Heart Saga part 4 (back from 1st internist appt.)

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone,

I had my first appointment with my internist today. He lived up to

his reputation and is incredibly nice, caring, and compassionate. I

liked him a lot. I have now officially been diagnosed with

tachycardia. The holter test showed my lowest HR was 48 bpm, highest

HR was 186 bpm, and that my average heart rate was 96 bpm but that

45% of the time my heart rate was over 100 bpm (and no I'm not doing

much running around at all to account for it!). He says this is

definitely abnormal and he strongly suggested we look into it. I

agreed so he explained some tests he wants done and why. I have to

have a 24 hour urinalysis (you gals should see this jug I have to

collect pee in!) to see how much adrenaline I'm producing. He says

that many of my symptoms (severe morning nausea/almost throwing up,

tremours, face flushing, tachycardia etc...) could be caused by a

very rare,benign, adrenaline-producing tumour somewhere in my body

and this test will show if I need more investigation in that area or

not. He also ordered a whole wack of other blood tests testing my

iron and hemaglobin etc... Once he gets these results in (2-3 weeks

time) we will go from there ruling in/out one thing at a time. He

doesn't currently think its postural orthostatic tachycardia right

now because even lying down my rate was 120bpm although it did

increase past 140 bpm when I sat up but my blood pressure stayed the

same. He did say he's more than willing to order a tilt table test

to further investigate pots after these first tests are done and he

rules out/in more likely conditions right now. He said that a lot of

people have a spurt of fast heart rate now and then and thats usually

not serious but because I have constant tachycardia this fast its

abnormal and really should be checked. So it was a good appointment

in that he was very thorough, extremely knowledgeable, and best of

all respected me and took my questions seriously. He even gave his

lunch hour up for me! (Which I thanked him for.) He said if anemia

(he doesn't think I've got it but wants to r/o) and the rare

adrenaline tumour thing are ruled out most likely he'll start me on

beta blockers to slow my heart and we'll do more tests. I'm not happy

about drugs! I get so awfully sick on them, but I guess feeling this

horrid in the mornings is just about as bad as I've felt on drugs

anyway, so its worth a shot!

So yes, I'm hoping its not a rare benign tumour. I don't want to

deal with that... I'm hoping it will just be a simple matter of some

beta blockers and I'll be fine type of thing. I asked him why on the

echo my heart rate suddenly dropped dramatically and then picked up

again and he openly told me he didn't know, but that he will do his

very best to find out. It's nice to have a doctor who is interested

and knowledgeable and will handle things for me. I feel like now I

can step back, go through the tests, and he'll do the rest for me in

terms of research and determining whats wrong and making sure I get

the best treatment I can. Who would of thought that moving to a tiny

community in the sticks would offer such caring, knowlegeable doctors?

OK, thats my news!

(((HUGS)))

-Rhea