The Mundane medical thread

Not really mundane for me, but Mrs Shady went to a clinic in London this morning to do some tests to try and get to the bottom of a long-running health issue that nobody can explain. During the tilt-test she fainted and her heart stopped for a few seconds. They've moved her to a room and are doing lots more tests now. I'm kinda shaking with nerves right now. Guess it's the adrenalin.

She's been simultaneously going through a NHS 'route' and also private through my work medical cover.

Hope you're all OK, Jim. Sounds like she's absolutely in the right place to work out what's causing her the issues.

Hope all goes well for Mrs Jim, family illnesses are unbelievably stressful.

Heart stopped for a few seconds????? Jesus, hopefully it was an electrical wire coming out when she fainted. That doesn’t sound good at all.

Long term illness? Unexplained? Lyme disease or Covid related?

Anyway. Good luck Jim and especially to the wife. It’s been a rough old week with my friend’s suicide and now this. I don’t even know her and I’m worried. Let’s hope it was a faulty wire and all is okay.

Chicago: Wishing the best.

All the best Jim, hope everything is ok.

Sorry to hear that Jim, sounds concerning but if there's a silver lining it's that medical staff were able to see it happen during a test where she was presumably being monitored, so that would hopefully provide a much better chance of a clear and quick diagnosis.

Well done on this. Do you feel any better or is it just on paper?

I honestly didn't feel in any way unwell before so in that sense it's unchanged, but I'm very happy to have lost 12-14lbs around my waist and I'm finding sobriety surprisingly enjoyable and conversely, on the odd occasion I do have a couple of drinks my enjoyment of them is largely outweighed by my disappointment that I've broken another dry streak. I spent this last weekend drinking quite a bit as I had a friend up from NY for a few days, and I'm so happy to get back to not drinking now - probably won't have another drink until Super Bowl in a couple of weeks.

There's also definitely a positive feeling knowing that a key health indicator for me as a middle aged man is where I want it to be, or at least heading that way, and that I can make positive impacts on it through my own actions. The most worrying thing about the last three months apart from the fear of actually having a major cardiac event was that I could be putting all this work in to no effect, meaning that the condition was outside of my control.

Hope the missus is OK, Shades.

I think I took my medical the opposite to Russ. Everything came back fine to better than fine. Which I took as an excuse to get shitfaced and eat crap more regular.

New job is seeing me lose a bit of the tub tho. Doing about 18k steps a day at work between that and the job. And swinging a big fuck off orbital about is better cardio than the mouse I was pushing around. I’ve cut down on drinking lager, but that’s mainly since I slurped the last of the Xmas ale and refuse to spend £ on more.

Hoping Mrs. Shady is okay and getting the treatment she needs.

That sounds shit. Hope it’s nothing nasty. Ms Noodlé got tilt-tabled for one of her ailments.. she’d done the fainting and heart wonk prior (and the long period of things being unexplained and/or put down to ‘anxiety’ because women still have to put up with that shit all the time).

Yes it's amazing how many things are all in women's heads according to doctors.

I hope she is better soon and they can work out what's actually wrong. It sounds very scary.

On here, TUP is a joke. In 95% of surgeries and hospitals, it’s a diagnosis.

We're home now. Which feels a bit early given what happened, but there we go. Consultant said something about the signals to her heart being a bit unreliable and that when she stands up after sitting down, they aren't adjusting. Or something. It's a bit of a blur. He said they (consultants) were discussing whether she should have a pace maker fitted. They've decided not, at least for now. Make some lifestyle changes. Take vitamins. Salt tablets. Try and do some gentle exercise. See how it goes.

She was initially ok during the tilt test, but then they gave her a drug called GTN which is meant to help reproduce your symptoms for diagnosis, and obviously it worked - maybe too well.

Nobody has actually used this term with her yet, but my Google diagnosis is that she's got POTS

www.nhs.uk/conditions/postural-tachycardia-syndrome/

We'll find out more in a couple of weeks at the follow-up clinic.

Aside, simultaneously, fuck private healthcare and yey private healthcare. She got amazingly well looked after. Huge room, meals, nurses and doctors on hand all the time, it was excellent. It's probably not reproducible even with huge rises in Gov funding for the NHS, but we should strive for something between the two.