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Family Forum / Pregnancy / Pregnancy / April 2008my heart
hi You'll need to excuse typos, i don't feel good. My heart keeps going like I've run a long way. It's beating hard and fast and my chest feels tight. Makes me feel dizzy and tired. Then my airways feel dry, again like when you've been running along way. It gets hard to catch my breath. Lasts about 5 mins, keeps happening, been doing it all morning. I get like it sometimes if I eat MSG, in chinese takeaways for example. I also keep getting a smell like playdough. I'm 5w2d if that's relevant. I'm a bit frightened, I'm home alone with Jessie, and i can't get myself to a doc, i won't call an ambulance as i've no one to have jessie, and dh can't come home. Any ideas on what it is would be appreciated, as it hurts. lucy x Googled and found lots of women get this - not improving my breathing and heart, but it's made me a bit less frightened. Taking it easy for today, seeing how it goes. Had already said to dh that this baby is harder work that Jessie was! > Googled and found lots of women get this - not improving my breathing and > heart, but it's made me a bit less frightened. Taking it easy for today, > seeing how it goes. Had already said to dh that this baby is harder work > that Jessie was! Palpatations, I guess. It's a symtom of pregnancy. On the basis you're early on and won't see a midwife for a while (or round here you wouldn't) then I'd suggest you book to see your GP or midwife. Some people get panic attack like that too. Debbie Hi, Not sure if 'The Life of Mummy Bowman' was yours, Lulu, but anxiety attacks can happen when you quit smoking -- have seen it happen to a friend or two. Hang in there, it will pass! Best, yael :) On Apr 4, 9:45 am, "Welches" <debbie.welc...@SPAMntlworldPLEASE.com> wrote: > > heart, but it's made me a bit less frightened. Taking it easy for today, > > seeing how it goes. Had already said to dh that this baby is harder work [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Some people get panic attack like that too. > Debbie > Hi, > Not sure if 'The Life of Mummy Bowman' was yours, Lulu, but anxiety > attacks can happen when you quit smoking -- have seen it happen to a > friend or two. Hang in there, it will pass! *makes a strangled sound* Never, never, never, never blow off new onset cardiac symptoms as "it may just be anxiety." Especially since there are some major health problems that are MORE common in pregnancy. Lulu, you need to see at least what your heart is doing, and if there's no one to watch the baby, the ambulance crew will transport the baby with you to the hospital. Really. Michelle Flutist > Especially since there are some major health problems that are MORE > common in pregnancy. Lulu, you need to see at least what your heart is > doing, and if there's no one to watch the baby, the ambulance crew will > transport the baby with you to the hospital. Really. Or at least be able to do some basic tests and determine transport isn't necessary and that seeing a GP on Monday is fine. Calling an ambulance doesn't always result in transport to hospital. This morning I just happened to be looking at our local hospital's newsletter that they send out a couple of times a year, it had an article on going to the right place, what's an emergency and what isn't. Heart palpatations were there on the list as needing emergency attention, so you shouldn't feel bad about calling an ambulance. Some of the things you say sound a bit like a chest infection, but if it's causing heart racing that's not a good sign. Michelle is an EMT, she knows what she's talking about, ambulance crews are trained to take these things seriously and distinguish a blue light situation from a need to monitor and take them in. When chest pain and heart stuff does turn out to be a panic attack, the patient often feels embarrassed, but the people that treat them are just glad it's only a panic attack, not thinking they should never have come in, even doctors who experience a panic attack for the first time often can't diagnose it reliably. Cheers Anne you guys are right, i don't know WHAT i was thinking! :( > > Especially since there are some major health problems that are MORE > > common in pregnancy. Lulu, you need to see at least what your heart is [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > Cheers > Anne > > Especially since there are some major health problems that are MORE > > common in pregnancy. Lulu, you need to see at least what your heart is [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > thinking they should never have come in, even doctors who experience a > panic attack for the first time often can't diagnose it reliably. That very thing happened to me. I'd been having tight chests and in the end called NHS direct. Because I complained of chest pains they were obliged to call an ambulance. They checked me out and I was fine. I thought it was a panic attack (I was worried about having a coil fitted) and they agreed. It turned out I had a nasty chest infection. I felt very silly and my poor 2 year old was a bit freaked to see his mummy covered in pads and bleeping machines, but in calling out the ambulance they were just following guidelines. I hope you are ok, but I would also get seen to asap. Jeni > That very thing happened to me. I'd been having tight chests and in > the end called NHS direct. Because I complained of chest pains they > were obliged to call an ambulance. I have a vague hope that just the words "chest pain" wouldn't result in them sending an ambulance, but you