Health & Fitness

How can you mend a broken heart?

How can you mend a broken heart?

There are many diagnostic procedures used to determine what condition a patient has so that it can be treated effectively. I have had one of these procedures when it was suspected that I was suffering from a heart attack.

I was 40 years old and in relatively good physical shape. Lately I had been experiencing some chest pains that I just attributed to gas. One night during dinner I was experiencing it again. I commented to my wife that I was having chest pains. She noticed that I was very pale and decided to take my blood pressure.

My blood pressure read extremely high, and she wanted to call an ambulance but I told her that I would drive myself to the hospital. We compromised and did not call the ambulance, but she drove me to the hospital.

Going in the Emergency Room and telling the attendant that you might be having a heart attack gets you bumped to the front of the line, and I was admitted immediately. A nitroglycerine patch was administered, and they started an IV.

I was seen by a doctor who suspected a heart attack. They would hook me up to an EKG machine to see what my heart rhythms were like. I was kept in the ER so I could be monitored. A cardiologist came to see me. His name was Dr. Hart (no kidding). He told me that I did not suffer a heart attack. That was the good news. The bad news was that he did not know what was causing my symptoms.

He asked me about my lifestyle, and I told him that I worked out pretty vigorously 4 or 5 times a week. He asked me about drugs, and I told him that I did not use recreational drugs. However, I had recently began taking chondroitin to make my aging joints feel better.

Chondroitin
Chondroitin

The doctor did not think that was the cause. He wanted to schedule a CT scan so he would get a 3-D image of my heart.

I was taken to the CT-Scan machine. I was put through the machine and wheeled back to my room. I was anxious to put this whole thing behind me and go home.

Even though the doctor said otherwise, I was confident that it was the chondroitin that was the cause of all my problems.

The doctor came to my room and told me he went through the results of my CT-scan, and he was unable to find anything wrong with me. He told me that the CT-Scan was unable to get images of my entire heart and there was an area he was not able to see. It was about ten percent of my heart. He suggested that he perform a Cardiac Catheterization. He explained that he would cut a hole in my groin area and thread a tube into my femoral artery up to my heart. A contrasting dye will be injected through the catheter, and they would take an X-ray of my heart. The contrasting solution would reveal any blockages or any other abnormalities. Then the doctor would be able to inspect it. I thought it was a lot to go through to see a small part of my heart. Besides, I was confident that if I discontinued the chondroitin, the problem would go away. I wanted to decline the invasive test. Unfortunately, my wife was there, and she insisted that I go through with it.

I was brought into a room with a big screen television on the wall. They did exactly what they said they would do. They made an incision in my groin area and inserted the catheter into my femoral artery. I watched the monitor as the tube made its way through my artery and up into the chamber of my heart. They put in the dye and took the X-rays. It took maybe 15 or 20 minutes before they removed the catheter.

View of the internal veins and arteries in the heart
View of the internal veins and arteries in the heart

I had to lie still for at least 8 hours.

I found out that the doctor found no abnormalities in my heart. I still insisted it was the chondroitin. He did not think so. I stopped taking it and the problem never returned so I am going with that.

Since I had been filled with contrasting solution, they needed to pump more fluids through my IV to flush out my system. This caused me to have to pee at least once an hour. I could not get out of bed or even sit up. Fortunately, my wife was willing to get the pee bottle and get me to pee in it.

I stayed overnight in the hospital and went home the next day. It was about 3 months after I was convinced I could resume my regular activities without opening the wound and bleeding out in seconds.

How can you mend a broken heart?
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