"Two Squirrels having a pillow fight in my chest"
A Heart Update
Waking me up at 3am last Friday, at my most relaxed, my heart went into afib, beating erratically and at 200 bpm.
This is the third one in less than six months after being clear for so long!
After three hours being hooked to a defibrillator, nurses and doctors surrounding me as I'm doing my best to just breathe I hear code blue, then wires on my ankles on my chest, IVs, medications to slow my heartbeat, my mouth becoming desert dry, fluids and X-rays of my heart, near fainting too many times to count, ...,I finally went into sinus rhythm around six in the morning. And just like that, I'm released to go home.
It's traumatizing, this invisible condition. I honestly feel like I'm so close to facing death each time this happens as it's, well, my heart!! Atrial fibrillation and tachycardia of any kind are usually not life-threatening, which is the good news, but it could cause a stroke or heart failure weakening the heart with each time it happens. I've reached around in or 12 times now 5-6 of them landing me in the ER and ICU.
This is the third one in less than six months after being clear for almost 4 years of any issues, post SVT tachycardia ablation surgery. Each time landing near or on my period. (Ladies pay attention to your hormones, especially around perimenopause. I've been dealing with this for six years now. I'm finally getting closer to understanding that my hormones are causing me all this suffering. Such a large drop in estrogen that it's causing my potassium levels to drop at the same time messing with the electrical of my heart.
I kept telling everyone in the hospital every time I was in the ER over and over it has to do with my period this keeps happening around my period, help, help.1
Nobody tells us as women, nobody talks about perimenopause it's really hard to know what to do. Our doctors don't even really fully know. I'm grateful to so many women posting about their experiences which started to lead me down the right rabbit holes to study my own body. If you feel off or that something is wrong listen to your body and keep pushing to find answers.
Even when nobody wants to believe you, find your patterns. It's agonizing that is taking me this long. I've been through heart surgery already for the SVT tachycardia, which thankfully was taken care of, but Afib is still there and it has now caused Atrial tachycardia and skipped heartbeats. It's screaming at me that something is off.
This is part of my story part of my days along with being an artist, I want to start sharing it all because maybe I can help someone out there as this causes so much mental anguish, anxiety and an isolation.
I know everyone of us have very unique experiences so I cannot say that if you're having the same issues that that is your cause.
Something to look into is to really study your thyroid, your endocrine system and your hormones and make sure those are in a healthy level all month not just on a certain day when you get your blood tested because it won't show up as anything wrong. That is where I am right now.
Thanks to my estrogen this entire time most likely dropping too much every 28 days, depleting me of my most necessary functions that my body needs. Is it the chicken or the egg? Is it something in my diet causing this or is it just the hormones causing this? Is it stress causing this? I don't know? I may never know.
I'm going to experiment with the HRT, and continue to exercise and eat a proper diet. I'm hoping I could put my heart and mind into more of a steady and balanced rhythm. (No pun intended.)
This is not intended as medical advice. Please see your own doctors for that but if I could help in any way, to help guide the questions, maybe help find the answers in anyway that's what I will do. I'm still looking for them myself.2
As I've learned, they just nod, they're only to fix the symptoms at the time, not the causes.
Below; adding this from Instagram that I posted in my stories to help with a few dm’s that were coming in.
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