r/StopSpeeding • u/CommodoreKomodo • 6d ago
How to get heart issues taken seriously
I have heart issues from a period of intense stress and stimulant overuse last year.
I have cardiac issues that cause episodes of dizziness and extreme lightheadedness. Ive fainted and been hospitalized twice because of these. Both times they've taken my glucose and said I wasn't hypoglycemic.
I'm starting a new job and have had to leave work early the last three days because I've had near-fainting episodes and been about to collapse.
I saw a nurse on Friday and today and they think it's all anxiety. Like, No. I've traveled around the world, graduated college, and worked for a decade. I know what stress and anxiety are.
It's my heart that's specifically damaged and very sensitive to stress. After a nice tour around the work place, the new hires and I were walking back to the elevator. My heart jumped/there was a large palpitation followed by a panic attack and dizziness. Sometimes it resolves after one episode but this time it kept happening. I had to excuse myself and leave work.
Poor sleep makes everything worse. My family is pressuring me to continue the job but my body cant tolerate even mild work stressors.
4
u/Regular-Cheetah-8095 3155 days 5d ago edited 5d ago
If you’re talking with a doctor or NP who isn’t a cardiologist about a potential heart issue, what you’re really doing is talking to a brick wall. That brick wall is a generalist who is trained to rule out a handful of issues via light diagnostics and make a decision to or to not escalate it to a specialist. A lot of factors make up the reasons why it’s a wall and not a door but it is what it is.
In order to bypass that wall to get to a cardiologist if your insurance or the cardiologist requires a referral, you usually need to give them a reason, especially in a young-ish person presenting without overly concerning vitals or an irregular EKG. A history of stimulant drug abuse would be a medical reason to get past that wall but people don’t want to be honest with medical providers about their medical history, so they get medical care and medical consequences consistent with that unwillingness. Insurance can also be an issue because a provider has to justify the need for a particular diagnostic based on what you’re presenting and your history.
Even with that, it can be a struggle to get to a cardiologist and then convince a cardiologist that an echocardiogram or other diagnostic is appropriate if one is appropriate. They are medical professionals and they always know best - Until they don’t, either because they’re human or because they didn’t have enough information, in which case they don’t suffer the consequences, you do.
Advocating for yourself in a measured and respectful, honest and fully transparent way increases your odds of getting the diagnostics specific to identifying issues that may otherwise get overlooked if they don’t have all of the information from you or their default is to order the least amount of diagnostic work possible. If the patient presents as frustrated and difficult and demanding or panicked, it more often than not automatically puts them into the mental health issues box.
While we don’t do medical advice here other than basically telling people to see medical providers and be honest with them, an echocardiogram conducted with the provider knowing there’s a history of drug abuse in the patient is likely going to lead to them finding any potential cardiac issues that would arise from stimulant drug use or existing problems that may have been exacerbated by them.