Had a health scare/eye-opener - 32 y/o male

R

|R|u|s|t|y|

Veteran XX
I'm 32, 200 lbs, 6' tall and i'm not fat but I could def. stand to lose a few pounds although i'm not really concerned about having a little belly, i'm married.

21557828_10104146948069698_2684875170638372917_n.jpg
- for ref - my best impression of a tourist while in Puerto Rico a few days before Maria hit. (note the requisite fanny pack, which I love)

...and I consider myself pretty physically capable, always played contact sports when younger and I could knock people around if necessary but health and consequences from not being aware has always been pretty far from my mind.

The past few days I've been feeling dizzy a lot, light-headed, periodically getting mild cold sweats and generally hard to focus at work, having dreams at night like when I would be sick (vivid, chaotic and sweating a lot) I thought I was just coming down with something so I was just gonna work through until it got to the point where I needed to take a day off work.

Today though when I was walking from the lunch area with some friends, I was feeling especially tired even though I got like 9 hours of sleep last night and when I got to my desk I got VERY light-headed and when i turned my head from side to side I was getting dizzy and my visual acuity was like lagging, so I'd turn my head and I even 'heard' this kind of light buzzing sound and then it would take me a second to focus to see clearly and I had no energy to work. I haven't been getting any cold-like symptoms so I figured somethings not right and I sent my boss an e-mail that I need to go to the doctor and then I'll work from home after.

Cliffs from my doctors visit:
-blood pressure 160/120
-drink too much alcohol
-drink too much caffeine
-reminded me of my high cholesterol from a test I took months ago but blew off
-put me on blood pressure medication since, although this time it was especially high, i've kind of always had higher BP


At home now feeling like total shit but at least I can catch/stop this now. A guy I work with is 50 years old and he looks like 60+ and 4 months ago they had to call 911 b/c the guy had tons of fluid on his heart b/c he has congestive heart failure, one of our VPs doesn't drink b/c he has congestive heart failure and I know a lot of guys who look like they're inches away from it too if they don't already have it...

I just didn't think that at 32 I'd have to deal with this but I guess it's better I have a small episode now and be wise in the future than get blind sided by a heart attack or stroke in 10 years and lose function of my body or possibly my life.

i guess we all need a dose or two of humility at key points in our life

#mortality

cliffs:
-3-4 days of headaches, dizziness, cold-sweats, lightheadedness, fatigue
-blood pressure 160/120, on BP meds now and ordered to make big lifestyle/diet changes
-sad rusty
 
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this guy is basically 10-15 years away from being SuperTrap

lol at 'I'm not fat'

you've got man boobs to go along with your slack jaw, protruding gut and sloped forehead

this must the American definition of 'not fat' :rofl:
 
Did you know that the reason you have dreams about punching people weakly is due to your thalamus making sure you don't punch out in real life while you're sleeping?
 
coombz said:
this guy is basically 10-15 years away from being SuperTrap

lol at 'I'm not fat'

you've got man boobs to go along with your slack jaw, protruding gut and sloped forehead

this must the American definition of 'not fat' :rofl:
Click to expand...

i have muscle under those bitch tits!
 
scary but glad it wasnt a heart attack or something worse.

i was slightly light headed last time i played hockey and am debating if i should go in or not
 
def said:
scary but glad it wasnt a heart attack or something worse.

i was slightly light headed last time i played hockey and am debating if i should go in or not
Click to expand...

i guess one incident of light-headedness could be a lot of things but if you notice it after you exercise again then probably better safe than sorry
 
|R|u|s|t|y| said:
[.....]
-drink too much alcohol

cliffs:
-3-4 days of headaches, dizziness, cold-sweats, lightheadedness, fatigue
-blood pressure 160/120, on BP meds now and ordered to make big lifestyle/diet changes
-sad rusty
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Alcohol's Toll on the Heart: Bigger, Not Better

Drinking alcohol, even in moderate amounts, may increase the size of the heart's left atrium, a new study finds.

The left atrium is one of the two upper chambers of the heart, along with the right atrium. When it is enlarged, a person is at risk for developing a type of irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation, which can, in turn, lead to other problems, including stroke.

"Despite the widely held belief by the public that alcohol has a beneficial effect on general heart health, acute alcohol consumption has long been linked to the development of [atrial fibrillation]", the researchers, led by Dr. David McManus, director of the Atrial Fibrillation Treatment Program at UMass Memorial Health Care in Massachusetts, wrote in their report.
[.....]
[.....]
At the beginning of the study, the participants were, on average, 56 years old. The average follow-up period was about six years, according to the researchers.

