Jared's Posts

My PACs are still happening. Some days are worse than others. I'm not sure what triggered them or what caused them. I've been trying to rest a lot to see if I overexerted myself. I'm not sure if it can be caused by what I eat or how much I eat. They're really annoying. I'm trying to not focus on my ECG on my Apple Watch thinking that the readings are causing my anxiety to act up. Either way, it's been 8 straight days of having these palpitations and they're annoying. They make me feel like not doing anything for fear of making them worse or more frequent. That's not doing a whole lot for my confidence. My Thursday stats were 129/83/75 and my weight was 191.0. My Friday stats were 129/90/77 and my weight was 191.8. My Saturday stats were 127/80/75 and my weight was 191.4. My Sunday stats were 111/87/76 and my weight was 190.6. During my Friday rehab session 7, I did more of the same. Unfortunately, I was feeling palpitations during my rehab and they even noticed them on the monitors. Exercise 1: Treadmill for 20 minutes at 3.0 MPH and a 4.5% incline. Exercise 2: Elliptical for 12 minutes at level 1 generating 23 watts. Exercise 3: 2 sets of 15 with 6 lb weights. Overall, rehab is doing well. Physically, I feel like I'm progressing well and the difficulty isn't too bad. My endurance feels like it's getting better. The biggest issue with my rehab recovery is psychological and emotional. The palpitations that I'm feeling really messes with my head and kills any confidence and hits my morale. I start to worry that something is wrong with my heart and that I'm regressing. I'll be upping the difficulty a bit during my next rehab session, so lets see how this goes. I finally got the results from my full echocardiogram. Based on the results, my LV systolic function is mildly to moderately reduced and my EF was estimated in the range of 35% - 45%. This is lower than the limited echo that showed 45% - 50%, but better than my echo on day 0/4 which was 25% - 30%. The wall thickness was mildly increased and I have grade 1 diastolic dysfunction. My LA is also dilated. Everything else appears to be normal. Normal size of RA, RV, and aorta. No signs of stenosis and trivial regurgitation in the mitral, tricuspid, aortic, and pulmonic valves. My biggest takeaway is that I'm seeing some small gains in my heart function. I don't have the previous measurements, so I'm not sure how my heart remodeling is going. It's a little disappointing that the EF scoring wasn't confirmed to be as good as my limited echo a couple of weeks ago. However, it'd only been 35 days post op and I understand these things take time. Next echo is scheduled to be around 6 months, I believe. My cardiologist and surgeon aren't too concerned with my palpitations. They tell me to continue to perform activities as tolerated. They feel that my BP and HR are in good ranges. The biggest issue I'm having right now is that my cardiologist said that they normally prescribe metoprolol to help with arrhythmias. However, I was looking at starting an allergy immunotherapy. I've recently found out that you can't take beta-blockers, like metoprolol, while doing immunotherapy due to the risk of severe anaphylaxis. I guess that it beta-blockers interfere with the effectiveness of epinephrine when dealing with severe allergic reactions. We'll see how this goes. Not sure if they'll allow me to do both at the same time. However, if I had to pick between the two, I'd prioritize my heart functionality over my allergies. My glasses are ready, so I'll be picking them up tomorrow. I'm wondering if the new prescription will help with the vision issues that I've been having. We'll see how it goes.

I'm still having palpitations in the evening. I showed one of the nurses at rehab my Apple Watch ECG and she said that I'm experiencing PACs. I hope that they go away soon as they're annoying and messing with my confidence. My cardiologist is saying that the PACs could be activity related and to check with my surgical team. Surgeon said that there's no need to limit activity and to do stuff as tolerated. I should also look at limiting the amount of caffeine and alcohol that I intake and to get plenty of sleep. They told me to follow-up with my cardiologist. Both are saying that I'm progressing well and that the early beat shouldn't be a problem. I haven't been drinking any caffeinated and I don't drink alcohol. What little caffeine I may have gotten would be from some white chocolate I had these past few days. My Tuesday stats were 129/79/72 and my weight was 193.6. My Wednesday stats were 120/89/76 and my weight was 191.4. I've been focusing more on my diet and trying to rest more. I'm hoping that the rest will help calm down my heart and reduce or make my palpitations go away. On Tuesday, I worked from home for half a day and then rode my bike with the boys for about 20 minutes. It wasn't very strenuous. We only went about 1.66 miles in 22:13 at an average speed of 4.5 MPH. My average heart rate was 98. Even with that relatively light exercise, I still felt my PACs in the evening. On Wednesday, I skipped my morning walk. I worked for half a day and then went to session 6 of my cardiac rehab. I was glad to see that they increased my difficulty a little bit. Exercise 1: Treadmill for 20 minutes at 3.0 MPH and a 4.5% incline. Exercise 2: Elliptical for 12 minutes at level 1. Target pace was 24 watts. Exercise 3: 2 sets of 15 with 6 lb barbells. During my first exercise on the treadmill, they always check in on me to see how I've been feeling. I let them know about my palpitations and they noted them down on my record. My heart rate was a little bit higher than it had been due to the extra 0.5% incline they put me at. After the exercise, I went and spoke with a RN to discuss what I've been feeling and what my Apple Watch ECG looks like. She's the one who told me that I'm experiencing PACs. Exercises 2 and 3 are still a little bit challenging, but getting easier each time I do them. Not feeling as much burn in my legs or arms when doing those exercises. They didn't notice anything irregular with my EKG while I was working out. However, they always hit me in the evening for some reason. I still felt some palpitations in the evening when watching the VP debate. I got a pretty bad headache on my left side and my neck was tight. Not sure if it's a tension headache or what. I need to try to get to bed earlier and get more sleep to see if that helps with my headaches and palpitations. My lower back has been sore as well. I'm gonna rest on Thursday and try not to do much over the weekend. Hopefully these palpitations will go away on their own.

