RRaider95

For anyone looking for this type of information in the future, I had the angiogram today. No blockages or narrowing was found—all clear! Anxiety lies again!

Angiogram is coming up tomorrow. If you’re the praying type, prayers are appreciated.

I know *exactly* what you're talking about. In the past few years, I can't count the number of times I've had difficulty swallowing, or even had water go "down the wrong pipe". I've chalked it up to again. My wife is starting to experience the same symptom. Hope that helps!

I have never had that, but I can assure you that lymphoma does not spread that quickly. Ever had shingles?

I have had mine flare up many times when I had a bad mouth ulcer or toothache. The first time it happened it scared me to death. Those in that area take a few weeks go go down, so set a reminder to recheck in three weeks, and if it's still the same size, go see the doctor. Otherwise, enjoy the miracle of the human immune system!

I hope you're right @MARC. The doctor did mention that she thinks it could be a false positive because it's not at the same area of my heart where I've had calcification. She wants to pursue it anyway because 1) we want to know what's going on, and 2) she says I'll need it to be insurable after having an abnormal stress test. I just hope that no matter what, it's something that can be corrected without open heart surgery. I've seen my brother go through that, and I want no part of it.

Well, got a call. Abnormal result. Got to call tomorrow morning to schedule angiogram. 😞

Well, I did it! Got there at 8:30, very anxious. Had taken .75mg of klonopin earlier in the morning, along with .25mg of xanax Took another .25mg of xanax after going back to get IV, and another .25mg after the technician said it was okay To take more. When I got the IV and the initial injection of technetium, I get really panicky. I was convinced it was the injection, but it was the anxiety of being there coupled with the anxiety of what the injection might be like. The technician said that I might taste or smell something. The power of suggestion is soooo strong. I went to the lobby and sat with my wife. I downed the bottle of water they gave me, as I was so thirsty, and I texted with some friends online. They really helped to ground me and get me past the panic attack. Soon, they called me back for the resting scan. I lay there for 10 minutes or so with my arms over my head, just practicing deep breathing. That helped a ton. After that, they had me go sit outside the treadmill room. My turn for the stress test came. They had me lie down, and attached electrodes all over, and took my blood pressure. 126/86. Very good. Don't remember the heart rate. They had me get on the treadmill. I was very anxious, but started walking along. It was very easy. They steadily increased the incline and the speed. Before I knew it, I was five minutes in and had HR of 135 and a BP of 170/100. They said all was normal. They asked if I could go longer. I said sure. We went 7 minutes. Then she asked if I could go 9. I said sure. Then she said if I could go 11:30, that would put me in the top tier of fitness, so I said bring it on. I did it, got another injection of technetium, and then was allowed to get off the treadmill. She said I was obviously in excellent shape. I asked it everything looked good, and she said that obviously the scan could show something, but for a 48 year old to do what I just did showed that things were most likely all okay. She said the fact that I wasn't winded and kept talking to them throughout was impressive. I then sat down on the bed. I started drinking water, and my HR got down to around 130. She said we need to get my HR lower. So she had me lie down. After a little bit (I saw my rate was 120), she took away my pillow. I practiced deep breathing. She started talking to me about my kids. She said she thought that part of the heart rate staying high was because of my anxiety, because once she got me talking about my kids, the HR started to go down. She then unhooked me. She said the blood pressure throughout the process all looked good. I remember seeing a reading of 128/86 after the exercise, but my heart rate was still up. I was able to glance at the display of my heart rate over the procedure, and it was a nice bell curve. The whole heart rate thing scared me. We then went back over to the scanning room. I got another scan of my heart, practicing deep breathing. After that was done, they took forever to come back in the room. But when they did, they told me I was good to go! They sat me up, removed the IV, and let me get dressed. Said Dr. would have the results for me on Monday. The first technician said that if anything unusual showed up, Dr. would call me the next day. All in all, not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Just hoping for great results from the test. I called my brother who had the bypass afterwards, and he said he was only able to stay on the treadmill four minutes and had chest discomfort, so that made me feel better. Hoping I DONT get a call tomorrow...

Also, way to try to help out with Health Anxiety. You might want to try different tactics to soothe folks other than an apocalyptic prognostication. This is the Anxiety Central Health Anxiety board, is it not? Not the The End is Near, Run for the Hills board. People come here for comfort.

Wow. Pretty strong accusation there. Love and peace, buddy. Love and peace.

Thanks, all. I'm really scared today. Can't focus on anything at work. I keep trying to tell myself that if I had any narrowing of heart vessels, I wouldn't be able to exercise 5 days a weeks like I do. They told me I can't take ANY medication tomorrow morning. If I don't take my klonopin, I'll be a complete mess. I called up there, and they said if it doesn't affect my blood pressure, I can take it with a sip of water. I also want to take a couple of Xanax tomorrow right before the appt--that's what got me through the cardiologist appt on Monday. Hopefully that won't adversely affect the results, but I can't imagine how they could get any sort of accurate results if I'm panicky and my heart's bouncing all over the place. 🙂

Just got back from cardiologist. Said that I definitely have coronary artery disease; the question is whether any narrowing of arteries has occurred yet. She said a stress test will show that. She said my stress test will use technecium, not thallium. She was super nice. Said that if no narrowing, we take the "prevent" approach like I have been doing; if there is narrowing, will look at going in and doing some "plumbing". Stress test is Wednesday morning. Wish me luck!

Thanks so much @AOKAY, @Total Eclipse for the responses! I'm less than 24 hours away from my appointment now. AOkay, your response helped tremendously. Can I ask why you don't recommend the thallium stress test? I would google but I'm too afraid. 😞 Total, I just typed up everything I want to say and my meds, so I should be good to go! Praying for peace and sleep tonight...

As I get closer to the appointment, I have trouble getting a breath sometimes. I think it's anxiety, but it's hard to tell. I hate this fear.

I've been concerned as well, but found the following helpful. Johns Hopkins has an interactive map showing the spread of the virus. https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 If you look closely, the virus is virtually nonexistent beyond China, Iran, and Italy. Furthermore, (and the most comforting to me), if you subtract the number of deaths from Hubei province in China from the total, fewer than 200 people have died from the virus *worldwide*. I really feel that this is going to be one of those things that with the quality of treatment in the Western world will be no different than the regular flu. Not to mention that I think the media tries their best to hype these things up to scare us so we'll watch more and they'll get more ad revenue. Just look at what they do with winter storms! I hope that helps at least a little bit...