Monday, July 6, 2009

The Event Monitor

I picked up my HearTrak event monitor on Thursday, and immediately headed to Target for a long-postponed trip to pick up necessities.

I figured I was killing two birds with one stone -- picking up Very Important Purchases like bubble bath for my preschooler and hopefully triggering my tendency to faint or feel like I'm about to pass out while wandering the aisles at Target.

Wouldn't you know? No major dizziness, although I did record while having some dizziness. Sigh.

Since then, while I've had some major vertigo, I haven't come anywhere close to passing out, which is what they really want me to capture with the monitor. I have, however, captured over a dozen weird palpitations that the folks I transmit to say they can definitely see. (Proof it's not entirely in my head! Woohoo! :-)

Meanwhile, I wear this thing for two weeks. And if it still doesn't capture what the cardiologist is hoping to capture, possibly for two more weeks after that.

I guess the only other news I have to share is my AM Cortisol levels are totally normal so my internist says there's no reason to suspect adrenal insufficiency. I was pretty sure that wouldn't be an issue since everything I read about them didn't fit my symptoms and experiences.

Now here's hoping for some events to really monitor ...

2 comments:

Elizabeth McClung said...

There is nothing so strange as the messed up way we are HOPING for bad things when being monitored - for example, if we go into ER, they do a heart monitor strip of maybe 5 seconds. A Holter is a day, a Event is two weeks but for me, had to be downloaded after 2 events and the download system was broken. So after frustration I try to figure out ways to 'have' an event - I HOPE tests show that I still have X wrong with me as it means I get treatment - when did we have to prove ourselves? When is the patient such an unreliable witness (I have had doctors often turn to my partner and simply say, "Is that the truth?" (aka, is she lying - and I am used to being called a liar)?

I hope this shows the results you need though if you are like me, you will be blessed with perfection until it disasterously ends the day they take off the monitor, when the REAL problems start. Sorry, I really do hope they capture the events.

Aviva said...

Hi Beth! You're so right -- it's crazy that when we have these mysterious health issues, we start hoping and praying that the tests will show something wrong so they can diagnose us, or at least prove that we aren't crazy even if the doctors don't know what to do with the results they get.

I think it sucks that "evidence-based medicine" means evidence that the doctors see or can measure, but when I report that something happened in between visits (and resolved itself before they fit me into their schedule) it doesn't "count" because the doctor didn't see it. Ugh.

So thank you -- I appreciate your hoping the monitor shows something for me. The techs tell me the downloads show "something," but of course I don't know that they show enough or that what they show is evidence of my real problem rather than yet another medically interesting but not relevant thing wrong with me. Does that make sense? Thanks also for checking out my blog and commenting -- so kind of you!!