Please Pray for my Sister.

[Steve]

I'm praying it's only Epilepsy.

Prayers for her health heading your way.
If you gotta hope for one over the other, hope for the heart condition. Medical science can treat the heck out of most heart problems very effectively. Particularly so with those involving the conduction system as you describe.

Epilepsy...not so much.

 

[MakiSupaStar]

Any word on a diagnosis?

 

[machine gewehr]

Sending good karma from Istanbul to you and your family.

 

[cassanova]

Any word on a diagnosis?

Just got off the phone with her. If I understood her correctly they're releasing her today and ruled out Epilepsy and are fairly certain she has a heart condition. They want her to see her doctor so he can refer her to a cardiologist because it'll be easier that way.

What I don't understand is this, the hospital she is in is supposedly renowned for being one of the best cardio care facilities in the Tampa area. Why wouldn't they just have her do all that there while she's admitted?

 

[MakiSupaStar]

Just got off the phone with her. If I understood her correctly they're releasing her today and ruled out Epilepsy and are fairly certain she has a heart condition. They want her to see her doctor so he can refer her to a cardiologist because it'll be easier that way.

What I don't understand is this, the hospital she is in is supposedly renowned for being one of the best cardio care facilities in the Tampa area. Why wouldn't they just have her do all that there while she's admitted?

Yeah. It often doesn't make sense. Be there for her and help her as best as you can.

 

[Steve]

What I don't understand is this, the hospital she is in is supposedly renowned for being one of the best cardio care facilities in the Tampa area. Why wouldn't they just have her do all that there while she's admitted?

1. Insurance
2. It's deemed non-life threatening and she doesn't need hospitalization.
3. Insurance

When I was in the medical game we used to call it, "getting turfed".

She'll find a cardiologist, she'll get a EKG, probably a stress EKG...non of that requires admittance to a hospital bed. They'll figure it out, prescribe some meds maybe, worst case scenario place a pacemaker (that'll get her some bed time) she'll be fine.

Cardiac problems fall into 3 general categories:
1. There's a problem with the pump.
2. There's a problem with the blood vessels not adapting to changing conditions causing blood pressure to rise and fall rapidly which can cause the heart to go nuts trying to compensate.
3. There's not enough blood volume which typically is not a problem that occurs outside of a trauma environment.

The chicken or egg will be the passing out when standing up / irregular heartbeat. Problem 1 or 2 will cause that. IF the heartbeat is irregular sitting at rest, that points toward #1.

Keep this in mind as a good thought:
If the whole hospital staff is swarming over you, that's not a good sign. That means you have a serious effing problem.
If they ignore or turf you, it's maddening as hell but, it means you're not in a life threatening situation.

And...that's about the end of my limited knowledge as an ex-paramedic. Good luck to you and yours.

 

[Ericman197]

Just got off the phone with her. If I understood her correctly they're releasing her today and ruled out Epilepsy and are fairly certain she has a heart condition. They want her to see her doctor so he can refer her to a cardiologist because it'll be easier that way.

What I don't understand is this, the hospital she is in is supposedly renowned for being one of the best cardio care facilities in the Tampa area. Why wouldn't they just have her do all that there while she's admitted?

That might be very good news. At this point it's impossible to say what the problem is, though it definitely doesn't sound like epilepsy. Depending on her age, weight, medical conditions, medication/drug history, diet etc. this could be a number of things... many of which are benign.

The reason they're referring her out is probably because they have the diagnosis (orthostatic hypotension), but she needs to see a cardiologist for treatment. She may also need further testing to determine the underlying cause of her orthostatic hypotension. For example, if she's 23 years old, 95 pounds and has been vegetarian for the past ten years, she may be severely anemic (in which case, changing her diet will cure her). Drugs or medications may cause orthostatic hypotension as a side effect.

And while there may be the few rare, scarier causes for orthostatic hypotension, most likely they would not have discharged her if they thought she were in imminent danger. They really should have given you more information, but perhaps they did not do so because they wanted the cardiologist's opinion.

