At last, a diagnosis!
Mar. 27th, 2008 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blackberry444I went to the cardiologist today. I didn't see Dr. Adam as he'd been double booked with two clinics, but I saw his registrar, Dr. Lee, a young and rather humourless Asian who very carefully explained what is wrong with me.
Apparently I have diastolic dysfunction (rather a broad term I would have thought) caused by hypertension. I don't appear to be hypertensive, but he said that maybe what is normal for other people is hypertensive for me. My own doctor and the people at the diabetes clinic have always been rather surprised that my blood pressure hasn't gone sky-high, in view of all my diabetic and heart problems, so maybe that's true. I do remember when I was a young woman, I used to regularly faint a couple of times a month, and even when I was pregnant and allegedly had dangerously high blood pressure, I still kept fainting. So maybe that's right.
Even the ophthalmologist said that my eye problem might be due to borderline hypertension.
Anyway, whatever the cause, the diastolic chamber of the heart can't relax sufficiently after pumping to fill properly again and this is what causes the lack of oxygen which makes me breathless. I think I got that right!
Dr Lee said it was a fairly rare condition, so he has no prognosis or survival statistics, but I need to lose weight to give myself a better chance. I asked him if it would be possible to go a cardiac rehabilitation exercise course, since for some unknown reason I wasn't eligible to do so after my diagnosis of atrial fibrillation, and he is going to arrange this for me. Who knows? Maybe I shall be able to find a way to go swimming again. He said that unless I'm one of the rare people who can't benefit from treatment, which doesn't seem likely considering the recent improvement, I should be able to get back to at least the walking ability I had before all this started.
I did feel an idiot, though. Apparently the new medication my Lovely Lady Doctor put me on was not a Beta blocker as I thought she said, but an ACE inhibitor. How on earth did I come to think she said it was a Beta blocker?. Never mind. It has started working and he's told me to take double the dose I was originally prescribed.
I feel much more optimistic, but poor Charles is still upset. He worries constantly about my health.
I suppose I shall have to go to lbooyd Weight Watchers now. I wonder if I can do it online?
Memo to self: Buy new batteries for the bathroom scales
Apparently I have diastolic dysfunction (rather a broad term I would have thought) caused by hypertension. I don't appear to be hypertensive, but he said that maybe what is normal for other people is hypertensive for me. My own doctor and the people at the diabetes clinic have always been rather surprised that my blood pressure hasn't gone sky-high, in view of all my diabetic and heart problems, so maybe that's true. I do remember when I was a young woman, I used to regularly faint a couple of times a month, and even when I was pregnant and allegedly had dangerously high blood pressure, I still kept fainting. So maybe that's right.
Even the ophthalmologist said that my eye problem might be due to borderline hypertension.
Anyway, whatever the cause, the diastolic chamber of the heart can't relax sufficiently after pumping to fill properly again and this is what causes the lack of oxygen which makes me breathless. I think I got that right!
Dr Lee said it was a fairly rare condition, so he has no prognosis or survival statistics, but I need to lose weight to give myself a better chance. I asked him if it would be possible to go a cardiac rehabilitation exercise course, since for some unknown reason I wasn't eligible to do so after my diagnosis of atrial fibrillation, and he is going to arrange this for me. Who knows? Maybe I shall be able to find a way to go swimming again. He said that unless I'm one of the rare people who can't benefit from treatment, which doesn't seem likely considering the recent improvement, I should be able to get back to at least the walking ability I had before all this started.
I did feel an idiot, though. Apparently the new medication my Lovely Lady Doctor put me on was not a Beta blocker as I thought she said, but an ACE inhibitor. How on earth did I come to think she said it was a Beta blocker?. Never mind. It has started working and he's told me to take double the dose I was originally prescribed.
I feel much more optimistic, but poor Charles is still upset. He worries constantly about my health.
I suppose I shall have to go to lbooyd Weight Watchers now. I wonder if I can do it online?
Memo to self: Buy new batteries for the bathroom scales
