Oh the irony....

Originally Posted by swampy1970

Now that my friends have finally booked their flights from England I better get on the task of finding somewhere to stay - I see a big cabin, hot tub, BBQ etc etc also in my future.

I went out for my first lunchtime walk since this whole thing began. Felt rather good actually. My legs were rather sore from walking kinda funny for a couple of weeks because the right leg was a bit swollen for a while but nothing that the physio couldn't fix earlier this evening. I think I may actually jump on the mountain bike and go for a ride on the bike trial tommorrow night.

My right arm and leg still "feel" a little swollen - maybe I should measure them to see as maybe it feels that way as my back was out a little bit and from past events it's felt that way sometimes when things were out of whack quite a bit.

So, I'll be up there on the Friday. I'm still kinda holding out hope for doing the ride but common sense will prevail and if I haven't done anything much in the first two weeks in July then I might just call it a day and do something else until late afternoon....

Originally Posted by john979

Glad to read it is the right arm not the left arm...

John

Originally Posted by swampy1970

I've been pondering this for a couple of days....

Why is having the left arm swollen not as bad as the right? I still can't do jack on the bike so I guess both arms could be swollen and the result would be the same....

... but at least I can kinda walk around OK now, although my calf muscles are giving me a ton of grief and I get the feeling that it's related to 'the problem' that I'm dealing with.

Echocardiogram on Monday... should be interesting.

Originally Posted by swampy1970

I've been pondering this for a couple of days....

Why is having the left arm swollen not as bad as the right? I still can't do jack on the bike so I guess both arms could be swollen and the result would be the same....

... but at least I can kinda walk around OK now, although my calf muscles are giving me a ton of grief and I get the feeling that it's related to 'the problem' that I'm dealing with.

Echocardiogram on Monday... should be interesting.

Originally Posted by swampy1970

The echo was pretty darned interesting. I had no idea that the heart was so simple... little valves flapping up and down 'n stuff.

So the mystery continues.... apparently everything looked good. It still needs to be reviewed by a cardiologist but the tech said that it looked very good.

Originally Posted by Fday

For the job it is asked to do it is both amazingly simple and amazingly robust. If it were not so simple it would probably not be so robust. I was concerned that there might be something interfering with the integrity of those little valves.

Not sure what I would do next, probably something to look at the abdomen and aorta and the venous return to the heart from the lower extremities. abdominal ultrasound, venogram, something like that. At least you have interested doctors now.

Originally Posted by swampy1970

So... having not received either a call or a reply to my email to the Doc, I'm assuming that the echo was good.... unless they just want that $30 to have me go into the docs office to tell me that.

Originally Posted by jsirabella

Yes they do....it is only $30 to you but you do not want to know how much your insurance company pays! It is a good sign that you have not recieved a call as if it was serious you would have gotten a phone call for sure.

-js

Originally Posted by swampy1970

Well Kaiser is an insurance company and medical provider wrapped up in one big ugly mess. So far I'm down about $500 in co-pay and more than double that in lost earnings - most of which could have been "avoided" as some of the visits were routine questions that could have been answered via their online messaging system with the docs are supposed to reply to within three days.

Originally Posted by swampy1970

Got an ultrasound of the "main veins" in my legs and all clear... everything down there is as nature intended, free from clots and in good condition....

Off to see specialists next - the new Doc seems very on the ball and tried to get things checked out that could be a cause using the facilities available at hand right now rather than go after a single thing and then wait for the results etc etc.

He's kinda like "House MD" without the gimp leg or whitty sarcasm... He's also a cyclist

Originally Posted by Fday

I am not sure where I would go from here. What I would really like to know is what does it take to cause your symptoms and what happens to the "important" numbers when the symptoms are present. This should lead one to the correct diagnosis quickly. The only way I can think of getting those numbers would be to exercise you on a treadmill or bike with a central catheter (for left and right heart filling pressures) and the ability to measure blood gasses and breathing metrics and exercise you until symptoms occur and see what happens to all the numbers. This is not your routine test but should be "easy" enough to do by one of the specialists once your doctor runs out of ideas. The only reason I am bringing it up is I have run out of ideas. At least it seems that some of the more awful things I could think of have been eliminated.

Originally Posted by swampy1970

Funnily enough the new doc did mention, whilst being totally confused, getting a Pulmonary specialist involved and maybe a Cardiologist too, rather than the nurses who work in those departments who perform the tests, with the possibility of doing some actual measured blood gas tests and the like

What was actually kinda funny, but when you think about it it's not, was that I told him I was a cyclist, I do "x" amount of training and he had "that" look of disbelief until I pulled out the last few printouts from my training sessions, showing altitude, HR, speed, cadance etc then the conversation actually changed somewhat.

There was some other stuff that was brought up too that the other Doc didn't ask that may/may not be of any consequence, like changes in diet, work routine (cause of stress) etc . So we're taking a look at that to just incase it is something off the wall. But after the last MD, I kinda like his approach of "lets see what we can do right now with what we have here in the hospital and not have to wait weeks for an appointment elsewhere" Then again, I hope that's the last time I jog up and down three flights of stairs with a oximeter attached to my finger and two staff making sure I don't crash and burn. LOL