Hello From the Hospital

Gremlin said:

Sometimes you just have to whine! My brother, age 62, had chest pain on and off for a full year. He kept going to his doctor, getting repeat EKG, stress test. All normal. Finally, I told my brother ( we live 2k miles away) with the next event GO TO THE ER. They have protocols to follow and the work up will be more thorough. Finally, he did. Work up including Troponins normal initially. He refused to leave the ER until they figured it out. So, they admitted him and followed serial troponins. Cardiologist sees him the next day and, fortunately, listened to my brother and decides to do cardiac cath regardless of normal work up. As they are wheeling him to the cath suite his latest troponin was finally elevated ( after almost 18 hours) Unfortunately, the blockages were too severe for stents so he underwent quadruple bypass.

He is two years out and doing well.

Click to expand...

HawkeyeNFO said:

I spent last Christmas @ Walter Reed hospital in Bethesda. I've always had moderately high cholesterol, and the EKG and all symptoms, including really high troponin levels, pointed to me having a heart attack. So they took a look under the fluoroscope and found zero blockage.

Was instead diagnosed with myocarditis, just like you heard about the otherwise healthy athletes getting shortly after receiving the covid vaccine. It had been a few months for me, so I don't believe that was the cause. Cleared to fully exercise now, but I have started on rosuvastatin since then.

One interesting experience while in the hospital....one of the residents informed me that ever since covid, they've seen a lot of weird things with covid vaccines and heart issues. His team was working on a research study and paper, but someone higher up in the chain of command ordered them to terminate all work, with no explanation.

Click to expand...

ivinsfan said:

Your last two paragraphs make no sense

Wait. What? Your lived experience may be different than someone else's but that doesn't mean they don't make sense (except, perhaps to you.) They made sense to me. Of course, YMMV.

Click to expand...

skyking1 said:

My trip to the hospital and ultimately the Cath Lab was strange. I woke up with chest pains at about 2 AM. It was crystal clear that this was nothing i had felt before, so I woke up DW and stepped through the shower and she drove me to the hospital.
It was a dull ache but not something that I could have gone back to sleep with.
The ER was empty and they had me in the back already when she came in from parking the car. The EKG had one funky lead out of 12 and not indicative of anyrhing, and my troponin was below 20.
Several docs took a hard listen with the stethoscope. They were looking for the telltale rasp of pericarditis, a swelling of the pericardium that can squeeze and irritate your heart.
This is frequently caused by a viral infection, a head cold or something that gets loose and wreaks havoc.
They heard nothing.
The pain had largely subsided but I was kept for observation.
They drew another blood gas and the troponin was low again, I had an echocardiagram and it looked normal.
About 2 PM after being there almost 12 hours, the pain came roaring back. i had to sit up with it, and the next blood gas had my troponin really high, like I had an event of some sort. That was 6 PM and the cath lab was backed up so I had to wait till 1130 to get in there.
They found virtually nothing. No apparent damage, and a 20~30% blockage of one artery that was below a treatable threshold.
The cardiologist thought that I had a small heart attack or had myopericarditis due to me having that telltale head cold, but no rasping sounds due to me losing a whole bunch of weight recently.
You lose body fat all over and that includes near the heart, so the rasp was not happening.
he put me on the cardiologist's favorite, atorvastatin. My cholesterol was really low due to my dieting but hey, that is what they do.
About 6 months in I got the allergy to atorvastatin with really bad leg pains. Now I'm on rusovastatin with no issues from that.
I've had one stress test since then and was able to cruise on up to a 160 HR with no issues so they called that good, @60
Now I'm 62 and going to see him in August.

Click to expand...

Koolau said:

Heh, heh, I had to laugh when you mentioned taking a shower. When it happened to me (chest pains) my first thought was to shower before going to the ER.:cool smiley:

Click to expand...

badatmath said:

Actually this reminded me what my coworker did on her first heart attack. Called an ambulance, went outside on the porch to wait and SMOKED A CIGARETTE. She was like well I was nervous . . .

Click to expand...

Koolau said:

I've seen quite a few articles on why females don't seek and then don't get help when they have a heart attack. There is a certain level of bias against women having heart attacks since they're considered more of a "man's disease." Women need to advocate for themselves if they think they have a heart attack (or blocked artery.) I'm not even a woman and I had a hard time getting doctors to pay attention to my symptoms. Essentially all "their" tests showed I was fine. My pain didn't seem to count. YMMV

Click to expand...

Tekward said:

Hi all. OP here. Thank you for the well wishes and sharing.

A quick update approaching 2 weeks after the event & stent - life is good. I'm a lot more appreciative and health is good. I'm back to hiking and pickle-ball with an even bigger smile.

