Chest Pain Input Please

[maillotpois]

Torrilin - you're mom's got to be a coumadin lifer, right? Bummer. That's my fear. If this happens again, I am a lifer. Fortunately, I think we nailed and eliminated my risk factor. And I'll be shooting up (w/lovenonx) before any long flights, just in case.

I agree a stress test shouldn't be the place to start. It's funny they'd rather run a complicated and lengthy procedure instead of a $50 blood test. Whatever.

Just remember: It's your body, not your doctor's. I am sure your doctor has good intentions, but PE is the leading sudden death killer for a reason - it is often mis-diagnosed or just plain missed.

ETA: In case there's still some perception of wolf crying here - I had an interesting discussion with an old friend of my in laws who is a pulmonology researcher at Scripps in SD. He developed some drug or something that allows premature infants to breathe. Which is cool. Anyway, he was asking questions about my episode and was just amazed that I was okay. He says that the PEs can not only simply cause you not to have enough air, but they can actually cause some sort of neurological reaction that shuts your heart down.

As said, we all hope you don't have a PE and you probably don't. However, the 5 - 10% chance that you do isn't worth messing around with and waiting for a doctor to figure something out.