Don't need the cardiology to have a change of heart

Got to believe the doctor girl
He told me yesterday (yes he did)
Said you don't need the pharmacology
Cos I want you baby - I do want you baby
Don't need the cardiology

                                To have a change of heart.  - Scritti Politti 'Philosophy Now' from the album 'Provision'.   Quote from one of my favourite musicians, Mr Green 'Scritti Politti' Gartside, which sprang into my head as a slightly skewed summary of what just happened this morning. 

Well, for a start, my doctor isn't a 'he', she's a she, and she saw me today as arranged about a fortnight ago, not yesterday. But the rest is appropriate!
I'd reluctantly gone to see my GP to put friends and relatives minds at rest over the palpitations and tachycardia I've been having since my massive 'lost two hours of my life' hypo late last month. The one where my Mum found me slumped on the edge of the bed wielding one of my contact lenses and a nail file grunting "Grrrr - I DUNNO!!!!!" and smashing the proffered jelly babies out of her hands to fly across the room. Yes, that one.  My doc listened to my heart through the stethoscope and found it was pounding over 100bpm (white coat syndrome, though with her I feel quite relaxed?) though apparently regular. I had one palpitation late into 20 minute appointment. Flutter - swing. In the middle of my chest very slightly to the right.  She immediately made an appointment with the cardiology department of the local hospital in town, for a week today in the afternoon. Quicker than I managed to get an appointment with her, anyway!  I have been off Amitriptylene (NOT for depression, rather to help pain killers to work more effectively and to aid sleep with M.E.) for three years, and we were considering giving this another try to help the debilitating pains in chest, neck, arms, wrists etc. However, as  Amitriptylene can cause the heart to speed up, we decided it wasn't the right time to prescribe it until the heart problems are sorted one way or the other. She also advised me to run my blood sugars on the high side of normal till then so as not to put any more strain on my heart through hypo-induced heart-racing.   So I "don't need the pharmacology", well, no more than all the stuff I'm taking already and hopefully next week's trip to "cardiology" will also show I won't need "to have a change of heart" either! Long family history of valvular heart disease, strokes, atherosclerosis, cardiovascular early deaths notwithstanding! Is this maybe P.O.T.S. (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) as part of the M.E.? Not always when I stand up, but also when I'm sitting? Will know soon enough.  Completely bushed now. No change there then! I'll keep you posted.

Tachycardia getting even tackier!

Well, after Saturday evening's loss of two hours of my life to extreme hypoglycemia, it's put me back quite a bit and been all but housebound since. 


The temperature here in Yorkshire is hitting the mid seventies, so it would be great to get outdoors more to take advantage. Managed one wobbly stagger down the garden to see the golden leaves from the Ash and Cherry trees banking up on the lawn. So beautiful. The birds are going barmy for the balmy, enjoying this warm snap, chasing each other in the sunshine.  A few weeks ago, my Mum heard a lady proclaim that "You don't know what to wear! We shan't have any more weather!" Premature, it turns out!

This week, my occasional tachycardia has become a much more frequent companion. Like other visitors, it really should have warned me it intended to call! I'd have changed the locks, had I known! So much so, accompanied by dizzy spells and greater than usual difficulty making sense of ordinary stuff and concentrating, I've actually promised to go have myself checked out by my GP.


"Well," said one well-meaning well wisher, "it may be a recognised M.E. symptom, but they can give you things for it these days. You haven't told them, recently."

I know. I never go to the GP now, unless forced to, any more than I did before I was ill with M.E. I have to be seen regularly about my diabetes in any case. Forgive me if I'm less than hopeful of getting help with the tachycardia. Any more than the GP has been able to relieve my pain. Or disperse my grinding, draining exhaustion. Or keep my stomach and intestines from having a life of their own. TMI. Or do anything but pack me off to the M.E. (for that, read CBT/GET) clinic in Sheffield soon after I was first diagnosed by the immunology department at Sheffield Hallamshire Hospital. Then no more. No further intervention. Except to write 'M.E.' on my records clearly, a few years on.

But I care about the people who care about me, so I will make that appointment.


Even less welcome is the annual flu jab at my local surgery this Saturday. Every year now I have to debate, all alone, the pros and cons of having it. So many years it has lead to me being profoundly ill afterwards. It is still one of the most likely looking candidates, unofficially, for contributing to my complete collapse into M.E. in October 2005.


Shall I? The diabetic advice says "Yes".

Shan't I? The rather shaky M.E. wisdom says "No".

A friend whose husband is terminally ill with emphysema, on oxygen, will not have the flu jab these days, though all the advice from medics tells him to do so. My friend says, though I haven't the facts or figures personally to back this up, that GPs get £40 per every flu jab administered.

Anecdotal evidence names a GP who actually stopped one of his patients in the street as he drove away from an appointment where he had given another patient her flu jab at home. He urged the pedestrian patient to get into his car, and gave her the flu jab there and then. £40 is tempting, whatever the dare, true, kiss or promise of it.

Every time I approach the subject of how ill the flu jab has often left me within days, the old line about "it's a dead virus, it can't give you flu." is trotted out. Apart from one wise nurse, who could only say that it was up to me.

It can't give us flu. No. I know that, thank you for asking! I'm not saying it gives me flu! I'm suggesting that something seems to be happening with my immune system that reacts to whatever is in the shots. Perhaps that's why it does vary year to year. I don't know. I'm not the expert. Seemingly, nobody else is either. Again, from a very low ebb to start with, I must decide whether to take the plunge and line up for the injection.


Then I'll make my appointment for the tachycardia. I fully expect the tests, if done, will make me look like a malingering idiot as usual. Or perhaps, even at rest, relaxed at home, the fluttering, nauseous, dizzying sensation is "all in my head"?


Sarcasm over. It's a beautiful day outside of these four walls!