LittleWyvern.com

Diagnosis: Soon?

My treadmill stress test is tomorrow afternoon and hopefully that will shine a more definitive light on my current situation. The results take another few weeks to come in, but at the very least you can expect an exhilarating blog post detailing the raw excitement of walking on a treadmill. To be honest I have no idea what to expect. Should I stretch out beforehand? Will I be walking? Running? Should I bring my iPod? I think I saw a stress test on an episode of House. If I remember correctly the man being tested had a heart attack right in the middle of the exam… hopefully that is a somewhat atypical occurrence.

At any rate I have been ‘training’ for my stress test by actually going to the gym a few times this week. I expect that this is on par with brushing your teeth before going to the dentist. I’m not going to be fooling anyone.

Tim made a remote diagnosis (well, more like a “suggested possibility”) based on my less-than-vivid description of the symptoms. Prinzmetal’s Angina is random and rare and probably not at all what I have, but so far it is the closest match to what I am experiencing.

Symptoms typically occur at rest, rather than on exertion

I noticed that my little attacks seemed to occur much less frequently in the hours after I got back from the gym, and conversely noticed that they came on the strongest while I was sitting or lying down. To that end I figured that maybe it would be a good idea to go to the gym more often. As a result I have found that the frequency of my episodes has decreased, but a new problem has unexpectedly arisen. While it’s true that I feel better for a few hours after exercising, the actual running itself is almost painful to endure and invariably makes me horribly nervous. My resting heart rate is about 65 bpm, and according to the general formula my maximum heart rate is 195 (220 minus my age). However, after only a few minutes on a treadmill or elliptical machine I can feel my heart jump into overdrive. According to the equipment’s built-in sensors my heart rate hits 185-190 bpm after only moderate exercise. I can feel my heart slamming against the front of my chest and the pain of it all is enough to make me slow down to a pace that only weeks ago I would have used as merely a warmup or cooldown. By feeling the pulse in my neck I can verify that the equipment’s sensors can’t be too far off. Now, I realize that I may just be out of shape. But I find it hard to believe that I am that out of shape. It’s nothing to brag about, but last month I could have ran four miles without stopping. Now I can’t run more than one without slowing to a walk out of fear that my heart might explode. I probably could push through it, feel the burn as they say, but right now I simply don’t dare try.

I want to believe that this is all just anxiety, some ridiculous manifestation of a brain gone awry. I have begun taking the Xanax regularly. The ER doctor told me to take one every eight hours “as needed” - which is to say that I should take one if I feel an attack coming on. Instead I have found that the little white pills take too long to work, or simply don’t work at all, and have been taking them every eight hours regardless of how I feel. The results so far are mixed. On the one hand my attacks are less frequent. On the other, I am tired all the time. I tried reading a book this afternoon and ended up falling asleep for three hours (that after sleeping for 9.5 hours the night immediately before).

My brother claims that this is all in my head, and so I made a gentleman’s bet that he is wrong. Sick, huh? I actually bet against my own well-being. Maybe it is just a hedge. At any rate, this no longer feels like the problem that earned me the Xanax in the first place. I can breathe fine. I don’t feel nervous, anxious, or irritable. Maybe it is the same problem with a different manifestation, I couldn’t tell you one way or the other. I never really liked any of my Bio classes.

The pills haven’t stopped the chest pain either, which gives further credence to my theory and is therefore a small cause for concern on my part. Without the pills the attacks are worse, but even loaded up on brain dope I can’t seem to find a single hassle-free day. The episodes are random, but (another potential cause for concern) they now occur with increasing frequency. I currently can expect to suffer through several every day. Their relative strengths also seem to be random and independent of the current time or activity. Most of the time I just feel an annoying pressure in my chest, as if a small baby were laying on top of me. The other end of the spectrum finds me with my head thrown back, eyes closed while moaning aloud with one hand feeling the heartbeat through my chest and the other measuring the rhythm of the pulse in my neck, my mind desperately trying to stabilize my heartbeat through sheer force of will. It’s a bit hard to actually describe, but imagine a small heart-sized water balloon. Imagine grabbing the balloon in a fist and squeezing the middle so that the ends each bulge out as the balloon’s skin stretches to hold the displaced water. Now imagine that balloon is your heart, the water is your blood, and instead of just sitting passively inside the fist the balloon is actively struggling to keep beating. During the worst of these attacks it feels as if my heart is about to literally pop and more than once I have legitimately considered calling an ambulance. During those moments I invariably thought to myself, “so this is what dying feels like.”

Today was a fairly good day, though. I took a steady supply of Xanax, passed out in the middle of the day, and then went to the gym where I quickly hit my maximum heart rate on an elliptical machine while only at 75% of the resistance that I would normally use. But I didn’t have any serious episodes - nothing more than the tolerable heaviness and pain that I feel right now - and best of all I am one day closer to my stress test. I am one day closer to a legitimate answer.

Is it weird that I actually hope my test results come back something other than “normal?” I think I would rather have them find something wrong with me, something that can be treated and cured, than to say to me, “everything looks perfect.” The problem may just be in my head, but that doesn’t make the pain and accompanying fear any less real. And if it is all just make-believe, how do I convince myself to return to normal? Why can’t I just close my eyes and decide to be healthy again?

I had another blood test two days ago and my stress test is tomorrow, hopefully somewhere along the way I will get an answer. I am running out of Xanax, though, so that answer had better arrive soon.