May - My Birthday (What a present!)

So in late May my birthday has rolled around.  However, I've noticed now that I have a pretty hard time walking up the back driveway (taking the garbage out) and going up our stairs in the house.  Plus, this has all set on pretty fast, within about two weeks.  My ankles have swollen to the size of grapefruits and my left foot is hurting like a mother.  I thought maybe I had gout and that was causing the swelling.  Couldn't explain the other away though.

I was scheduled to go to the doctor for my annual physical at the end of May so it worked out perfectly ... I guess.  So I get to the doctor and he hears what I have to say.  He's worried about my condition at this point and sends me immediately to a Cardiologist.  Later he told me that I looked like a patient with Congestive Heart Failure.

So, the next day I go to the Cardiologist and they start poking around.  I'm still short-of-breath and everything, but the symptoms come and go so I have days that I feel relatively normal.  The EKG they do in the office is abnormal so they know something is up.  The doc schedules a Stress Echo Cardiogram for me.

For those of you that have never experienced this let me enlighten you.  They get you in the office in running shoes and shorts and put you on the table and jam this ultrasound "stick" in your rib cage with really cold goo on it to take a picture of your heart.  Then after jabbing you with that for a while they hook you up to the monitor and treadmill.  They do this by placing these sticky pads that if you have any hair on your chest will not conduct any electrical signal.  However, after they remove the first pad the hair is removed and voila, it now has perfect continuity!  It's a sham!  Then they start you walking on the treadmill at a dirge of a pace.  Have no fear, this is pace is shortly sped up and the incline begins to increase.  Note: I've done this test when healthy and they've stopped it before I ever got really out of breath.  This time I felt like I was going to puke my shoes up after about 4 minutes.  Not my best showing.  Now they have you jump back on the table so they can jam that damned stick in your rib cage again.  All the while you are trying to catch your breath.  Fun for the whole family!!

So once that test result comes back, the Cardiologist informs me that I have Restrictive Cardiomyopathy (Left Ventricular).  Basically, I have congestive heart failure.  He explains that the heart muscle is thickening in the ventricles and is not allowing the heart to relax and fill the chamber with blood before it pumps.  This in turn causes the blood to back up in the system and causes the shortness of breath, fatigue and general crappy feeling.

So we know what the problem is, but we don't know what is causing the issue.  Several things can cause this problem:
Heart disease
Heart attack
Illicit drug use
Amyloid deposition
Infection of the heart
Haemochromatosis (Iron Overloading)

We were able to wade through that list pretty fast.  However, the one that is not able to be eliminated quickly is the Amyloid deposition.  The search for the root cause is on!