Posted by obafgkm on July 19, 2010, at 21:27:40
In reply to I went to the walk in clinic, posted by Deneb on July 15, 2010, at 14:40:24
Hi Deneb,
I may be oversensitive about the condition I'm about to mention, because I have a large family history of it. I don't mean to alarm or scare you, especially if you feel you've already resolved the issue, or if it's a non-repeating issue. However, if you have a family history of cardiac issues or sudden and unexplained death, or if this repeats itself, you may want to mention Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome to your doctor and see how s/he responds. It probably is just a hydration issue like they are saying, or has some other completely innocent explanation. But I feel like I ought to mention/explain this (rather unlikely) possibility.
Wolff-Parkinson-White is a cardiac arrhythmia caused by an extra electrical pathway in the heart. People are born with the condition. The typical symptoms are repeated incidents of tachycardia and dizziness, sometimes with increased anxiety, often leading to fainting spells. The condition is usually diagnosed in the teen years or early twenties, but sufferers often have an increase of symptoms in middle age as well. It can lie dormant for years before going noticed. Many sites will tell you that the arrhythmia is provoked by exercise, but from my experience, this isn't so. My mother could simply be getting out of bed in the morning or be out shopping, and she'd suddenly faint - especially as she got older. She visited many doctors who dismissed her as simply needing to drink more water or eat more salty foods in spite of the fact that she was already diagnosed with this condition before one took her seriously and decided to investigate it further.
Unfortunately, doctors can't diagnose this from a single EKG, unless they get pretty lucky. It's more typical that the diagnosis comes after a long-term monitoring, with a Holter monitor or other portable EKG device that is worn for a few days. I've gone through the testing once before, simply because of the family history and the fact that I was having dizzy spells (which, thank god, turned out to be unrelated) - it's not too bad. If necessary, the condition can be corrected surgically by "shorting out" the pathway - it's pretty painless, as I understand, though it can be scary.
If your dizzy spells persist and you want more information, the Wikipedia and Mayo Clinic websites give a pretty good overview:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Wolff-Parkinson-White_syndrome
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/wolff-parkinson-white-syndrome/DS00923
It is, of course, somewhat unlikely that I've hit on your problem - especially if this hasn't happened before and doesn't happen again. Hopefully, you won't have any more difficulties with tachycardia and fainting. It really is difficult sometimes to have to deal with medical issues. But, if you continue to have the problem, you may want to bring it to your doctor's attention - and may want to ask about this possibility. It's usually not terribly dangerous - but, for the sake of honesty, I should confess that there are fatal variants. They are much rarer than the condition itself, though. No matter what the source of your medical problems, I wish you a safe and speedy conclusion to them.
Best of luck!
poster:obafgkm
thread:954486
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100709/msgs/955075.html