h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi all.

This follows on from F1697644?thread=7529170 which I wrote earlier this year.

I saw the cardiologist today. He now says it's *almost* certain that I *don't* have the hereditary condition my sister has, which I'd been diagnosed with at the time of that thread.

What I do have is an idiosyncratic heart rhythm, which isn't necessarily dangerous in itself. There's also a non-typical trace on the machine that turns a heartbeat into a graph. This is all fascinating, but essentially meaningless.

I have to keep taking the tablets until February, when I get to wean myself off them for at least a couple of days so I can do one of those stress test things. (Me on a treadmill. I do believe some people do this sort of thing for fun, though not usually wired up to a battery of machines that go Bleep or Bing or ScutterScutterTrill. Some people are weird.)

After the stress test, if I pass, I get to stay off the tablets and just get on with my life.

Here's hoping.

Or, to put it another way, here's drinking. I think I'll drink tonight, in between eating a lot of my favourite high-calorie things. Just because I can, you understand.

It was quite funny when the chap told me I didn't have a serious condition. The look on his face said that he was expecting me to demand a second opinion or protest about the removal of my tragic stigmata or something. He must see a lot of people who want a mechanism for martyrdom. (It doesn't help that he looks a bit like Terry Jones as a Pythonesque doctor circa 1972.)

What the whole situation means to me, in basic terms, is that I have confirmation of my theory about the medical profession - which is that they're brilliant with the simple and straightforward but they're just as flummoxed by the rest of us when it comes to the unusual. Whatever we think about scientific progress, I think we're still in the early days of medicine. Just think how far we will go in the future, and how fantastic that will be.

That's brilliant news, Ivan!

Here's hoping the later tests go okay - but in the meantime -

Cheers!

Thanks!

(I should probably stop soon...)

I've heard that that condition is often triggered by high stress levels. You were under a lot of stress at the time, right Ivan?

way to go mate


Bleep - Bing and ScutterScutterTrill! that's a firm of solicitors ain't it ??

That was unexpected!!

Roll on February

Missed the original post - not been on here for ages until quite recently.

Good news indeed.

What were the origional symptoms?

I'm getting fed up with doctors who can't diagnose for toffy, its a real problem here, and I keep having to correctly diagnose people who the actual* medical profestionals, with access to all the blood results scans and tests can't diagnose; Most recently I correctly diagnosed my lodgers heart condition (which as I diagnosed wasn't* a heart condition at all), whilst his doctors ignored the observable facts which absolutely* and definately* said it wasn't corinary artery disease; so they went ahead and did heart sugery, gave him four stents, an irreversalbe opperation which means he's now on drugs for the rest of the life; and, of course as that wasnt' the problem, did nothing to stop his symptoms. Finally he found a GP who could read, and think, and they diagnosed him with Graves disease (OK my diagnoses was close; my exact words were somethign like 'naa, its clearly a endochrine problem, probably thyroid' , and now he's on the right medication, and this week I think gets to have his thyroid radiated and distroyed... So a year of mis diagnoseis, a whole series of unnecessary opperations (exploratory for the non existant heart problem), four stents put in, and lifelong medication becasue of the stents, beofre they made the right diagnosis....

I'd have expected it a bit more were he going to some really ropy hospital, but he was seen by a consultant at the UK's best regarded, leading hospital for heart disease.... But, it seems, by the time he'd been refered to the cardiology department, all the cardiologists only* know about heart stuff, they've forgotten every other bit of their medical training and scientific education so everything* they see, must* be a heart related problem
I diagnosed a friend whilst I was still doing my A-levels, with a condition the medical profesion hadn't been able to diagnose for over tweo decades; again I didn't have any blood data to look at; finally he started geting treated for the right condition, but due to the years of it not being treated he died shortly after. Basic diagnostic skills are so awful... My Father was equally badly diagnosed leading to emergency opperations and a irrevesable removal of half his intestine, and a perminant stoma/colonestomy bag, I was misdiagnosed or rather undiagnosed with a brain hemoridge, or I'd still be able to see out of one eye... I could go on but probalby oughta not (and I have had some excelent medical treatment, just only when they managed to diagnose properly first)

ivan

i'll just have my usual (half grapefruit juice, half soda water)

most excellent news Ivan

Thanks for dropping in, everyone.

Titania, I was indeed under stress at the time, but I've been under worse stress than that quite often (and indeed, since) and I've never had anything like that happen to me.

2legs, the symptoms of the original episode were a series of constricting sensations around the heart, with stabbing pains. Then there were lesser pains and a nasty cold sweat and the shakes, but I think that was a sign of shock more than anything else. I was conscious throughout. There were no pains outside the chest. Subsequent tests have shown that there's no structural abnormalities in the heart or nearby, my circulation's perfectly normal, blood pressure normal and so forth. I'm prepared to put it down to stress - even though I've had worse stress and not had any such episodes as a result - but the doctors seem to think it's not a typical stress response. But what do they know?

None of this had anything much to do with the diagnosis of Long QT Syndrome. That was down to family history and an ambiguous heart monitor reading on the day (and since).

*Arrives late to to the party*

Glad to hear there is better news

An atypical stress response then... that's kinda I never cease to be amazed by the human body and what it can get up to.

The human body is as bizarre and variable as the humans that inhabit them. I am convinced that this is the one certainty in life.

the old DNA jigsawif a piece don't fit, hammer it in

Don't try this yourselves, you'll probably get arrested...