No prior history of heart issues

• by mattsond34
• 2014-01-17 03:01:18
• ICDs
• 1570 views
• 1 comments

Hi everyone im a 28 year old male that up until recently I have always had a healthy heart with no issues with high blood pressure or anxiety. I have had chronic back pain for about 5 years now cause my a work related injury so had been prescribed gabapentin for the nerve pain. Over the past 2 years I had gradually increased my doses to compensate for the increasing back pain. Eventually I got to the point I was taking way too much I decided to take myself off of it. That week is when my heart issues started. The week after I got off of my medication is the worst week I've ever had in my life. The whole week I had no energy, no balance, blurried vision, severe depression because I couldn't do anything but lie in bed. Mid way through the week I started passing out and waking up out of breath and really freaked out. At first it wasnt all that close together. Over the next couple of days the episodes got closer together til I got to the point I couldn't stay conscious for more than 10 minutes. That is when I had an ambulance called. My father in law called the ambulance and he said he saw me die right in front of him. He said I was talking to him one minute then I slumped to the ground with my eyes open but not breathing. I ended up flatlining many times in between my house and the hospital. I was having sudden cardiac arrest. They told me I was in complete heart block when I came in and my heart was going into alot of bouts of vtach into vfib. They got me fitted with a temp pm the night I got there. I laid in ICU for 4 days not able to move my right leg so that the temp pm that went through my grion wouldn't make me bleed out through the femoral artery. The cardiologist that installed the temp pm was the surgeon that would later implant my icd. They told me that me vtach was coming from something hiertatory, but my family has no history of heart issues that we could think of. I had told them about me quitting my nerve medicine the week before and that that was when all this started, but they told me that that xould not have caused this to happen even with the amount I was taking. So on 09/24/2013 at 28 years of age I got my first ICD, and I had gone to school to be a professional pilot, and so when I got out of the hospital I was very depressed and I still am alittle upset about not being able to pursue my career because of my ICD. Im thankful that I got it because according to my cardiologist I have a life threatening illness. Also after going to the hospital for all this I have had high anxiety about going places, being social, or even driving. The week before I went to the hospital I passed out while driving I woke up going over the curb on the wrong side of the street. At that time I had no idea what had happened but now im thankful I even survived. I know that getting one of these things put in our bodies does alot to our minds, but I think with time I will get use to it. I just felt like joining and sharing my story because talking about it seems to help me mentally, and I hope maybe this helps someone else. Thanks guys for listening
David