Heart schmeart

Today I had a followup appointment with the cardiologist following the incident. He said that most of the lab results from the ER were good, but there’s a slight concern from my EKG, and of course he’s concerned about my high cholesterol and triglycerides (as well as borderline A1C), as well as with my family history.

For diagnostics, he’s having me do a treadmill stress test in a couple weeks, and also get an echocardiogram to measure the thing the EKG indicated as a potential issue.

For cholesterol and triglycerides, I told him about my history with statins and fenofibrate causing massive systemic pain problems and muscle failure symptoms, so he’s putting me on Repatha, which is a rather interesting treatment option that involves a biweekly injection of monoclonal antibodies, and which shouldn’t have any bad health effects.

The interesting thing to me about this is that there’s a very strong suspected link between fibromyalgia and high triglycerides (and anecdotally, several people I know with fibro also has untreatably high triglycerides!), so it’s possible that this treatment might also help me with my fibro issues.

On the other hand, the side effect lists for Repatha include many of the same side effects I have with the other medications (including severe fatigue and muscle soreness), and I’m also seeing reported incidents of Repatha either causing or exacerbating fibro, so, well, hopefully this doesn’t end up knocking me out of commission for weeks at a time. Because all of my experiences with statins and fenofibrate were awful, and those were daily pills; an injection which stays in my body for two weeks would be excruciating.

And I have a lot going on this month that I don’t want to miss out on! For example, global game jam, Strawberry Jam, and I’ve just been commissioned to do the theme music for a podcast that’s launching in a couple weeks, as well. Not to mention the choir and my other creative pursuits that I keep saying I’m going to ramp up on Any Time Now™.

Anyway, that’s all assuming my insurance will even cover it. My insurance pretty much sucks and this is a very new, very expensive course of treatment.

I am not particularly a fan of being a walking petri dish, but that’s the hand I was dealt, I guess.

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