I got a referral to cardiology after probably needing one for years when albuterol and prednisone started to cause more problems than they were repairing, and I was put on a beta-blocker and a separate medication intended to help keep me from going into an abnormal arrythmia (and definitely to keep me from having palpitations). Those are supposed to help tide me over until I can get in with cardiology, although I am welcome to a return visit in the event that they… don’t, and we need second-line treatments along with or instead of first-line treatments. All in all, I am happy for this because I felt like people had the impression that thirty-somethings can’t actually have heart problems, even though my own mother had heart problems at this age and hers contributed to her death. She wasn’t on Hospice long enough to have someone be able to come by and turn her implanted device off because she died three days after being put on Hospice, having an oncologist honestly think he could substantially ameliorate the worst grade of lung cancer there is, and her heart came to a full stop in spite of that thing being set to repeatedly shock her (“back to life”) at the end.

Welcome to the jungle, I guess. The things that I said years ago about our… lack of… relationship are still true.

I’d still like to move out of Texas at one point, though. Standard operating procedure for treating angina isn’t even being followed here and I have to ask for it, supposing that I even get it, due to my age. I didn’t know that congenital heart problems had, or have, an age, but go off. Isn’t the whole point of this “early-onset”?

In a few hours, I see my primary care physician to get the referral to a cardiologist that it is clear as day I need. As already stated, I’m going to ask to be put on a stronger ACE inhibitor, and I’m going to ask to be prescribed short-acting or long-acting nitrates for episodes of angina that will hold me over until I actually see the cardiologist. Aspirin helped ease symptoms of angina until it… didn’t, and high-dose Benadryl is no longer effective at drying out secretions in my lungs that I would otherwise have coughed up and am now coughing up. I look forward to being started on medications that better address this, which might in turn address the fact that I have gradually started feeling cold all of the time, and hope that a referral to cardiology is expedited and that I’m able to see the fellow reasonably soon. If my bronchial asthma isn’t as severe as my care team thinks because I’m having heart problems that can mimic asthma, particularly with vague shortness of breath that isn’t worked up, it might also be that I’m on medications that I don’t actually need to be on… or medications that are causing this to get worse, as some lung medications can actually worsen heart problems if not needed. For fun I might hilariously make a list of my symptoms at one point.

I’m really hoping for enough nitrates to hold me over, though. That’s the biggest thing here. Nitrates, please.

The local hospital is a joke when it comes to managing early-onset heart problems.

Standard operating procedure has always been to test first- and second-generation relatives if a family member has early-onset heart disease because it is highly heritable, and to give nitrates when angina is present (even when it’s stable, but especially when it’s not stable). I am probably going to get substantially more help from my primary care physician when I see him later this week, as will I get more help from an actual cardiologist who can run a battery of tests on my heart and make the most specific diagnosis. I’d like to get put back on an ACE inhibitor soon and prescribed nitrates to take as needed at home by my primary care doctor to get me to the point where the cardiologist he refers me to can take over care. (I hope so…)

Anyway, this is just one more of many reasons why I would absolutely love to move out of Texas.

Not that this should come as a surprise to anyone, but I’ll be scheduling the appointment next week…

…well, unless matters make me seek more emergent care.

I’d rather see a doctor and be told that it’s nothing major (or even “minor heart problems”, as though there were ever such a thing) than ignore something until it gets to the point where it can’t be treated. A history of heart problems run in my family. When my mom was my own age, she had to have a pacemaker put in and started to need aneurysms to be clipped. And even if it is my time to pay the piper on heart problems, I’d rather start treatment for those early on when more can be done about them… if I have the choice to do so.

I am continuing to have the obvious symptoms of cardiac asthma that I’ve been having, although at this point I feel them more — the pressure on my chest that is surprisingly not my lungs (I know, right?), and more prevalent. When I take some of the medication that I’ve been prescribed or told to take, I don’t feel it severely, and sometimes not even all the time. Once the kids go on break from occupational and speech therapies, I’m going to call my primary care physician and ask for a referral to a cardiologist provided that I don’t need to seek emergent care sooner than that. Knowing me, I’ll be referred right back to the main hospital in this city for testing unless the cardiologist can do almost all or all of the testing in his office.

But thirty-somethings “don’t get” heart problems, even if they have a first-generation family history of them.

About every month to month and a half I feel like I’m “short of breath” for a few days even though my lungs, with the help of medication that I take as needed for bronchial asthma, are able to draw in air just fine. But people in their thirties “don’t have heart problems”, even though I very clearly do. If this continues to happen, as I’m sure it will, I’m going to ask for a referral to a cardiologist so that they can give me better medication to manage it than I am currently on. This is annoying, because I could definitely be doing better things this summer — better than dealing with this, at any rate. “Ways to stop feeling pressure on my chest” is fun…

Take aspirin.
Take aspirin with Benadryl.
Put prescription-strength lidocaine on my chest.
Take warm bath to force arteries, veins, and such to dilate rather than constrict.

…nope, it’s still definitely there, I still definitely have cardiac asthma, but it is helping a little bit.