Hey all, just wanted to check in with some updates, some good and some not as good.
For starters, I'm still here!
Months ago I started on clomid - in an attempt to raise super low testosterone. Again, I don't know if the T is low because I'm just going through andropause, or if prolonged anxiety has driven it down, or my weight makes me "efficient aromataser" which means my extra body fat is very efficient at converting T to Estrogen (which tells your brain to stop making T).
The clomid tells your brain to ignore the estrogen and keep making T. So when I first started taking it, I wasn't seeing much improvement and was still having bad anxiety, chesty pressure and pains, and of course I feared my BAV was in bad shape. But, lo and behold after 6 weeks or so of the dose I started feeling better. At a certain point I felt great, my anxiety was gone and my heart palps and strong beats all went away entirely, for a good 2 months! I was enjoying my gym workouts and feeling better all around. We tested my T level and it has gone up to 800 (from 200, with 300 being considered low and 1000 the top). Unfortunately my estradiol (estrogen) levels also went up and were at 60 (recommended under 30 for me). Clearly I was "hormonal"
When all seemed right in the world, I came down with another first: prostatitis. Yikes, I had never even heard of this! Painful, terrible, debilitating. I cut way down on my clomid dose because I read that T therapy can cause prostatitis. Being my hypochondriac self, I assumed I had prostate cancer ... But my PSA was normal and my prostate, while enlarged, was only mildly so. I was given antibiotics to take but warned its a slow recovery. They were right, for weeks the pain persisted and I didn't feel better. All the while my clomid dose I had cut.
Then on a Saturday morning I had the arrhythmia thing again. Skipping beats, coming and going, a little light headedness, panic. This lasted for more than a minute and persisted for 10 or so minutes so wife and I panicked and went to the ER. I was afraid maybe this was afib? How would I be able to tell?
At the ER all tests came back fine. Blood work and ekg and all. I felt better. While there, a coincidence, my cardiologist was at the hospital. He came by. He sort of scolded me, told me I was fine (he had just done my echo a few months prior). It was probably just anxiety from the prostatitis. I told him it might be anxiety from the plummeting T since I cut my clomid dose down. He said get off the clomid, it was for old people.
When I spoke to my endocrinologist she said get back on the clomid and that wasn't the cause of the prostatitis.
So I went back on full dose and after a while the prostatitis was healing and so was the anxiety.
In November my wife and I went to a company sponsored trip to Miami. Needless to say, I didn't behave. Had a great time but drank 4 days in a row. Mid day drinks, one night lots of wine, another night lots of vodka, etc. was a huge party all weekend.
Came home and was hit hard with anxiety attacks. Felt terrible. Ate clean and improved enough where last Saturday i went to the gym. I did 25 minutes of weights and then 25 minutes of cardio. Some rowing, biking, elliptical.
Felt awesome after that, but that night my heart area was sore. I felt pressure. This worsened the next day and was coming and going. It felt like pulled muscles inside my chest around heart area. Also felt pressure at times in collarbone area and base of neck, and sometimes below the sternum near stomach. This went on for days.
Go to the ER again? How can I? My wife thinks it's all in my head (she was there when my cardiologist scolded me for going to ER and said my heart was fine). So I just ignore the pain and pressure and anxiety.
The good news is that for the last 2-3 days I have felt better each day. Not 100 percent but the chest pressure is reducing a lot. Is it a bad sign and my heart is straining - or is my anxiety causing this chest pain and the clomid and raising T levels are making me feel better?
I went back to gym today.
Tried to go easier. 20 mins of lighter weights. 20 mins of lighter cardio (walking and elliptical). But I feel like an old bag taking it this easy. I'm 41, not 65.
My cardiologist told me in June he wanted me to try a stress echo sometime in 2016. He said maybe February. Man, I feel like that is years away. I felt better when he told me I was fine but it doesn't take my mind long to drift to "what if". I would like to do the stress echo tomorrow!
So I am hanging in there, dealing with the BAV fears and the low T issue and the anxiety and not knowing which is causing which other if at all. And I also worry my mid 30s cardiologist, despite being accomplished and charismatic, is missing something. How many BAV patients has he really dealt with? 3? 30?
Thanks for listening and the advice before this. It's all been so helpful to not feel alone.
