Appt #18 – cardiologist

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(almost 30 weeks)

After days of this off and on lightheadedness, shortness of breath, dizziness and palpitations, I got in to see a cardiologist. My stint in OB triage and the ER warranted follow up due to an abnormal EKG. So you can imagine (but hopefully you can’t) my anxiety these past couple weeks thinking maybe I have a heart problem.

Is my heart enlarged? Is it working too hard? Is it going to last the pregnancy? Will I be able to get through labor if my heart is compromised? What if my heart explodes? Will I go into a funny rhythm and get blood clots and die?  (Ya know, the usual path of anxiety ridden thoughts.)

The cardiologist was very nice, they did another EKG and the same abnormalities appeared:

“T wave abnormality”

“Left ventricular abnormality”

He listened to my heart and heard a mild murmur which he said can be very normal in pregnancy. But he wants to order an echo and a holter monitor, just to rule out any structural issues. He said he’s had several young pregnant women with the same EKG abnormalities and everything comes back ok. He’s thinking based on how thin I am (other than the belly), I don’t have a whole lot of space in my abdomen/torso and as the baby grows, she presses up on my lungs and heart and pretty much everything, which he said is enough to cause the abnormalities seen on the EKG. Which all contributes to the shortness of breath, feeling lightheaded, etc. And then throw anxiety on top of it and it’s a real party. So in a couple weeks I’ll get all that stuff done. Oh and guess what my blood pressure was: 108/72. Thank you!!

On my way to work I called my OB to get my lab results. All my pre-eclampsia labs came back totally normal, 24 hour urine normal, thyroid normal, CBC normal.

A1c is 6.4%

Today has been a good day 🙂