Yesterday I was devastated by extreme nausea – so extreme that I was, at one point, seriously considering suicide. And if you don’t understand why, then you really haven’t had the misfortune tp explore the extremes of nausea in any meaningful way – it is, without doubt, far more soul-destroying even than pain, something I know from experience.
But why, what brought it on?
Well, yesterday (Saturday), I got up early to go to Sainsbury’s (shopping on a Sunday, when I can get up at a sensible time, is pointless – just too many bare shelves, and shopping online when I want fresh meat and/or veg is an exercise in futility). When I got back, by the time I’d carried my shopping in from the car-park, I was close to collapse and, very quickly, the nausea kicked in,** and stayed with me for the next 10 hours until I finally gave in and, instead of getting out my suicide kit – and oh, dear god, it was so tempting – I decided to try to sleep instead, on the back of a large glass of Jack Daniel’s and ginger wine. Mercifully, it worked.
**I am always ill after carrying my shopping in. Usually it’s extreme breathlessness that fails to respond to my inhalers (so probably a heart, not lung, problem). I really have to find a solution to that.
This morning, feeling rather more human, though still a little pukey, I did a some research, to confirm what I thought I knew, that such intense nausea, following on from strenuous activity, is indicative of heart failure. And it is.
There are many online sources that will verify this, but this one from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre is a pretty comprehensive, and unimpeachable, source.
And yet Dr. Abdelmouti at St. Cath’s Hospital is insistent that I do not have heart failure. That’s the reason I asked for a second opinion – if I have the symptoms of heart failure then why try to pass the buck to some as yet unknown and previously unsuspected condition?
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it a fucking DUCK! There is no need to go to extreme lengths, as Abdelmouti would like, to prove it’s a bloody goose. My symptoms are a perfect fit for aortic valve calcification and stenosis, with heart failure, so why this idiot woman refuses to accept this I have no idea.** I do know, though, that she is putting my life at risk.
** I do know that someone has told her that I self-diagnosed heart failure, which is a lie, and that can only have come from my GP.
I have yet, by the way, to send my letter to my GP, as I’ve been deteriorating to such a degree of late that I’ve had to re-write it every couple of days to accommodate fresh symptoms but, all being well (surely nothing else can go wrong!), it’ll go today, and it makes it quite clear that I know about the self-diagnosis crap.
Whilst I don’t doubt your diagnosis, I also get the extreme nausea reaction after doing anything mildly describable as exertion – have done since I was 16 and didn’t recover from Glandular Fever, but has got worse over the years – which I attribute to the ME. Or I have heart failure too … which could back up the theory that ME/CFS is a risk factor to cardio-vascular disorder. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20038921
Glandular fever can cause myocarditis which, in turn, can have long-term, serious, effects http://myocarditisfoundation.org/about-myo/
On the other hand, I’ve had nausea as long as I’ve had ME, but nothing like the scale of yesterday’s – I’m not exaggerating when I said I was close to pulling the plug.
I wasn’t aware of the link between ME and heart disease beyond Syndrome X (faux angina), but it does suggest another reason for more exhaustive investigation.
And I suppose it’s possible you have heart failure – everything I’ve read suggests I’ve had it for at least 12 years, to some degree – which is when it became impossible to lose weight normally that the diuretics shifted in days.
I’m so sorry you have been suffering as bad as you say. I have COPD at 10% FEV1.
I get round the shopping problem by buying my basics for the month on line and then go to my excellent butcher down the road. I also get my veg and fruit delivered separately so no heavy bags to lift. I use ocado who will separate my order into categories eg, chilled, lader etc in different coloured bags (they ask for them back next visit) and the guy will bring them right into the kitchen. They have loads of discounts, most months I get 15% off my bill and they price match with tesco. The other saving is no impulse buys
As to the nausea I too experience this occasionally so it is interesting what you say.
I am very interested in your suicide kit, I would love to have that option when it comes to that “time” my email is (deleted) if you could divulge those secrets?
Regards Jools
So far, I know I have ectopic beats, PVC – which is not fetish clothing – but Premature Ventricular Contractions, get palpitations and then there were the nasty episodes with the nicotine patches http://blog.chaostocosmos.com/2008/01/nicotine-patches-and-chest-pains.html and the TENS machine http://blog.chaostocosmos.com/2009/10/return-of-chest-pains.html
I had one of those 24 hour ECG tests about a year ago. I guess I need to ask for more investigations, but I know my GP isn’t going to see the urgency.
Yeah – I get PVCs, often so violent it’s like being punched in the chest. Had a 24 hour monitor around 1987 – and, of course, I didn’t have any so, officially, I’m imagining things (probably goes without saying that it’s the same damn hospital!). Quite possible my heart problems go back to then, though a lot less serious than now.
My heart occasionally flat-lines for a few seconds too. There’s a pic here http://ronsrants.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/flatlining/ Not great, as it’s unpredictable, but I can’t spend all day with a camera in my hand, plugged into my pulse ox!
You should never use TENs near your heart, spine, or major nerves, btw – it can kill – and get close to the sciatic nerve, for example, and you’ll seriously regret it!
Like me, though, if you can’t shift your weight, it could well be heart-related. I lost almost 2 stone taking Furosemide and Candesartan (the former a diuretic, and the latter enhances kidney function), but had to stop the latter because of the extreme side effects – and immediately regained a stone.
And I’ve been averaging 800 kcals a day – including beer – for about 10 years and not lost an ounce.
Oh, I gave up on the TENS machine entirely. Does not work for me, but I was only using it on things like shoulder muscles, leg muscles, promise.
You are probably right that your problems go back a long time, just weren’t picked up, but then the NHS can hardly be called thorough.
I’ll swear there is something derogatory in my hospital file – every appointment after about 1987-88 has gone to hell, so much so that when I finally got my ME diagnosis I had a copy sent to Arrowe Park, with instructions that it be stapled inside the front cover, as they’d spent 10 years telling me I was imagining things. I even paid my tenner to see what was there but, of course, they’re allowed to remove anything “upsetting”.
I only got my January records unredacted because I told them I was taking legal action – and they’re a shambles without being edited!
Ron, I absolutely believe you. In the UK I feel that I’ve been treated like a leper ever since I disagreed with my GP – I KNEW I still felt ill – after I had Glandular Fever in 1973 and have often wondered the same thing. And one day I’ll write the whole story of how I am sure this happened in Tenerife after I was taken ill in 1995, but of course they found *nothing* instead of fibromyalgia.
The cause of glandular fever (mono, for any readers in the colonies), is the Epstein-Barre virus – and that can hang around for ever!