Just wondering if anyone on here is or has experienced any issues around their heart?
There's a history of heart disease in my family, my grandad and my father.
About 2 years ago I had a stent fitted because I'd been experiencing pain in and around my heart. I can't remember how effective or not it has been, because I'm also now on the usual medication and maybe that has masked it, dunno?
The pain has come back, sometimes its constant and at the moment intermittent, its not specifically painful, I'm just aware of it being present.
I've had further tests that have all come back normal and I'm now being sent for a scan, no idea when that'll be as the waiting list is long but I'm assuming that if I have pain something must be causing it?
Interested to hear any lifers experiences that could be helpful or the opposite worrying;)
BTW I'm 68, keep it to yourself though.
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That's kind of what happened to me. I thought I was having a heart attack. Called 111they requested an ambulance for me but that failed to arrive so I had to take myself to A & E. Spent 36 hours in A & E having various tests and turns out it was pericarditis (probably a side effect of a COVID jab). Which is usually treatable with ibuprofen.
Get yourself checked out pronto is all I can say really.
Best of luck Martin.
I am fucking terrified.
I'm also furious that she left it til this morning to tell me.
Different circumstances I know but I had a heart attack in 2018 and sat there until it calmed down. I am now living with heart failure as my heart is working at around 40%
For the previous year I had had loads of tests as I felt something wasn't right and they all came back as normal.
I have since heard the doctors' mantra of "Time is muscle".
I wish every day that I had called 999 straight away...
I had a bypass 4 years ago - Jan 2019 I was getting breathless when walking and that caused a pain round my chest - once I stopped and got my breathe back - felt great - but was masking the obvious - be and my family made me get an appointment
My appointment at Kim’s diagnosed my aorta was 87% blocked and Kim’s had me blue lighted immediately - admitted me to St Thomas and I was operated on 3 days later - it saved my Life and I actually recovered to be at the Sunderland play off 😃
please get an appointment and get yourself sorted don’t wait owe my life to wife and daughter nagging me to get sorted
Always contactable for a chat if you wanna know more
good luck
Denis
66 years old now was 61 when all happened
It's very readable and spends a good deal of time discussing his own heart diagnosis, operation and recovery in a very real way.
I also recommend the bhf website for all the background and medical details you could want.
Thinking I was going to be alright, I left it until my partner came home and she insisted I phone 111. They told me to present to A&E straight away and when I got there they put me straight into re-sus. Long story short, they couldn’t get the heart rate down for a week and I was in the heart ward at Darent Valley under 24hour observation. What they did was a cardioversion when they stopped the heart and restarted it. That did the trick and they sent me home with blood thinners and beta blockers.
Fast forward to September 2022, the same thing happened when I was doing the gardening. Week in Darent Valley except this time the drugs worked. But what it left me with was a flutter. My heart would jump as high as 170 bpm and drop down to 35 bpm. I could feel the heart rate drop. Strange feeling.
A couple of weeks ago, I went up to Kings to have a catheter ablation. An ablation is where they go into the heart through a vein in the groin and burn off blood vessels and create a new electrical circuit to make the heart beat in Sinus. It was all done under local anaesthetic, I was wide awake and I watched the procedure on the big screen. In theatre at 9:30, discharged at 3pm. Home by 5pm. The missus wasn't happy that I came home on the train.
I feel like a new man.
Edit: The Apple Watch save my life on two occasions. If I hadn’t have had the alerts, I would have carried on as normal and my heart would have just stopped. AF is known as the silent killer.
I think once you've had treatment for heart problems you're likely always to have to take medication, whether it's low dose aspirin, blood thinners, statins etc, but I doubt they've given you painkillers so they won't be masking anything.
I agree with @cafcfan, don't wait and push them for a diagnosis soonest.
I suppose I’m inclined to trust the medical people but as some of you have alluded to, that something could be missed and perhaps I should press them a bit more urgently. I will call 111.
I think deep down I still have a deep routed trauma seeing my grandad sitting in bed at St Tommys after his quadruple bypass in 1988 as a 12yo (I'm 47 now) in the old days where they literally opened you up from front, back and sides. No where near as bad as that now thanks to modern medicine.
The anxiety started when one of my pals from my old run club announced he was going into KCH for a triple bypass at 49. Couldnt bloody believe it. I had 3-4 weeks after that of stress winding me up that I was going to die young leaving my 3 kids and wife behind,
I'd just been diagnosed with high blood pressure 6 months beforehand and I'd spent the next 6 months avoiding blood tests, and the two scans I'd been booked in for just in case they found something wrong!
My wife eventually got me to the GP, had a melt down before the blood test but Vicky the Vampire (as she calls herself) got 3 vials of blood out before I realise the needed had gone in my arm and the ECG and Kidney scans game back all clear. The bloods came back good, normal cholesterol levels and 5% chance of developing heart disease as per the stats. It was a huge weight off my shoulders tbh.
In the meantime, I dumped my old Garmin watch for a new Apple watch so I could run ECG and heart scan reports when I want and I'm trying to look after myself a bit better now, although I wish I could give up my vice - cheese on toast.
My mate is doing bloody well, already running again.
In conclusion - Dont delay, go get yourself checked out ASAP. Dont be a prized grade A melt like me by trying to bury my head in the sand.
Best of luck!
Proper Charlton!
Hoping your latest treatment keeps on working for you.
much needed or arm 😀
but 14 inches on my leg work of art 😀
As Elfsborg says, keep taking the tablets...
I did an experiment last year and stopped taking the statin for three months. The cholesterol rose to 5. So I resumed but in a different tablet as I had been betting cramps with Rosuvasttin. Been fine since. Yearly stress test, lost of blood tests and changed my diet drastically. Another Angiogram next year is on the cards as she did say if things got worse stents were out of the question and it would be heart bypass.