I had a holter monitor on for a week, and an echo. Both came back with a high heart rate overall but the cardiologist said its nothing to worry about and that when it goes really fast it's probably just anxiety. This was really disheartening.
A year later I started getting issues when I did any exercise, whenever I tried to do any intense excercise, especially lifting heavy objects, my heart would race and I would start to get irregular beats and they would get more and more frequent and my chest would become tighter until I stopped and sat down. Went to the doctor, and the cardiologist. They checked my BP and noted that I might have some hypertension. So I was sent out with a week long blood pressure monitor and yeah it was over 140/90 at some points throughout. If you haven't had one before, its a regular blood pressure cuff that you wear for 7 days straight and it inflates and squeezes your arm every hour or so without warning. It's definitely not the most relaxed I can be.
I decided to get a home blood pressure monitor. After a few weeks of use I noticed that my BP was pretty normal when I'm not in a clinical setting, looks like anxiety mixed with some white coat hypertension. I showed my recordings with my cardiologist and matched it with their machine so he decided that I'm not hypertensive and sent me on my way with no follow up for the rest of my issues.
I had also begun having daily asthma attacks, usually starting about 20-30 mins after my first meal of the day, the blue inhaler worked a little, but I really shouldn't have been taking it every day, it's addictive and can cause damage. When my attacks happened at night, it rarely did anything and I'd still have to wait out the attack before being able to go to sleep. Eventually I got moved onto an inhaler called fostair, it was pink and it seemed to work and my breathing issues went away pretty much all together unless I forgot to take it.
I went to my doctor to get another appointment with the cardiologist and it took over a year and a half to get me an actual appointment. 18 months where I was scared to do the things I wanted to do, or had to do, things you wouldn't think would be that intense, mowing the lawn, vaccuming, light stuff would make my heart skip beats until I sat down and chilled out. Research I'd done said that ectopic beats were meant to go away during exercise and if they came on mostly during excercise it meant you had heart disease of some kind. So I was scared to do anything and couldn't get any help. I got fed up of being scared of everything so I decided to get a little mobile ECG monitor so I could catch it myself when it happened. And I did, I ran up and down the stairs 4 times as fast as I could and there it was: beat, beat, beat, ...., BOOM, beat, beat, beat, ....BOOM. Each one like being kicked in the chest. Only problem was this didn't calm down as soon as I sat down. My partner got scared and rang an ambulance, I was panicking, I thought it was just a matter of time until it just stopped beating all together. I finally managed to catch my breath and it all stopped. The ambulance guys got an ECG, it was relatively normal, just the usual 90bpm heart rate. Told me to go to my GP. GP told me we're still waiting for the cardiologist to see me. That week, I got a letter with an appointment to go do a heart echo and visit a cardiologist.
I did the echo, he couldn't read it on the day or get the measurements because my heart was beating 122bpm at the time. Ended up seeing the cardiologist afterwards and he said the echo was fine and didn't see anything wrong with my heart, but took a look at the ECG I took, he said that it could possibly be ischaemia but didn't really know. He gave me some beta blockers (Bisoprolol) and sent me on my way. The fear of ischaemia made me immediately quit smoking (Yay).
A couple of things happened when I quit. Immediately from day 1, I didn't need an inhaler. my breathing problem disappeared immediately and I had no asthma attacks after that day for another 2 and a half years. The day before I'd had 2.
The other thing is that my heart rate plummeted, in the morning it was now 75 at rest. This was unheard of for me. I couldn't believe it. I began been substituting smoking with mint imperials. That week, I ended up in the hospital with heart issues! Crazy high and lots of ectopics. Again, sent on my way.
I decided to let my body get used to not smoking again before starting on the beta blockers, so I didn't take them the first month. My heart rate seemed to return to it's regular rate of 90 over that month.
Started taking the beta blockers and it did massively reduce the ectopics. Now, I was terrified to do anything physical so I don't know for sure if it would have stopped them at that point. The main side effect was that getting up too fast nearly knocked me out, and another I thought was a side effect was eczema appeared on my left leg? I started getting hugely depressed. I thought it was the situation I was in, not able to do anything, having no information and my doctor didn't seem bothered, seeing my friends lead normal lives while I was stuck not really able to do anything. One day again I'd had enough and just started doing stuff again, and it came back in force, so many ectopics in a row. These were premature atrial contractions, I'd caught them on my mobile ECG. I rang my doc and demanded another cardiologist appointment.
This was a new cardiologist. He looked at the ECG and saw the atrial ectopics, he said its nothing to worry about, atrial ones are pretty much always benign. I was relieved a bit from that. He sent me for a stress test.
I arrived in the room and sat on the bed my heart rate was 100bpm. Cardiologist didn't seem bothered about that, he said that my heart could just be reacting because I had to come off my beta blocker the day before. I walked from the bed onto the treadmill before the test and it shot up to 145 just from that. The operator there seemed shocked and asked the cardiologist if they should still go ahead and he said yeah its nothing to worry about. I did the test, did about 5-6 minutes and they said I could stop. I sat down and had some water and they caught a premature ventricular contraction. I hadn't had any of those before. The cardiologist said its fine it could be just one that happens to everyone once a month or so. He said that even if I don't have answers right now at least I know how much exercise I can do so I'm not as scared of it. He took me off the bisoprolol.
Over the next week, the 2 year long depression I'd had disappeared completely. It was bizzare. I checked the side effects of the beta blockers and depression was right there. I had no idea that was causing it. My outlook became much brighter and I became happier. During my depression I didn't give a **** about myself, my health or anything because I saw no way out. Now I was thinking about there being an actual future and wanting to change things, better myself. The eczema on my leg is still with me though.
continued in next post (character counts)