Anyway, good luck! This situation is very, very common and is rarely going to be anything that isn't treatable.

e: Just make sure she doesn't make sudden movements, like jumping out of bed or out of a chair. Whatever the underlying cause of her illness, it's causing her body to be unable to increase her blood pressure. So, what happens is when she stands up, her pressure drops, pulse shoots up, and she may get some scary symptoms like blurred/blacked out vision, or she may just pass out. You want to make sure she doesn't fall and injure herself. Sometimes people will also fall when they're getting up from going to the bathroom, or while taking a shower (you can put a small plastic chair in there).

 

[fo shizzle]

1. Insurance
2. It's deemed non-life threatening and she doesn't need hospitalization.
3. Insurance

When I was in the medical game we used to call it, "getting turfed".

She'll find a cardiologist, she'll get a EKG, probably a stress EKG...non of that requires admittance to a hospital bed. They'll figure it out, prescribe some meds maybe, worst case scenario place a pacemaker (that'll get her some bed time) she'll be fine.

Cardiac problems fall into 3 general categories:
1. There's a problem with the pump.
2. There's a problem with the blood vessels not adapting to changing conditions causing blood pressure to rise and fall rapidly which can cause the heart to go nuts trying to compensate.
3. There's not enough blood volume which typically is not a problem that occurs outside of a trauma environment.

The chicken or egg will be the passing out when standing up / irregular heartbeat. Problem 1 or 2 will cause that. IF the heartbeat is irregular sitting at rest, that points toward #1.

Keep this in mind as a good thought:
If the whole hospital staff is swarming over you, that's not a good sign. That means you have a serious effing problem.
If they ignore or turf you, it's maddening as hell but, it means you're not in a life threatening situation.

And...that's about the end of my limited knowledge as an ex-paramedic. Good luck to you and yours.

As good a post on the subject as any of us could have read. It exactly right.

My brother had chest pains a couple of months ago. The ekg in the ambulance said heart attack. When they backed in the ER bay there were SIXTEEN people waiting. He said he's never been that scared in his life. A second EKG said an infection in the lining around his heart. When that diagnosis came down, suddenly he couldn't find anybody.

Sadly, being ignored sometimes is good news.

Prayers for her and your family.......

 

[bottomzone]

Done!!!!




A Groove is a Terrible Thing to Waste!

 

[SBassman]

Prayers for your sister, you, and your family.

 

[cassanova]

1. Insurance
2. It's deemed non-life threatening and she doesn't need hospitalization.
3. Insurance

It's medicaid in this case, but I wouldn't be surprised if it works the same way.

Cardiac problems fall into 3 general categories:
1. There's a problem with the pump.
2. There's a problem with the blood vessels not adapting to changing conditions causing blood pressure to rise and fall rapidly which can cause the heart to go nuts trying to compensate.
3. There's not enough blood volume which typically is not a problem that occurs outside of a trauma environment.

The chicken or egg will be the passing out when standing up / irregular heartbeat. Problem 1 or 2 will cause that. IF the heartbeat is irregular sitting at rest, that points toward #1.

I suppose that points to fairly good news. Her basal rate was around 77 bpm and would jump to as high as 150 bpm when she'd even sit up in the bed.

Keep this in mind as a good thought:
If the whole hospital staff is swarming over you, that's not a good sign. That means you have a serious effing problem.
If they ignore or turf you, it's maddening as hell but, it means you're not in a life threatening situation.

Fortunately she didn't have people swarming over her after she was admitted. She was actually in there Monday night for the same problem but the Doctor she saw chalked it up to dehydration and sent her on her way. When she went Saturday night the nursing staff and another doctor remembered who she was and she got much more thorough care. I wouldn't say she was being swarmed on but a nurse was in there every 15 minutes or so to check on her and every time her heartbeat monitor did a rapid jump someone was in there like lightning to make sure she was okay.

 

[Relic]

I'm kind of familiar with heart problems I guess as I had to undergo heart surgery about 2 years ago. I had a problem with it that I had from early childhood that had gotten progressively worse over the years. I did not have the same symptoms per se, but some similar stuff.
To make a overly long story short, I went into a good hospital and they were able to fix it with ease. 4 days later I was home, 4 months later I was jogging. If they felt it ok to send your sis home for now, then it may very well not be anything too bad at all.