never know, I guess it's a balance between asking more questions and time, minutes do make a difference in a heart attack, but if the answer to the next question determined it was a fall or other trauma, then whilst a hospital visit may well be advised, you've got time to ask questions to determine if it's severe enough for an ambulance or if they can make their own way there. It always amazes me that the first question is "is the patient concious and breathing", if they aren't then why are you calling NHS direct, I know they have to cover themselves, but it does make you wonder... I rather like the nurse line we have with our insurance in the US, we almost always get straight through to a nurse, not need to wait for a call back and although they aren't linked to primary care at all, they have a variety of options, including doctor home visits, although there is some out of hours care with some primary care providers they don't have any incentive not to just tell you to go to the ER, our insurance does, sending a doctor to you is massively cheaper than an ER visit, they use an independent group of doctors, so they can't be the only people using it, but it seems an uncommon policy. Sometimes we speak to a doctor and they decide not to come, but give you their direct number in case anything changes and a couple of times (for DS) the doctor has visited, they have been a good balance of attention to detail as well as efficient and have followed up with a phone call the next, once even consulting a specialist, it's a great service for us, but it's saving money too! I hope we hear from Lucy soon and that she's ok. Cheers Anne > > That very thing happened to me. I'd been having tight chests and in > > the end called NHS direct. Because I complained of chest pains they [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > direct, I know they have to cover themselves, but it does make you > wonder... It was exactly the words 'chest pains' that the woman on the phone insisted she had to call the ambulance for. I tried to convince her otherwise, but those were the trigger words she said, so that was that. The paramedics seemed surprised too, which made me feel worse for wasting their time even though I said I didn't need an ambulance and didn't want her to send one. It was my guess too that they have to cover themselves. I can imagine the margin for error can be huge when making decisions like that over the phone, so they err on the side of caution. On the other hand they are now starting to send single manned paramedics in partially equipped cars to calls rather than two-manned ambulances, which seems to be not erring on the side of caution at all! > I hope we hear from Lucy soon and that she's ok. Indeed, I hope you're ok Lucy. Jeni > It was exactly the words 'chest pains' that the woman on the phone > insisted she had to call the ambulance for. I tried to convince her > otherwise, but those were the trigger words she said, so that was > that. The paramedics seemed surprised too, which made me feel worse > for wasting their time even though I said I didn't need an ambulance > and didn't want her to send one. If those EMTs/medics make you feel like you were wasting their time, they were being unprofessional. Chest pain protocol is immediately, it's fast, and in hospitals or on an ambulance, it brings a lot of things out of the woodwork very fast. They can do a 12-lead EKG in the field to see what's going on, but to completely rule out any actual cardiac problems, they have to do cardiac enzymes, which can't be done in the field. The only thing they can do in the field with a 12-lead is tell you that you don't have a dysrhythmia NOW, you don't have elevated ST segments NOW (which means your heart isn't occluded NOW and your not infarcting NOW), and you don't show any ST depression from ischemia NOW. They surely weren't there long enough to know if you were having intermittent bouts of dysrhythmias, or to follow up on EKG changes later. And again, you had no cardiac enzyme profiles done. Presumably your vital signs were stable, so they didn't feel the need to give you the cardiac set of medications. Cardiac stuff is serious, and I've seen a lot of people in the ER and on the ambulance who were embarrassed or thought they really didn't have a problem who were having things like complete heart block (MAJOR, life-threatening problem) or intermittent ventricular tachycardia (major, life-threatening problem), or other similar things. Now, likewise, I've seen many more people worked up on chest pain protocol when it was anxiety, or pleurisy, or indigestion, or something relatively benign. But yes, when you say "chest pain" anyone involved in EMS should take that seriously. And anxiety attacks can often really feel like cardiac problems, it's nothing to feel embarrassed about or feel like you're wasting the medics' time over. Trust me, we'd rather you "wasted" our time on this, then end up being called too late and having to try to bring you back from a cardiac arrest situation. OK, I'll stop lecturing now. *looks sheepish* Michelle Flutist > > It was exactly the words 'chest pains' that the woman on the phone > > insisted she had to call the ambulance for. I tried to convince her [quoted text clipped - 37 lines] > Michelle > Flutist You're quite right and in a way I'm glad they did take me seriously. I had no idea you can get chest pain from a viral infection. To me it felt like a panic attack except that it had been going on all day and when I've had them in the past I can control them with visualisation techniques. So deep down I didn't