DrD
Member
I have been having what are best described as frequently recurring dizzy spells, with the magnitude of such spells increasing with each succeeding spell. Wife took me to Emergency Room early Fri evening; was looked at by a pair of doctors, and both concluded "vertigo," prescribed Meclizine, and sent me on my way. We left the ER and drove a short distance to the local Burger King. In the drive thru I experienced what we thought was a full blown seizure, head and right arm convulsing violently. Scared the **** out the wife; she finally hit me, and I came around. Back to the ER where I was hooked up to who knows what.
Over the next 4 hours I had over 50 more such events, each time eventually returning to normal on my own. A male nurse, a kindly old individual (but not as old as me) finally picked up on the fact that my heart was stopping from 1 to 6 (occasionally longer) seconds and these stoppages corresponded to each event. In between each event, I appeared to be normal, cognizant, with no signs of a stroke. A neurologist was brought in and concurred I most probably wasn't having strokes. The cardiologist on call, supposedly the best in the area, reviewed the data, without seeing me and said to hospitalize me and Monday my cardiologist could see me. Off I went to Cardiac ICU. All the personnel there were wonderful; but with Covid protocols my wife could not accompany me. 2 very knowledgeable and efficient nurses stayed with me until the 7 am shift change. In that 7 hour period I had well over 150 heart stoppages. Funny, in that there was no pain associated with any of the events, just a lot of violent twitching. Scary as all get-out! And the stoppages were getting more frequent.
The trauma triage team, of 5 doctors and 2 nurse practitioners came to observe and agreed, after witnessing at least 10 more of these events, that I needed a pacemaker. I hadn't eaten anything since noon on Friday, so the procedure could be done that day. I insisted on my cardiologist, and they eventually were able to contacted him (he was at his camp about an hour or so away). He said to start a dobutamine drip, which took about 60 mins to have it's effect , eventually, almost completely eliminating the heart stoppages. Up to that point I had experience more than 100 additional stoppages.
Got a pacemaker inserted, and am now home, resting, and have been told that I'm well on my way to no more of those dreadful, frightening events. No one seems to know what exactly started/caused those events to begin with, but all seem to agree that within 6 to 8 weeks I will be resuming normal activities. Not sure if that includes returning to the wood shop though.
Over the next 4 hours I had over 50 more such events, each time eventually returning to normal on my own. A male nurse, a kindly old individual (but not as old as me) finally picked up on the fact that my heart was stopping from 1 to 6 (occasionally longer) seconds and these stoppages corresponded to each event. In between each event, I appeared to be normal, cognizant, with no signs of a stroke. A neurologist was brought in and concurred I most probably wasn't having strokes. The cardiologist on call, supposedly the best in the area, reviewed the data, without seeing me and said to hospitalize me and Monday my cardiologist could see me. Off I went to Cardiac ICU. All the personnel there were wonderful; but with Covid protocols my wife could not accompany me. 2 very knowledgeable and efficient nurses stayed with me until the 7 am shift change. In that 7 hour period I had well over 150 heart stoppages. Funny, in that there was no pain associated with any of the events, just a lot of violent twitching. Scary as all get-out! And the stoppages were getting more frequent.
The trauma triage team, of 5 doctors and 2 nurse practitioners came to observe and agreed, after witnessing at least 10 more of these events, that I needed a pacemaker. I hadn't eaten anything since noon on Friday, so the procedure could be done that day. I insisted on my cardiologist, and they eventually were able to contacted him (he was at his camp about an hour or so away). He said to start a dobutamine drip, which took about 60 mins to have it's effect , eventually, almost completely eliminating the heart stoppages. Up to that point I had experience more than 100 additional stoppages.
Got a pacemaker inserted, and am now home, resting, and have been told that I'm well on my way to no more of those dreadful, frightening events. No one seems to know what exactly started/caused those events to begin with, but all seem to agree that within 6 to 8 weeks I will be resuming normal activities. Not sure if that includes returning to the wood shop though.
or even worse a cattle prod just in case!
