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!