Some hearts are made of gold or silver.
Some hearts are made of chocolate.
I like chocolate.
Some hearts beat fast. Some slow.
Some hearts beat out of rhythm. Mine does.
For the last several weeks, I have been experiencing short episodes where my heart beats in an irregular pattern. Sometimes it feels like my heart misses a beat and then beats faster to catch up.
At first, this happened infrequently. But over the last week, it has happened much more often.
(TMI - too much information alert. If you'd rather not know the details, you can skip down to the next heart and pick up the story there.)
I feel like this irregular heartbeat is related to some other issues I have been experiencing since I got an IUD put in about 6 months ago. (What's an IUD? It's an intra-uterine birth control device.)
I did a lot of research on the Mirena IUD before I got mine and I talked to several people who had one. Overall, women who had one seemed to be really pleased. I mean what's not to like? Shorter, lighter periods? Very reliable birth control that's hassle free for five years? No daily pills to try to remember?
Within the first few days of getting my IUD put in, I found myself not really feeling well. I had a lot of abdominal pain and bleeding. When I went back for my checkup a few weeks later, I told the doctor about the problems I was experiencing. She suggested I give it more time for my body to adjust.
So that's what I did. I gave it four more months to adjust. So last week I called my doctor about the increasing symptoms and the irregular heartbeat problem. She had me come in to go blood work and everything came back normal.
I was not surprised that the blood work came back normal because one of the main symptoms went away the same day I called the doctor. Of course, right??? I finally have had enough and decide to call and then the symptom goes away. Of course. Make me look stupid.
I had sorta had the same feelings about the erratic heartbeat episodes. Maybe this is all in my head and I'm just hyper-sensitive about feeling my heart beating? Maybe this is a panic attack? I'm not really prone that sort of thing, but surely my heart is not messing up this often.
This weekend, Mike suggested that maybe my blood pressure was high and that's why I was feeling my heart beating like that. So I took out my blood pressure monitor that I used when I was pregnant with Noah and checked my blood pressure.
It was on the low side of normal so no problem there. But there was a strange heart icon at the top of the screen that I had never seen before. I got out my manual and looked it up and it was the irregular heartbeat icon. So it was not all in my head. This was really happening!
So since the blood work was fine, the doctor wanted me to come in today so that she could make sure the Mirena IUD was still in the right position. I told her that I would really just like for her to take the thing out. It's been causing me problems for the past six months and I am just DONE with it.
She said she did not think the Mirena was causing my irregular heartbeat, but she had no problem taking it out. So that's what we did. (I realize I'm making this sound all easy. And the process to get it out is easy. It's just painful. Not nearly as painful as getting the IUD put in. But I can tell you that I didn't want to stand up or even sit up after it was taken out today.)
(TMI Alert - Okay you can start reading again after this paragraph.)
The doctor is also referring me to a cardiologist so that we can try to find the cause of the weird heart rhythm. Her nurse will call me tomorrow to let me know when they can get me in. The nurse said it may take a week or two depending on their schedule.
Personally, I hope it's soon. It's no fun feeling bad.
So stay tuned ...
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