Fear of Heart Failure back

[SirWence]

Lately my fear of heart failure has returned. Because I have been having as I have said in previously having trouble breathing. Now I am coughing and it is as they say 'productive' sometimes with some .. stuff? ive never seen it or its color... I have been having some tolerance to going up 3 flights of stairs nothing swollen that I can notice.. I am considering going in for another EKG though I did have one a year ago and it was fine. Sigh I am sorry for troubling you guys with this but it is really bothering me.

[marc]

For the most part you just don't get heart failure. There has to be something that has caused it such as a weakened
heart form a heart attack, heart valve disease, etc. I would seriously doubt that you have heart failure. I would try not to worry. The EKG
would

[SirWence]

Well I the EKG from a year ago showed everything ok other then a fast rate it was 113bpm, Maybe it could just be that im scaring myself with this- I just have this feeling or maybe thought that my heart is weak and I get all worried about it , even that my tiny amount of beta blocker 12.5 mg breaking the smallest pill they make in half- could be causing it. It's frustrating http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/6663/ekgmikego4.jpg

[Knightsaber]

Wence my man, I've seen you post about this so much that I finally have to talk to you mate.

This is and always has been my worst fear, is heart problems.  And you know, I haven't treated mine well for a long time.  Smoking, sitting around, I do eat carefully though.
You know in one half of your mind that the EKG does not lie.  The other half wonders.

And man, I have researched the heart and heart problems so much for so many years that I have learned some great things that help me with it gets rough.

Yeah I'm out of shape, but guess what?  You can be a totally out of shape dude and haul *** up those steps and it will -not- kill you.  Sure you'll be tired as a nut and breathing like you just swam out of a swamp, but it passes.  Eventually.  Beta blockers are not going to weaken your heart man, they aren't going to do much but regulate a few things that you probably won't even notice.

Did you honestly know your heart, even in a non-healthy person, can beat 300-310 beats per bloody minute for over 72 hours without any damage?  That's the thought I always use when my pulse gets going.  And I know that 99% of the time my pulse is taking off it's because I'm thinking about it taking off. 

But man, I can't shake it.  I do my best and I'm not nearly as bad as I used to be.  I lost nearly a hundred pounds last year on my anti-bad-things-for-the-heart diet and I didn't feel any better at all.  Now man, I know for a FACT if my heart was unhappy before that and not doing well, that losing 100 bloody pounds would make it feel much much better.  But it's the same...so does that mean it was weak, or hurt, and didn't improve?  Heck no, it means it was fine before and it's fine now. 

One last thing.  Your pulse, don't worry about that, it means -nothing- in the grand scale of things.  Your blood pressure only matters if you sustain it for a -long time- too high or too low. 

If there is pain involved, don't freak out firstly, just go get checked out, and bugger the money and insurance and all that.  My cardiologist assures me  (and she's a brilliant lady, taught me to actually read EKG's), that around 49/50 people she sees with chest pain have very minor problems with muscle pain, inflammation in the chest wall...and it's all from stress...from worrying about their heart!

Honestly what works for me the best, is I spend a day, when my pulse fires up, I grit my teeth, and ignore it, continue on.  When I hear my pulse pounding in my ear, grit my teeth, continue on.  The next day, I wake up and I say 'Guess what, I'm still alive'.  Because you know, if either of us really had a heart problem for as long as we've been thinking we do...well, to put it bluntly, we'd be long dead by now mate.  And we aren't.  We aren't.

I don't know if any of this helped you mate, but I sure tried.  Keep at it, and it'll slowly fade, I promise.  This is my 15th year of thinking I'm going to die of sudden heart failure, and I haven't yet.  And I won't, not for a long time.  Keep up the fight man.  Just keep it up.

[SirWence]

Thanks for the response Knightsaber. I have the same problem I just can't seem to shake it - ive been worried about my heart since FEB of 2006 (with it not really scaring me to much over the summer over 06 - its been constant since sept of 2006 until even now after seeing my doctor 3 times about it and her giving me to the EKG , I just wish I knew what to do- because like you said part of me does believe im fine, hell part of me doesnt and says why worry about it , but the stronger part and seemingly the more irrational part of me still believes it - as I constantly worry and think oh its beating to weak or to strong or to this or that you. Sigh its major pain in the a** especially when  I am now  thinking I have somehow developed heart failure >< , But thank you for the post it did give me something to think on and that is appreicated.

And I wanted to add a side note : Sometimes at night .. I think im asleep though truth be told I couldnt be certain if I was or wasnt. But it felt like my heart was pounding like crazy. Strange.

[Knightsaber]

Just to toss in a reply mate...

I've been dealing with anxiety for a whole long time.  The heart part hit me in April 1995.  So that's...almost 13 years I've been doing it.  I don't have to touch my wrist, neck, or temple to know what my pulse rate is anymore.  I know exactly how many steps I can go up before I have to stand still for a few minutes. 

The EKG, I've found, for me...is really really nice for a few months after I get one.  But is it worth the money?  Not really.  I've been out of shape, smoking and drinking caffiene for as long as I can remember.  I walk in nice weather.  Mostly I just go to a supermarket and go up and down the aisles for a half hour once a week, that's my big exercise. 

13 years and I'm fine.  Still.  And I can't shake it either mate. 

The night thing...what happens to me is I will breathe myself awake.  Like sit bolt upright out of nowhere and take in a huge breath like I haven't been breathing.  Probably haven't, but that's sleep apnea.  I'd imagine my pulse would be quite fast if you aren't breathing for a few minutes.  It gets cranky with the lack of oxygen and all that.

I just wanted to share one more personal experience.  I was out in the heat, at the University of Iowa, last summer.  31 years old, carrying a sofa up some non-air conditioned stairs.  With some help, I'm not that cool.  It was 107 degrees, and in Iowa that is godawful hot.  The flat ground radiates heat back up and blah blah.  It was hot, alright.  Took us an hour to get that thing up five floors.  You know I checked my pulse after that, I was sweating like I was being held at gunpoint.  I don't really get exercise and that was extreme...my fibromyalgia was screaming (whole other beast, that). Checked my pulse...it was like 170..seriously.  I started to of course, lose my mind.  But somehow I withheld the need to scream for help or dial 911 or anything like that.  I drank about 5.8 metric tons of water and sat for a half hour.  It took a long time, but after maybe 45 minutes, it was back to 80, which is my normal resting rate, actually.

Imagine that.  Since then, I think if I was ever going to die from strain, that would have done it.  Later that summer, my father was painting his house with a 280 pound fiberglass ladder.  He's about 210 pounds and at the top.  I was at the bottom watching because well, he's of the mindset that if you want to get it done right...blah blah, even though I'm a far better painter...but nm that.  So he gets a bee in his face and flings himself back off the damn ladder.  You know those stories...I caught (most) of him with my right arm, he didn't hurt himself because of that, and I caught the bloody ladder in my left.  That strain from holding them both, yeah, it made me dizzy and sick, I was vomiting trying to breathe, but I just dropped the ladder, and my old man, who was unappreciating, and fell back in the grass, world spinning.  That was the end you know, I was dizzy, I could hear the blood going through my head, literally.  I was throwing up to the side, the sky was spinning, that was The End!  Wasn't it?

Somehow, almost a year later, I'm typing this reply.

Funny, isn't it :)