It feels like the stent has increased my aerobic capacity and my heart handles the exercise quite well. Air travel is on hold until I pass the stress test but I'm already back to teaching via Zoom.

"It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver." — Mahatma Gandhi

Click to expand...

jdnd9091 said:

Good to hear your story. I just turned 60 and both my parents had massive heart attacks at 60. My Dad passes about 6 months later, but my Mom is turning 89 in August. I started having chest tightening at work about 4 weeks ago and went to the heart hospital. They didn't find anything, but set me up to see a cardiologist a week later. As soon as I told him my symptoms he got me in for an emergency Cath. They found 100% blockage in my main artery, 70% in my secondary and 50% in another one. I had a triple bypass two days later and I'm feeling good as of today. I feel very blessed to be here today and hope I live a good life like my Mom. Luckily I didn't show any signs of a heart attack, so that is good news. Don't wait if you have chest pains.

Click to expand...

Qs Laptop said:

At the time I was taking meds for Afib so was worried this might be a heart attack.

Finally around 8:00 am I went to the ER. Had the enzyme blood test which came back negative. Turned out I was having a panic attack, which I don't understand as I was not anxious about anything.

Click to expand...

Koolau said:

Was that triple bypass or stents? If triple bypass, how long did it take to recover if you don't mind my asking?

I had only stents when I had chest pains and walked out of the hospital the next day - a "new man." They had warned me that (since they never know what they will find until the heart cath is completed) I might have to have bypass which is much more (almost infinitely more?) invasive with long recovery time.

Click to expand...

Tekward said:

Hi all. OP here. Thank you for the well wishes and sharing.

A quick update approaching 2 weeks after the event & stent - life is good. I'm a lot more appreciative and health is good. I'm back to hiking and pickle-ball with an even bigger smile.

It feels like the stent has increased my aerobic capacity and my heart handles the exercise quite well. Air travel is on hold until I pass the stress test but I'm already back to teaching via Zoom.

"It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver." — Mahatma Gandhi

Click to expand...

jdnd9091 said:

Good to hear your story. I just turned 60 and both my parents had massive heart attacks at 60. My Dad passes about 6 months later, but my Mom is turning 89 in August. I started having chest tightening at work about 4 weeks ago and went to the heart hospital. They didn't find anything, but set me up to see a cardiologist a week later. As soon as I told him my symptoms he got me in for an emergency Cath. They found 100% blockage in my main artery, 70% in my secondary and 50% in another one. I had a triple bypass two days later and I'm feeling good as of today. I feel very blessed to be here today and hope I live a good life like my Mom. Luckily I didn't show any signs of a heart attack, so that is good news. Don't wait if you have chest pains.

Click to expand...

skyking1 said:

My trip to the hospital and ultimately the Cath Lab was strange. I woke up with chest pains at about 2 AM. It was crystal clear that this was nothing i had felt before, so I woke up DW and stepped through the shower and she drove me to the hospital.
It was a dull ache but not something that I could have gone back to sleep with.
The ER was empty and they had me in the back already when she came in from parking the car. The EKG had one funky lead out of 12 and not indicative of anyrhing, and my troponin was below 20.
Several docs took a hard listen with the stethoscope. They were looking for the telltale rasp of pericarditis, a swelling of the pericardium that can squeeze and irritate your heart.
This is frequently caused by a viral infection, a head cold or something that gets loose and wreaks havoc.
They heard nothing.
The pain had largely subsided but I was kept for observation.
They drew another blood gas and the troponin was low again, I had an echocardiagram and it looked normal.
About 2 PM after being there almost 12 hours, the pain came roaring back. i had to sit up with it, and the next blood gas had my troponin really high, like I had an event of some sort. That was 6 PM and the cath lab was backed up so I had to wait till 1130 to get in there.
They found virtually nothing. No apparent damage, and a 20~30% blockage of one artery that was below a treatable threshold.
The cardiologist thought that I had a small heart attack or had myopericarditis due to me having that telltale head cold, but no rasping sounds due to me losing a whole bunch of weight recently.
You lose body fat all over and that includes near the heart, so the rasp was not happening.
he put me on the cardiologist's favorite, atorvastatin. My cholesterol was really low due to my dieting but hey, that is what they do.
About 6 months in I got the allergy to atorvastatin with really bad leg pains. Now I'm on rusovastatin with no issues from that.
I've had one stress test since then and was able to cruise on up to a 160 HR with no issues so they called that good, @60
Now I'm 62 and going to see him in August.

Click to expand...

jdnd9091 said:

It was a triple bypass because the main artery was 100% blocked. They originally talked about doing stents until they found the 100% blockage. I was released 5 days later and now I'm walking 2+ miles a day two weeks after being released. The scar sucks, but I'm alive. I'm lucky there was no damage to the heart.

Click to expand...