think it was a PA, but had no idea what it was. I guess if it had been something serious and they had missed it then I would probably be sat here saying 'why didn't they err on the side of caution'. It just didn't help that they made me feel like I wasted their time - although to be fair their comment was aimed at the NHS direct woman rather than me. It just didn't help as the whole episode had upset my child and even freaked my DH out a bit. FWICR I just had the 12 lead thingy where they stick pads on you, so it was clear there were no immediate problems. They didn't even suggest it could have been a viral infection though, just took my word for it that it must have been a PA. Jeni > You're quite right and in a way I'm glad they did take me seriously. I > had no idea you can get chest pain from a viral infection. To me it [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > suggest it could have been a viral infection though, just took my word > for it that it must have been a PA. See, that is a problem. We usually transport people with chest pain even with a "normal" ECG or 12-lead, because you really just don't know what's going on without some further diagnostic testing. I've had pleurisy this winter, after being sick quite a few times in a row. It HURTS. Michelle Flutist > It was exactly the words 'chest pains' that the woman on the phone > insisted she had to call the ambulance for. I tried to convince her [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > ambulances, which seems to be not erring on the side of caution at > all! I seem to recall when that became wider policy that pretty good evidence from trials was given that it worked. IIRC they were trying to emphasise that it wasn't slowing down the dispatch of an ambulance at all, though obviously it means money is being directed differently which could have been used to improve ambulance response times and long term it might reduce the size of the ambulance fleet, but that's a different issue. So it's not that they send a guy in a car and he then calls an ambulance, but that they send both, the guy in the car gets there sooner and gives emergency treatment sooner and can feedback if an ambulance isn't necessary, or has changed priority. The one time we had to call an ambulance (I'd blacked out and falled down the stairs), the paramedic in the car seemed to be their before DH even got off the phone and was able to deal with basic stuff like actually getting in the house - road access was to our backdoor and I'd landed right in front of it and it opens inwards, so he climbed in through the window! The ambulance was there minutes later. So it seems like it was rolled out with strong evidence that it was an improvement - getting oxygen and a defibrillator to a heart attack patient sooner without delaying transport time is a good thing, but it is going to need long term auditing to make sure it's not a cover for other weaknesses. Plus you have to make sure emergency hospital services are matching it, no good getting the right patients to hospital and then not treating them, there are heart attack treatments that are really helping outcomes, but aren't universally available and there are probably numerous other examples in other areas of emergency medicine. We've become rather too target focused in the UK, I've read numerous doctor accounts of cases when spending more than 4 hours in A&E would benefit the patient, but the 4hr target means they are transferred to a ward unnecessarily when taking an extra hour in A&E might have led to discharge. Cheers Anne > > It was exactly the words 'chest pains' that the woman on the phone > > insisted she had to call the ambulance for. I tried to convince her [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > gets there sooner and gives emergency treatment sooner and can > feedback if an ambulance isn't necessary, or has changed priority. The report I saw this week said that they would just be sending single manned cars and *if* the situation needed an ambulance then one would be called. The paramedic they interviewed suggested that it was possible more lives could be at risk because when an ambulance was needed valuable minutes would have been wasted while the first paramedic arrived, assessed the situation and then called for an ambulance. Jeni >> > That very thing happened to me. I'd been having tight chests and in >> > the end called NHS direct. Because I complained of chest pains they [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > otherwise, but those were the trigger words she said, so that was > that. <snip> NHS direct is like that though. They like to make sure. Our GP says "they always send you somewhere". That was the time I phones up with #1 (aged about 10 months) having been sick several times, wondering if I could breastfeed her. The books all said "no milk". That was all I wanted to know. They asked if she was floppy, and I said "a bit" (who wouldn't be after being sick 7/8 times) so they wanted me to rush to the A & E. Eventually I said that I'd take her to my GP straight away. (he's 2 minutes walk away). So I took her down and she was, as I thought, nowhere near needing to go to A & E. Debbie (in case anyone is wondering, you can breastfeed a baby who's being sick) > hi > [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > no one to have jessie, and dh can't come home. Any ideas on what it is would > be appreciated, as it hurts. You need to go to the ER, and can call an ambulance, they'll take the baby with you. :p Michelle Flutist |
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