Over the study period, the researchers found that every additional 10 grams of alcohol (just less than one drink) consumed daily was linked to a 0.16-millimeter (0.006 inches) increase in the diameter of the left atrium.

The finding suggests that enlargement of the left atrium may be the factor linking alcohol to atrial fibrillation.

Other studies have shown that regularly drinking two or more drinks a day is linked to a 30 percent higher risk of atrial fibrillation, the researchers wrote.

Atrial fibrillation increases a person's risk of stroke, because it allows blood to pool in the heart. A clot can form in the pooled blood and, in turn, travel up to the brain and cause a stroke.

In addition, a recent meta-analysis found that atrial fibrillation also may be linked to a number of other conditions throughout the body, including heart failure and kidney disease.
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This Is Your Heart on Alcohol
[.....]
[.....]
But drinking too much can cause a weakened heart, known as alcoholic cardiomyopathy, or trigger an irregular heart rate called atrial fibrillation. Rarely, alcohol can lead to an irregular heart rhythm that's sometimes fatal, known as ventricular tachycardia. Drinking in excess also increases the risk of developing other problems, including high blood pressure and stroke, and can cause dependency, notes the American Heart Association.
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Alcohol abuse linked to higher heart risks, study says

An estimated 10 million to 15 million Americans abuse alcohol, meaning excessive drinking negatively affects their lives. Now, research suggests a link between too much drinking and heart problems, the No. 1 cause of death worldwide.

Abusing alcohol increases the likelihood of suffering atrial fibrillation, heart attack or congestive heart failure, according to a study published Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

"One of the most surprising findings... is that people who abused alcohol are at increased risk for heart attack or myocardial infarction," said Dr. Gregory M. Marcus, director of clinical research in the Division of Cardiology at the University of California, San Francisco and senior author of the study. Past data suggests that moderate drinking may be protective, he said, helping ward off this disease.
[.....]
[.....]

All told, Marcus and his team analyzed the medical records of 14,727,591 patients.

Of these, 1.8%, or approximately 268,000, had been diagnosed with alcohol abuse. Marcus said there was no specific cutoff regarding a specific amount of alcohol or time period and admitted that this was a limitation of the study.
[.....]

In surveying the data on millions of patients, Marcus and his colleagues discovered that alcohol abuse was associated with atrial fibrillation, heart attack and heart failure.

Specifically, they found that alcohol abuse was associated with a doubled risk of atrial fibrillation, a 1.4-fold higher risk of heart attack and a 2.3-fold increased risk of congestive heart failure.

"It didn't matter if you had a conventional risk factor for these diseases or not. In every case, alcohol abuse increased the risk," Marcus said.

That said, Marcus and his colleagues discovered that the number of people who would develop either atrial fibrillation, heart attack or heart failure in three years was much higher if they had an established risk factor and abused alcohol.

They also compared alcohol abuse to the conventional risk factors for heart disease, such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

"In general, if someone abused alcohol, it appeared to increase the risk to a similar magnitude to other conventional risk factors," Marcus said.

Eliminating alcohol abuse would result in over 73,000 fewer atrial fibrillation cases, 34,000 fewer heart attacks and 91,000 fewer patients with congestive heart failure in the US alone, the researchers estimated.
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20160722_alcohol.jpg


The level of consumption is rarely ever truthfully reported to our doctors. Ever.

Of all the awesome things we like to consume to lose ourselves, alcohol is the worst one of them all. The damage it causes to almost every organ is insane.

I am surprised i am still alive. :rofl:
 
post ur panel so we can e-dx w/ death

what were ur cholesterol stats

afib
atrial flutter
alc w/d symptoms tbh

did they not do a full parasitic run-up considering u just came back and ur probably stupid enough to drink puerto rican water
 
coombz said:
this guy is basically 10-15 years away from being SuperTrap

lol at 'I'm not fat'

you've got man boobs to go along with your slack jaw, protruding gut and sloped forehead

this must the American definition of 'not fat' :rofl:
Click to expand...

stop body shaming, ya jerk!
 
haven't read whole thread yet but my BP symptoms presented to the clinician with headaches on exertion (gym and sex). blood pressure meds should be fine. it would be nice to check out hypertension in merck manual for professionals (should be online) to see if your symptomology is consistent with simple hypertension. as a laymen some of your other symptoms might imply more, but I dunno wtf i'm talking about.

edit: naptown with the HX always most important
 
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