At some point last month I put my left hand against the headboard behind my head and pushed. (You know that move, you’ve done that move, I am not ashamed.) A few days later I noticed some mild pain in my left armpit. I figured I had pulled my chest muscle.
Only, a pulled muscle would get better, this pain got worse and kind of marched across my left chest to my sternum over the next few weeks.
I picked out my own working diagnosis, as you do, and I was pretty certain the doctor would say “pericarditis,” and I’d feel better just from that.
But instead the doctor said, “EKG,” and then, “see this wave and that spike,” to which I said, “Someone saw similar waves in 2020,” and now I have an appointment with the cardiologist next week.
Much of what I read about my EKG “echoes” one thing the doctor said, which is that I might have previously had a heart attack. This seems impossible. No heart attacks, minor or major. Not unless I’m one of those pets that can sneeze itself into a heart attack.
This is not anything I need right now, that’s for sure.
6 responses to “Qs and Rs and Other Waves”
Fingers (and toes) crossed for good news.
Just googled, and apparently you can get a heart attack without symptoms – who knew? (but: like: why would a silent heart attack be not-silent in the days *after* the heart attack? Also, why? Also, they are apparently more prevalent in men. But you will be seeing a cardiologist, and hopefully they will answer all your questions, and also it is apparently not urgent-urgent or you would have been shipped to cardiology rather than waiting until next week. So.)
Dawn – thank you! I’m sure it will turn out to be nothing, and if not nothing, treatable.
KC – I did have just sickening pain by my right shoulderblade a few years back, but I put it down to a) I needed a back rub or b) that’s where my gallbladder is or c) arthritis. Maybe it was refrected pain from a heart attack? Too soon to speculate.
I had a follicular cyst burst over a decade ago(I think that was the term? something of that general lower-torso area, though) and refract pain to the chest and shoulders with no particular abdominal pain (which is why I know it was a cyst bursting, because I got a workup because it was doing the Hi I’m A Heart Attack In Women things and, y’know, we are told to take that seriously by PSAs if not by quite all the doctors we see when we do what the PSAs tell us to do…). Anyway! Apparently it is common to have referred pain and just… are bodies not complicated enough already? Anyway.
KC – ow. I had an ovarian cyst burst once and it did feel awful. About six inches up and It would have felt like a major heart attack.
Ouch. Yes. (it is comforting that you “get” it, but I am sorry you have personal experience such that you “get” it!)
Anyway! May the cardiology question be similarly anticlimactic! (while being less painful)