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| information & support for patients and their families |
personal stories from people who have IST |
| DJ back to personal stories from people who have IST In February 2004 I woke with chest pains. I had experienced these before but only fleetingly. However this time the pains would not go away and I was shaky. My pulse was very faint and rapid. Trying to be calm I showered, dressed and made my way to hospital. When I arrived I was placed on a heart monitor, blood and ECG taken and given an X Ray. Two hours later a nurse told the Emergency Doctor that my heart rate had been consistently over 120 beats per minute. The Doctor came over and explained that even though I looked normally anxious for someone hooked up to a heart monitor in a hospital it wasn�t anxiety as I didn�t look anxious enough to justify such a high heart rate. Further tests were taken. A cause was not found. I was discharged with a referral to a cardiologist and instructed to visit my doctor once a week. When I got home I opened the referral letter to find that I had been diagnosed with �Sinus Tachycardia�. Attached were my ECG and test results. Research on the net revealed that all usual causes had been ruled out and it was probably Inappropriate Sinus Tachycardia (IST). My doctor took the situation seriously and prescribed Inderal, a beta blocker, to keep the heart rate down. I was indeed surprised to find that I had a heart problem. My blood pressure had always hovered around a normal 110/60 to 125/70 range, my cholesterol was good at 4.3 and no doctor had ever implied that my pulse rate had been �fast�. However the diagnosis made sense as for several years I had noticed I was always fatigued, generally felt unwell, found it impossible to increase fitness and got puffed easily. Working full time had been difficult even with flexible hours and impossible without. Indeed I had worked part time for much of the past few years. This I discovered were some of the main symptoms of IST and it certainly explained my symptoms. I very quickly discovered that my pulse seemed to pump between 100 to 160 beats per minute with it averaging around 130. Slight effort including walking, showering and housework would send it close to 200 beats per minute. No wonder I felt fatigued. Casting my mind back I realised I first developed palpitations at the age of 17. I was on a youth camp and had difficulties sleeping that night. I noticed my heart rate was around 92 beats per minute. I had been very athletic, however over the following years my ability to exercise and run diminished. At times I experienced occasional chest pains, however I put it down to stress. I was also feeling fatigued. In 1999 I was diagnosed as having glandular fever. For the following 2 to 3 years I felt that the fatigue and migraines were due to this and assumed I had a post viral syndrome. I was finding walking up hills harder. In 2002 I noticed palpitations however I switched to a more part time job and they subsided. Feeling the fatigue was abnormal I regularly raised this with my doctor. However except for the usual round of blood tests my doctor stated that nothing appeared to be wrong. In 2003 the fatigue came to a head. I had started a full time job, which didn�t have flexible hours. I had managed my fatigue through pacing my hours and working part time so was finding the new job hard going physically even though it was not a physical job. I visited a doctor close to work stating something had to be done or it would jeapordise my job. After the routine blood tests she referred me to a sleep clinic. DJ's story continued..........> |
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| The content of this page was last modified at 02:55 GMT Sunday 07 August 2005 |
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