Appointment With Family Doctor/general Practitioner

[Alli40]

Hi Everyone

We have just returned home from an appointment with our family doctor. We are still waiting to see cardiology and now a new referral is going in to a new neurologist.

Our family doctor read the info I provided on POTS and said that we could look at this as a possibility easily. He had my daughter lie down for a few minutes and then he took her pulse. Then he sat her up and repeated. Then he stood her up and repeated. He didn't notice muchy of a change in her pulse and said he thinks we can rule out pots as a concern. If that is true I will be very happy!

The thing that is nagging at me is that when she was in the hospital for 3 days in May they regularly took her vitals and noticed a big change between lying down and standing and that is why cardiology has been contacted. Could this have resolved itself? She has been very quiet for the last 3 weeks with minimal exercise and only occasional accidental over exertion. As the three weeks has gone by, her health has improved with all symptoms becoming less frequent and less severe. Her symptoms increase when she exercises ( last weekend in the pool resulted in two days of headache, stomach pain, etc.)

Could be we are dealing with something else?

I have a mio watch (I have just had the battery replaced) so I thought we could check her heart rate from time to time ourselves and see if things have improved. I am just not sure how accurate it is and I suck at taking her pulse.

Looks like we are waiting for cardiology and the new neurologist to help with this puzzle.

Thanks

Christine

[MightyMouse]

How long did he wait upon standing to take the hr? It can take me up to 3 minutes for my hr to skyrocket. Then it can take up to 15 minutes for the ncs component, where my hr normalizes and my bp drops.

[Rachel]

I'll second what Nina said. If the heart rate was taken immediately upon standing, that might not have been a sufficient amount of time for your daughters hr to increase. Try taking her hr and bp after lying down for 10 minutes, and then after 1, 5, and 10 minutes of standing.

I hope you can find out what is going on and that your daughter receives the treatment she needs.

Rachel

[ironsc]

I also second what was said - the increase in heart rate does not have to happen instantaneously. It can happen anytime within 15 minutes - however long it takes for the body to overreact to blood starting to pool in the extremities.

Make certain she's also completely still - no leg twitching or moving around. This might help the symptom pronounce sooner or greater.

Has the doctor checked for Anemia, Asthma (even exercise-induced), and possibly Migraines (exercise-triggered, or Abdominal)?

[jump]

Also, some people only have symptoms (or their symptoms are worse) in the morning. If your daughter's appointment was in the afternoon, this could have influenced what the doctor observed.

That being said, sometimes people can get heart-racing and heart beat irregularities because of other illnesses, and these do resolve themselves when the illness is over. A good friend of mine recently had pneumonia, and her hr skyrocketed upon standing or any exertion -- but now that her pneumonia is resolved, her hr is normal again. If your daughter was sick, maybe her funny heart rate was because of the primary illness?

good luck, and I hope you and your daughter find an answer soon!

jump

[ajw4790]

Hi,

I agree with the others. Also wanted to add that any meds she is on could also affect it, and that also without BP being taken, it is hard to tell if at that point in time her BP was able to compensate for the position change and therefore the BP changed rather than the HR. I would suggest seeing if they would do a TTT.

I hope you find answers soon!