Sick Sinus Syndrome

In my previous post I introduced my blog. In this one I’ll talk about my original diagnosis. About 1990 or thereabouts I began complaining of chest pains and sought help for them several times. I was hospitalized in the cardiac wing of the St. Catharines General Hospital and saw a heart specialist, who put through a battery of tests.

The chest pains turned out to be something other than my heart. For example I discovered that sometimes I’ll get a very sharp stabbing around my heart, but it isn’t my heart. It’s from a nearby scar that’s
under my left armpit caused by a ping pong ball sized piece of fat removed several years earlier. I can now tell it’s the scar as when I press on it it hurts.

It was discovered that my heart tended to skip a beat or two, chiefly during the night, and I was formally diagnosed with sick sinus syndrome. Sick sinus syndrome is a group of heart rhythm problems in
which the heart’s natural pacemaker – the sinus node – doesn’t work properly. A person’s heart may beat too fast or too slow or a combination of the two.

It’s a condition that someone, like myself, may have few if any symptoms initially. It can also come on suddenly. It is progressive. Symptoms include: palpitations, fatigue and shortness of breath. A complete
list of symptoms can be found here http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sick-sinus-syndrome/DS00930/DSECTION=symptoms

In my case it was decided not to do anything since it wasn’t affecting me in any way at the time. I was monitored for several years afterwards and then it was dropped. And then things changed. In my next post I’ll tell you how.