PSA *correction* I have officially entered the Heart Disease club, acute Pericarditis / Myocarditis

Triathlon Forum
1

Such LAD…. Very Ouch

I work for a hospital….
Thursday afternoon I got both Covid and Flu vaccines . Felt awful from it, no training Friday. Saturday morning i Biked inside at the YMCA
easy/normal while my older daughter did a Zumba class. Sunday I swam with my younger daughter at our apartment pool about 35 minutes.

Monday no training.
Tuesday using the indoor bike at the YMCA about 6:45pm to 7:55 close. 21.7mile.

I drive home and when i get out of my car - ouch - eeeek - aaahhhh feeels like I pulled something in my chest riding aero. Hard to take deep breath but all pain is motion triggered. Twist and turn all night can’t get comfortable. I wake up it’s not worse, not any better at all. I let my director and fellow managers know they recommend I get over here to the ED - i drive to work, park, he gives me a ride up the hill to the ER.

Kinda awkward as after working 2.7 years here I kinda know everyone now. The night after the San Diego International triathlon in June I was in the emergency room here for many hours working along side after a major systems upgrade for validating and support and rounding units.

First things first, take my blood - troponin score .09. Further tests reveal all my arteries are crystal clear except Mr LAD has a %50 blockage. So because of the other stories i’ve read here last year from some of you and Tim O’donnell plus the fact my dad had a nuclear grade heart attack at age 50 like Homer Simpson I was planning on getting these tests done in the next few years.

Dad had 3 bypasses and the 4th was %100 blocked and dead and they left it alone (i was 16 that’s what they told me) and it sparked my lifelong dedication to health and fitness.

I was worried this day would come - it came. The comfortable part was I work at this hospital so I got great help and kind treatment. Even the Radiologist who read and interpreted my images - I’m working with him. Bringing in AI processing of images looking for dangers and alerts physicians phone the moment it’s discovered. The nurse lead I spoke to last night for a location tracking system issue checked on me many times and assisted with my care. My director, adjacent mangers, stopped by to visit me a few hours into my visit.

I’m staying over night for observation and all i can say is it’s good to have “Friends in the business” and i feel comfortable this will be taken care of well. Reading some of the stories here in 2021-22 regarding heart attacks from some of you this seems to be an “entry level” even and i’m very thankful for that. Tomorrow I find out what options we have for the blockage.

Miss you dad, right behind ya https://giphy.com/...1-3o6MbrQuFfaTAbKSaY

2

Yes those pains we get in the chest area are most often just thought of as muscle, or nerve related. Really glad you got to the bottom of it so quickly, and yes, it is great to have friends in high places. Well at least the places you need the most when this stuff strikes. With all the therapies there are now, they should get you fixed up in no time, and you will be able to continue on with your life of health and fitness.

Your dad will just have to wait… (-;

Keep us posted on your progress, these threads help a lot of folks here…

3

Thank you for the kind encouragement. I have to defer the Cal Tri Playa Del rey it’s in a few weeks. That will be a nope ……

4

Thank you for sharing.
As much as it may be “minor”, from the patients (and your) perspective these things are never minor.
If you are being down on yourself, take heart (worst pun and dad joke ever) from the fact that this happened when it did, how it did and with all you are surrounded by in your health care environment.
I am an MD, but not an interventional cardiologist so cannot (and would not) give you tips on what they may do from here (ie whether they would stent it). Safe to assume though that there will be a decent look at your lifestyle and risk factor modifications, and likely the usual gamut of drugs to manage your blood pressure, cholesterol and some to decrease blood clotting mildly.
Also, this is ST, so make sure you take all medical advice from your treating team, not from any potential internet experts (although we do have some bonafide, world leading medical experts on this forum).

5

Thank you. I see slowtwitch as a place for sharing. My method will be to follow their guidance and not just “looking for the answer I want to hear”

I tend to gravitate towards the most reasonable solutions.

6

Did you ever get told what your troponin peaked at? Sounds like you are in a good place.

Yesterday I took a cake over to the local emerg. I do that to support local emerg and thank them for taking care of my patients when they need the emerg. I am in primary care and used to do emerg shifts up until about 12 years ago. They are quite stressed out in our part of the world. When I worked there I never saw Hallway medicine. Now people are parked in the hallways, mostly old people with any number of things like abdominal pain. We still do quite well with super acute things like heart attacks but the grind of many old people is difficult to do.

7

Thank you. I can confirm the feeling was “well this sucks”. I never got a “something really bad just happened” feeling.

8

Thank you. I can confirm the feeling was “well this sucks”. I never got a “something really bad just happened” feeling.

warning symptoms of big cardiac trouble are unique to the patient-

I could tell you stories…

but, most patients admit that they knew **something **was wrong-that’s the point to get help

9

I agree: it was the next morning i got the “something isn’t right” feeling
.

10

Without knowing yet it probably peaked at 0.09.
Yes I have much respect for them. The times I worked in the ED area i always felt “in the way” even from Midnight to 4am Mondays. Watching how fast they zip from computer to computer gave me more insight that everything needs to be running optimal or they can’t work effectively.

