On top of that I had a serious spell while sitting next to her in the hospital. Room started spinning, like 100mph, sweating like I was in a pouring rain, vomiting, could not stand up and kept my eyes closed because the spinning was so disorienting. As luck would have it, no better place for that to happen than a hospital. Two IVs bags of electrolytes later the spinning stopped and so did the sweats. Severe Dehydration? Vertigo? Gotta get checked out this week.
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Get in front of a cardiologist NOW and get your azz on a treadmill for a nuclear stress test.
It could be an anxiety attack. But it could also be you are on the verge of a serious heart issue.
Those were exactly the symptoms that prompted me to get checked out. I relay this not to freak you out, but rather to get you into action.
Little over two years ago I was standing in living room waiting for the wife to get out of the spare room from her workout so I could start mine. Standing there with zero exertion, I suddenly got dizzy, and started profusely sweating from my head. As you said "like I was in a pouring rain".
I thought maybe I was getting sick. Took temperature, it was fine. Changed clothes, and when the wife finished up her workout, I told her what happened and we needed to go to urgent care. These are signs of an impending heart attack!
The sweating and dizziness subsided within 5 minutes or so, but I acted anyway.
Went in to urgent care, and only thing showing up was a low heart rate. Bradycardia. With that they called an ambulance, and took me to my hospital at UCLA.
I had multiple EKG's in the couple or so years before this incident, and during this incident. Chest X-rays. Ultrasound tests. Blood tests. NONE of them showed anything wrong until I got on that treadmill. What started a test with myself, 2 techs, and the wife in the room turned apparently bad in a hurry. Once I hit target heart rate, I knew something was wrong. When I stepped off treadmill there were about 8 people in the room with very concerned looks on their faces. Doc said "EKG was abnormal. I believe I know what this is. You have a blockage in your left anterior descending artery. We are now leaving this room to go into operating room, and we are going to perform an angioplasty, and attempt to insert a stent. If that doesn't work, we are taking you upstairs for bypass surgery."
I was blown away. What do you mean "taking me now"? What are the pros? What are the risks? Doc said "you don't understand, we are leaving NOW to do this. The risk is if you don't do this, you could drop from a major heart attack at any moment. The pros are you will live, and if something does happen during the angioplasty, you could not be in a better place to deal with it. It is time to go...now." Wife in tears, I'm in shock, we said our "I love you's", they wheeled me out, and not 5 minutes after I stepped off the treadmill, they had me on the table and were going into the artery in my arm.
My left anterior descending artery (the "widowmaker") was blocked 80% to 85%. I was a walking fatal coronary waiting to happen. And it showed up nowhere except during the stress EKG treadmill test.
I got lucky. Zero heart damage. Had an enlarged chamber (don't remember which one) but doc said that one could return to normal in time. It has going by latest tests. I've got the ejection fraction of an 18 year old.
Couple docs told me the two best decisions I ever made (and which saved my life) was that I had started taking a baby aspirin every day for about a month before that when I re-started my workout program. The other was to come in when I experienced those symptoms, which could have been easily written off as several other things were I to be in denial. Had I written them off as anxiety, a bug, or nothing, I surely would not be here now.
Get checked out. Get on the treadmill. Even if it has to come out of pocket.
