A small description about my heart condition is that my heart either skips every third beat, or it misfires every third beat. Sometimes when I am fine my heart decides to act up, and when I am in a panic state my heart is completely fine. The name that the doctors gave me was that I have an irregular heartbeat, but the real name of my condition is Idiopathic Arrhythmia. Here is my story.
During high school I was in marching band, and after performance I had trouble breathing and felt dizzy, hot, and light headed. I didn’t go to a doctor until my junior year of high school. I remember the night that started these doctors’ appointments. My high school football team was facing our rivals, and the marching band had just performed. Like every other time after our performance, I felt light headed, dizzy, and had trouble breathing.
I went to our assistant band director and told him what was going on, and he told me to go see the paramedics, and to try to call my parents. I couldn’t get a hold of my parents, so someone went to find them in the stands. When my parents came over to where I was, they said to go in the back of the ambulance to get checked out. While I was in the back of the ambulance, they EMT was doing all the things that he would usually do. He told my parents that it was strange that my heart was perfectly fine even though I was in a panic state.
So, my parents and the EMT talked about what the next step would be, whether I would go to the hospital that night, or they would just take me to the doctors the next day. They decided to just take me to the doctors the next day. So that is what we did. The doctor didn’t know what was wrong with me.
A few doctor appointments later I was put on my first heart monitor. They decided to just have me wear it for 24 hours, and then to send it back in to get the results. A few days after I sent in the heart monitor, I had another doctor’s appointment, and they said that what my heart was doing was mainly doing it at night, which was weird because I had these feelings during the day.
A few more appointments later I had another heart monitor. This time it was for 3 days over the busiest weekend for marching band at my high school. So that is what I did for three days, and it was really a struggle to do all the things with that thing on. The results came back, and we changed doctors. One of the last doctors I went to saw the result and said that he wanted me to take a break from marching band. When I heard that news, I was so devastated because marching band was basically my life, and it still is.
I had to stay out of band for a week and miss an important night of performing at the Friday night game. Then I went back to the same doctor to do an ultrasound, and the results came, and he said that I had an irregular heartbeat, and that I could go back to band. And that is where my journey kind of stopped and started again.
Heart arrhythmias occur when the electrical impulses that coordinate your heartbeats doesn’t work properly, causing the heart beat to be either too fast, too slow or irregular. It may feel like fluttering or racing and may be harmless. However, some heart arrhythmias my cause bothersome or life-threatening signs and symptoms.
Noticeable arrhythmia symptoms may include a fluttering in your chest, a racing heartbeat (tachycardia), a slow heartbeat (bradycardia), chest pain, shortness of breath, lightheadedness or dizziness, sweating, or fainting (syncope) or near fainting. Arrhythmias may cause you to feel premature or extra heartbeats or feel that your heart is racing or beating too slowly.
There are two types of arrhythmias tachycardia and bradycardia. Tachycardia refers to a fast heartbeat, a resting heart rate greater than 100 beats a minute. Bradycardia refers to a slow heartbeat, a resting heart rate less than 60 beats a minute. Not all of these mean you have heart disease.