11

Such LAD…. Very Ouch

I work for a hospital….
Thursday afternoon I got both Covid and Flu vaccines . Felt awful from it, no training Friday. Saturday morning i Biked inside at the YMCA
easy/normal while my older daughter did a Zumba class. Sunday I swam with my younger daughter at our apartment pool about 35 minutes.

Monday no training.
Tuesday using the indoor bike at the YMCA about 6:45pm to 7:55 close. 21.7mile.

I drive home and when i get out of my car - ouch - eeeek - aaahhhh feeels like I pulled something in my chest riding aero. Hard to take deep breath but all pain is motion triggered. Twist and turn all night can’t get comfortable. I wake up it’s not worse, not any better at all. I let my director and fellow managers know they recommend I get over here to the ED - i drive to work, park, he gives me a ride up the hill to the ER.

Kinda awkward as after working 2.7 years here I kinda know everyone now. The night after the San Diego International triathlon in June I was in the emergency room here for many hours working along side after a major systems upgrade for validating and support and rounding units.

First things first, take my blood - troponin score .09. Further tests reveal all my arteries are crystal clear except Mr LAD has a %50 blockage. So because of the other stories i’ve read here last year from some of you and Tim O’donnell plus the fact my dad had a nuclear grade heart attack at age 50 like Homer Simpson I was planning on getting these tests done in the next few years.

Dad had 3 bypasses and the 4th was %100 blocked and dead and they left it alone (i was 16 that’s what they told me) and it sparked my lifelong dedication to health and fitness.

I was worried this day would come - it came. The comfortable part was I work at this hospital so I got great help and kind treatment. Even the Radiologist who read and interpreted my images - I’m working with him. Bringing in AI processing of images looking for dangers and alerts physicians phone the moment it’s discovered. The nurse lead I spoke to last night for a location tracking system issue checked on me many times and assisted with my care. My director, adjacent mangers, stopped by to visit me a few hours into my visit.

I’m staying over night for observation and all i can say is it’s good to have “Friends in the business” and i feel comfortable this will be taken care of well. Reading some of the stories here in 2021-22 regarding heart attacks from some of you this seems to be an “entry level” even and i’m very thankful for that. Tomorrow I find out what options we have for the blockage.

Miss you dad, right behind ya https://giphy.com/...1-3o6MbrQuFfaTAbKSaY

Welcome to the LAD club. Very happy to hear that the event happened the way it did and you didn’t ignore things. I was also a "all my arteries were crystal clear except my LAD. In my case, we have tracked things back to extremely elevated high LP(a) as the likely root of the issues. You will be back at it quickly.

12

Thank you for sharing and commenting. As you mentioned LP(a) I’m sure every day i’ll have a “Today I Learned” moment.

They have taken so much blood from me the last 2 days i’m sure there will be lots to talk about.

From 2011 to 2017 my performance in triathlon peaked. I remember my annual blood tests were stellar. So up until age 41 I was a “model citizen” and 20 lbs lighter than today.

Two biggest changes 2017 I divorced my wife and took custody of the children for three months eventually rolling back to 50/50. I ended up just eating what the kids wanted most of the time - my diet didn’t degrade %80 or anything but it wasn’t as clean as it was.

2019 my employer who is a fixture here in Newport Beach and typically employed people until retirement at the direction of Accenture outsourced all Info Tech and operational administrative jobs. I went through the stress of that then right into the supervisor role for the hospital then the covid lockdown started just 6 weeks into my brand new job.

During these last 5 years things were more chaotic and I often had to “eat what i could catch” for about %40 of my diet. I still got in my standard training volumes however.

So as the days roll on from here on out it will be very interesting if the flawed 5 years or genetic heat disease factors contributed more.

Thinking out loud my running speed slowed an additional 2 minutes per mile the last year. I thought it was the result of weight gain and also aging legs with that weight. I was planning on seeing what happened after a few weeks off and weight loss. Maybe that was the beginning of changes……

13

Dad had 3 bypasses and the 4th was %100 blocked and dead and they left it alone (i was 16 that’s what they told me) and it sparked my lifelong dedication to health and fitness.

I was worried this day would come - it came. The comfortable part was I work at this hospital so I got great help and kind treatment.

Family history was always a worry for me. My maternal grandfather died from a “surprise” heart attack when he was 48 even though he worked a physical job (HVAC). My dad had multiple bypass surgery in his low 40’s and my younger brother had a valve replacement in his 30’s. I knew that I was at high risk even with my lifelong endurance sports involvement. I made it to 55 before I had a heart attack while on a trail run. Fortunately, I was almost finished and was able to walk to my car and drive home (not smart I now know) and have my wife drive me to the hospital (also not smart).

People around here often complain about our local hospital, but I must say that I could not possibly have been treated better than I was.

As for “minor” heart attack. People have occasionally asked if mine was a “bad one”, to which I answer “the worst I ever had”. :slight_smile:

Hope your recovery goes smoothly!