Man what a difference a couple of bad days can make. My heart has been reminding me these past few days that it was just worked on, cut open, stitched together, and is figuring out how to work properly again. My Sunday stats were 119/77/74 and my weight was 193.4. My Monday stats were 127/79/73 and my weight was 194.6. My weight is starting to get out of control. I need to focus more on my diet and exercise again. I've been paying close attention to the amount of sodium I've been eating, but have been taking far too many liberties with the other fatty and sugary foods. I was drinking some of the soda I bought for the campfire cookout on Saturday. Loads of sugar and calories that I didn't need, so I ended up tossing it. It was painful to do because I hate to waste, but it needed to be done. On Sunday, I was a bit tired in the morning and ended up taking a nap for a couple of hours. After waking up, I felt that I needed to be productive, so I went into the backyard and started pulling weeds for about 40 minutes. After that, the boys and I rode our bikes around the neighborhood. It was a casual ride (around 3.0 MPH) because they can't go that fast. In the evening is when I started to feel that uneasy feeling in my chest. It's hard to tell if I'm hungry or if I'm having some palpitations, but I'm pretty sure I was having some palpitations. It wasn't too bad and lasted for a couple of hours before I fell asleep. On Monday, I woke up a little bit tired, but decided to try to get back into my normal routine. I started the day with a 20:00 minute treadmill walk at 3.0 MPH @ 4% incline. My average heart rate was 109. Working was fine as I spent most of my day in meetings. After having some catfish for lunch, it was time for session 5 of cardiac rehab. My cardiac rehab sessions have been going well. I feel like the exercises that I'm on could be dialed up a bit. Today was more of the same as the previous days. Exercise 1: Treadmill for 20 minutes at 3.0 MPH and a 4% incline. Exercise 2: Elliptical for 12 minutes at level 1. Target pace was 24 watts. Exercise 3: 2 sets of 15 with 6 lb barbells. The treadmill is getting easy, since I do that at home. I'll need to see if they can up the incline or duration to make it a bit more challenging. It's interesting to see that my heart rate for this exercise has been coming down each time I've done it. The elliptical isn't as hard as it was when I first started it. I think my legs are getting used to it. I can probably go a little longer or possibly even go up to level 2. We'll see what they say for Wednesday. The weights are okay for now. I'm able to get through 15 reps of each movement with some muscle fatigue at the end. I'm wondering if I should try to do 3 sets of 10-15 or increase the weight. After I got home from rehab, I was really hungry, so I snacked on some food before we headed out for dinner and my younger son's soccer game. When we got the restaurant to pick up our food, I started to feel the palpitations again. It's unsettling and uncomfortable every time I feel them. I ate my salad just fine and started to feel a bit better. Went to the soccer game and kicked the ball around with the boys. I felt fine during the game and didn't notice the palpitations that much. However, when I got home after the game and started to relax, they came back. Since I've noticed that I've been tired a lot more the past few days and that I've been experiencing heart palpitations, I'm starting to wonder if I've been overdoing the recovery. Have I been doing too much without giving myself time to rest? Could that be triggering my palpitations? I haven't been pushing myself too hard to do more. I'm still being very cautious and watching what I do and limiting what I do. I'm wondering if I need to build in rest days and skip my walks on my off rehab days. I'm crazy tired right now and want to go to sleep, but my palpitations are keeping me awake and making my mind worry.