Hello everyone,

I have not posted for a while - because I was admitted to hospital in the early hours of Saturday morning with a suspected MI. I got home this morning.

I think I told some people here I had been experiencing some very strange and worrying palpitations recently (on top of all the other neuro symptoms.) All day Saturday the palpitations were getting worse - really scary rapid weak beats, along with a sensation of feeling faint breathless and dizzy - along with a sudden 'dropping' sensation, like you get in an elevator. I never slept - but at 3am I began to get excruciating pain and pressure in my chest, and a juddering trembling/fluttering which I now know was fibrillation.

When I got to hospital and was wired up they found a very abnormal ECG result, a systolic heart murmur, a carotid 'burse' (sp? it's an odd noise in the carotid artery indicating a clot, or kink in the artery) and very high blood pressure. I was put in the Coronary Care Unit for emergency care and my family were told I had a suspected heart attack. I was given beta blockers, heparin and aspirin and told I would have a coronary angiogram and possible angioplasty on Sunday.

I was told about furred arteries, angina etc. I told the cardiologist I would be very surprised if he found furred arteries, (I'm 38) and gave him my theory on quinolone. I told him of my neurological symptoms and asked him it it was possible - just possible - that the nerve damage had caused an interruption to the electrolyte function of the sinus node. He looked at me like I was nuts, asked if I was a nurse to which I replied 'not yet ( I am in training) but I have had three months to research the adverse effects of certain antibiotics'.

Although he admitted that at 38 I was an unlikely presentation for heart disease, my ECG indicated heart failure and he was _not_ sympathetic to the quinolone idea, and kept on about the causes and cures of blocked arteries.

Well guess what. After having a catherter shoved up my femoral artery on Sunday morning, that same cardiologist had to admit that I had absolutely no sign of heart disease, blocked arteries or heart damage. Thank God. He could not explain the SIX abnormal ECG results, or the chest pain/tachycardia/fibrillation. He could not explain exactly why my heart appeared to have been starved of oxygen for a period of time. He told me it was probably either a 'spasm' (in other words, my internal pacemaker/sympathetic nervous system 'forgot' to send the electric signal to my heart to tell it to pump) OR a blood clot which had been resolved by the heparin.

This morning I had my stress/treadmill ECG which was normal for the first time as the beta blockers do their work.  I have to go back in tonight to get more drugs, and be wired up to a 48 hour holster monitor. I still have pain in my chest. My family are shell shocked.  

The worst, scariest thing about this is....no one will LISTEN to me. Even if they humored me and said they would look into it I would feel better. Also, I don't know how scary THIS is (because obviously there are other antibiotics out there doing the SAME THING)....I have found out I was not give a quinolone. I was given another antibiotic, Cepharoxin in intravenous form. I am trying not to be paranoid, and thinking someone got the bottles mixed up and I must have had a quinolone.... I have all the quinolone adverse reactions - EVERYTHING from the weird anxiety attacks to parasthesias to tendonitis. And now this.  

The only good thing is that I have had an angiogram - and have been assured that if I get another episode it would not be fatal. ( I asked for that in writing and was only half joking!) I absolutely refuse to lie on my bed listening to every beat and pulse. I have been taking it easy all day - spending most of my time looking up more on quinolones and cephasorins (sp?)  

I intend going to my GP in the morning and refusing to leave until I am taken seriously.