14

Lucky you to have caught it and are getting treatment. What is the treatment with 50% blockage? Insurance only covers stents of 70% plus blockages?

I just finished over 4 months of tests because of lingering post Covid symptoms and these threads on ST. High HR and exhaustion. CRP was 6.7 and now back to normal after 3 months. For me everything is normal but the make up of my LDL (never more than 96 BTW) with LP(a) of 287 and worst my Cardiac Calcium Score was 786!! I did however crushed the stress test, no symptoms of blockages, 65Vo2Max etc… Currently now on Statins. So I am a ticking time bomb if a rupture happens I guess.

15

Sorry to hear this and I hope you will watch out and make things better in the future.
What is your diet like? A friend of mine, his dad had quadruple bypass surgery and his diet is basically pepsi and fried chicken as they are from deep south.

16

Finally spoke to the cardiologist this morning. After reviewing all the test results he strongly disagrees with the other physicians that it was a minor heart attack but instead it was pericarditis / myocarditis attack and the %50 blockage they reported is more like %30 and quite normal.

This downgrades it to a generic “heart disease” category and the 0.07 troponin reading was from the damage as a result of all the inflammation.

He recommends to work closely with Primary Care physician on managing cholesterol and risk factors and there are no concerns at this time. So that’s good news!

Once I get my test results back i can share the key numbers here. So this means no stent no procedures and nothing else to do with my heart. My chest and neck still hurt terribly so i’m still going to defer the October 23rd Playa Del Rey event. Our chief medical information officer who is also practicing physician here has been speaking with my doctors and stopped by this morning . He also provided the analogy it’s like if you had a bad ankle sprain would you really want to continue on with a marathon you signed up for in a few weeks and suffer through the whole thing. Plus i’m just sitting in a bed I have no idea how it’s going to feel one I drove home and get groceries etc……

I’ll have to update the title of my post to PSA I have joined the carditis club.

17

Sorry to hear this and I hope you will watch out and make things better in the future.
What is your diet like? A friend of mine, his dad had quadruple bypass surgery and his diet is basically pepsi and fried chicken as they are from deep south.

I eat very well i stay away from processed foods mostly. Fruit daily, oatmeal daily, rice or grains daily. Vegetables almost daily. Dinner is chicken, beef, pork, fish based. I eat sweet potatoes i’ve never been a vegetable lover i just make myself eat them. My biggest vice is wine and beer. I could drink less - the calories and guilt factor are enough to stop at two though. Sadly my tolerance is high- Dads lineage traced to Kentucky. In their family drinking all the time was a normal thing. My paternal grandfather would have binges and disappear for days.

When i was a young buck I was a bodybuilder and shredded looking so i know what i need to eat. But having my children almost full time I just didn’t want to be the “triathlon food police dad” so we have an abundance of kids favorites mixed in with my diet.

My diet is %70 olympian %30 middle school!

18

As far as getting back to your car and driving back I think a lot of us guys do that because we don’t want to create a big scene and stir everyone up if we are able to stand and move. Don’t feel too bad about it. Turns out I hade acute inflammation and I would have summoned an ambulance for that ….

:
Finally spoke to the cardiologist this morning. After reviewing all the test results he strongly disagrees with the other physicians that it was not a minor heart attack but instead it was acute pericarditis / myocarditis attack and the %50 blockage they reported is more like %30 and quite normal. He recommends to work closely with Primary Care physician on managing cholesterol and risk factors and there are no concerns at this time. So that’s good news!

19

Don’t beat yourself up for not calling an ambulance. I think a lot of us guys do that if we are able to stand and walk. In my case it turns out it was acute pericarditis / myocarditis and I would have summoned an ambulance just for that.

Finally spoke to the cardiologist this morning. After reviewing all the test results he strongly disagrees with the other physicians that it was a minor heart attack but instead it was pericarditis / myocarditis attack and the %50 blockage they reported is more like %30 and quite normal. He recommends to work closely with Primary Care physician on managing cholesterol and risk factors and there are no concerns at this time. So that’s good news! Calcium score is very high 99th percentile to that’s something to work on. They will have me on baby aspirin and anti inflammatory for a few weeks.

20

Could it be a side effect from one of the vaccines? It is one of the known but rare side effects for mRNA vaccines according to the CDC

Don’t beat yourself up for not calling an ambulance. I think a lot of us guys do that if we are able to stand and walk. In my case it turns out it was acute pericarditis / myocarditis and I would have summoned an ambulance just for that.
Finally spoke to the cardiologist this morning. After reviewing all the test results he strongly disagrees with the other physicians that it was a minor heart attack but instead it was pericarditis / myocarditis attack and the %50 blockage they reported is more like %30 and quite normal. He recommends to work closely with Primary Care physician on managing cholesterol and risk factors and there are no concerns at this time. So that’s good news! Calcium score is very high 99th percentile to that’s something to work on. They will have me on baby aspirin and anti inflammatory for a few weeks.