“It’s not that bad”

Day 618 (retrospectively)

I just realised that I never gave an update of my appointment with the cardiologist in February about what I suspected was heart failure related symptoms.

Random photo from February

I was waiting in the waiting area with all the other patients at the out patient clinic. As usual I was on the younger side in the group.

I was tentative. Whenever I have serious things to discuss or high expectations of an appointment, I kind of expect the doctors to not take me as seriously as I would wish. It has happened over and over since my diagnosis.

When the cardiology registrar called me for my appointment, we had to walk down a really long hallway to get to his office. That was quite useful, as I was completely floored halfway through the walk. And the registrar could see that. Nothing like a live demonstration to your doctor to prove your point. Or so I thought.

Heart failure symptoms

I discussed all my symptoms with the registrar: edema, shortness of breath, trouble walking uphill and the JVD. For a full explanation of my symptoms at the time, see Do I have heart failure.

The cardiology registrar did a thorough assessment and was quite concerned. He went to fetch the cardiologist.

The cardiologist came in. This was the first time I had seen him in person since December 2022. He basically said that my symptoms were not that bad. He said the edema needs to be much worse for them to be concerned. He did not touch on any of my other symptoms. He was more keen to talk about my weight.

In his view, my edema was a result of my weight. He was not interested in doing an echo to confirm anything. He mentioned that I "might" have an echo later in the year.

Being pushy

I had to really push the doctors for treatment of my symptoms. I mean, I really felt like I was going downhill. And they were not taking it seriously. At all!

They were just going to send me away from the appointment without a course of action. And that after me clearly struggling to walk 50 steps! So I pushed them for treatment of my symptoms. The registrar agreed to put me on Furosemide. Furosemide is a diuretic or water pill. It gets rid of excess fluid in your body.

The registrar did also send me for a blood panel. To make sure there wasn't something non-heart related causing the symptoms.

To say I was frustrated when I left is an understatement.

So how has it gone since?

I started Furosemide pretty much immediately. Over the course of a week I lost 6 kilograms. My heart failure symptoms eased off within a couple of weeks.

My heart symptom graph for the first half of this year

I keep track of my symptoms in a spreadsheet, and my heart symptom graphs show a significant drop off after I started medication.

I still don't know what has caused the symptoms or if I have an underlying issue that needs to be treated. I'm waiting for my next cardiology appointment, I guess. Maybe I will have an echo.