Friday, November 21, 2014

Maybe It's The Timing

I had another bradycardia event about 4 or 5 days ago. My pulse dropped to about 42 for a couple of hours, normally it runs around 65. That's three times this has happened in less than a month. Scary for sure. I had an appointment with my kidney doctor the following day and discussed it with him. He had several recommendations which he wrote down for me to share with my local cardiologist the next day.

The local cardiologist spent more time with me than Dr. Whoosh (see my previous post) but it was a similarly disappointing visit. He totally ignored the note from the kidney doctor and just told me to check my blood pressure and pulse before I took my medications and not take one if either reading was low. That sounds sensible, but I check my vitals every morning before I take my medications and the readings have been in the normal range (at least normal for me) before each of the events...so I had no foreknowledge of what was about to happen.  He did go over my list of medications and pointed out each one of the five medications that affected my heart and whether it was blood pressure, pulse, or both. I will admit that was somewhat helpful.

After the visit, I started thinking about these heart events I've been having.  All of them happened at about the same time, between 9 and 10 a.m., three hours after I normally take my morning pills. Included in that morning dose are all of the five medications that affect my heart. It occurred to me that perhaps I was unintentionally overdosing on heart medications. At the suggestion of the kidney doctor, I've discontinued one of the medications plus I am now taking one of the others in the evening instead of morning with the hope that this change will resolve the problem.

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