3 ms·

Last year I was getting really run down and lethargic over the course of a couple months. At one point I tried going for a jog, but couldn't go more than 20-30

Last year I was getting really run down and lethargic over the course of a couple months. At one point I tried going for a jog, but couldn't go more than 20-30 seconds without having to walk. I was naturally drinking a lot of coffee to try and compensate for the apparent lack of energy. I was also experiencing anxiety bordering on feelings of panic, and for a while I thought it could have been caused by too much coffee. I tried taking a break for a week, but it didn't help. At one point I even tried to play a level of Tomb Raider and had to stop after 10 minutes because it made me feel anxious and panicked like I was going to pass out. It turned out that my heart rate had progressively slowed down over a couple months, dropping as low as 21 beats per minute. I was acclimated to it at rest, but my heart wouldn't beat faster regardless of activity level. I had to get a pacemaker that instantly jumped my rate up to 110 bpm. My blood pressure also shot up to something like 160/110. I had the worst "caffeine" headache I can remember from that. It was a long few days until everything balanced out. I cherish my morning ritual pour-over or aero-press.

bondarchuk 6y ago
21, wow...
- sgtnoodle 6y ago
  Lol, yeah. I realized something was wrong when my resting heart rate was in the low 50s, but the cardiologist I talked to wasn't too concerned about it being an emergency, so just scheduled an echocardiogram and a treadmill test. When I went into the hospital for that, I was at 34bpm, but the echocardiogram technician kept a straight face and said, "all I do is take the pictures". When I went to the next room for the treadmill test, I gave the nurse practitioner a warning that I would most certainly black out after 20 seconds. She hooked me up to a 12-lead ECG, looked at the waveforms, then stepped out of the room nervously. She came back and said they were sending me to the ER on a stretcher! Being capable of walking, I negotiated down to a wheelchair. While I waited in the triage area with a portable ECG monitor on my lap, as various paramedics came in and out they glanced down at the display, got excited in disbelief about how I was upright and smiling rather than unconscious, then asked if they could glance through my chart for the learning experience. 21 bpm was measured while I was bundled up like a burrito in a microwave for a cardiac MRI. The machine has to synchronize to your pulse to only collect data between beats. Since my rate was so low, each scan pass took about 4x longer than usual, while having to hold my breath. That was a very long hour of my life. For a while it was a bit of a Dr. House episode, between the root cause being unknown, and the pacemaker having a reliability issue that needed debugging. I estimate about a dozen cardiologists poked and prodded me. They even had a "conference" with something like 30 people, and it being a teaching hospital, they also did a case study. I'm doing a lot better now, thanks to smart doctors and the marvels of modern medical technology.

bondarchuk 6y ago

21, wow...

sgtnoodle 6y ago
Lol, yeah. I realized something was wrong when my resting heart rate was in the low 50s, but the cardiologist I talked to wasn't too concerned about it being an emergency, so just scheduled an echocardiogram and a treadmill test. When I went into the hospital for that, I was at 34bpm, but the echocardiogram technician kept a straight face and said, "all I do is take the pictures". When I went to the next room for the treadmill test, I gave the nurse practitioner a warning that I would most certainly black out after 20 seconds. She hooked me up to a 12-lead ECG, looked at the waveforms, then stepped out of the room nervously. She came back and said they were sending me to the ER on a stretcher! Being capable of walking, I negotiated down to a wheelchair. While I waited in the triage area with a portable ECG monitor on my lap, as various paramedics came in and out they glanced down at the display, got excited in disbelief about how I was upright and smiling rather than unconscious, then asked if they could glance through my chart for the learning experience. 21 bpm was measured while I was bundled up like a burrito in a microwave for a cardiac MRI. The machine has to synchronize to your pulse to only collect data between beats. Since my rate was so low, each scan pass took about 4x longer than usual, while having to hold my breath. That was a very long hour of my life. For a while it was a bit of a Dr. House episode, between the root cause being unknown, and the pacemaker having a reliability issue that needed debugging. I estimate about a dozen cardiologists poked and prodded me. They even had a "conference" with something like 30 people, and it being a teaching hospital, they also did a case study. I'm doing a lot better now, thanks to smart doctors and the marvels of modern medical technology.