Cardiologist Involvemen?

Hello,  You will get much better responses than mine, but my experience over the last 15 months has yielded many specialists - to include two cardiologists.  

During my initial visit with my internist who diagnosed the PMR, she told me, "You will need a cardiologist because this is a vascular disease."  She was right.  During this 15 months I've had blood clots in a leg and both lungs, diverticulitis, an ulcer in the esophagus, internal bleeding, and have been diagnosed with SVT s of the heart and possible a-fib.  I see the specialist (heart electrician) next week.  I've had numerous CT scans an angiogram, and will be having a valve replacement within 5 years. (I'm going to opt out of that valve replacement if possible.  We'll see.  My hope is that the leak will not get worse.)

My *main* cardiologist is going to do an echo every year and I'm not sure what else.  

All PMR related?  My other autoimmune diseases might have contributed, I'm sure.

Pills upon pills have had me more than a little down, but have decided to take one day at a time, be thankful for such good doctors - doctors that understand the nature of vascular autoimmune diseases.. and this gal is pressing on.  

   Don't worry about the cardiologist referral.  Get all the information you can. Take a pad and pencil and write down notes, Figure out what questions you might want the doctor to answer.  

My doctors have been so thorough, and conservative.  This is good.  He weighed all the evidence before every test.

   One thing this disease has taught me is to "NOT" diagnose myself.  Trying to figure out if the cause of a symptom is PMR, prednisone, or any other idea has backfired - very big time - on me.  I cannot stress this enough.  Write the symptoms, keep a list, let the doctors evaluate blood work  - a full panel, I hope, and if the answers are not forthcoming, ... possibly consider a different doctor??

My specialists include an internist, a rheumatologist, two cardiologists and a gastroenterologist.  

They are working together, for this I'm grateful, too.  

My age is 70.5, 15 months into PMR, but I also have Behcet's in remission and Hashimoto's.  

My best wishes to you and your husband.  This is a hard, bumpy ride.  Now and then I'll give myself 10-15 minutes to have a serious pity party.  After that?  Back to the "Get healthy" goal setting.   (Today, was a mini-pity party, but it didn't last long and the fight is on!)

MariGrace 

 

Did the person who wrote the letter mishear I wonder? On a dictaphone one -ologist can sound rather like another!

I suppose it depends on the system but you would almost certainly NOT be put under a cardiologist for a VASCULAR disease in Europe, depending on what it is you would be sent to a vascular specialist (medical or surgical) for assessment. Cardiologists tend to deal with things directly affecting the heart rather than the blood vessels. None of my husband's colleagues described themselves as cardiologists - whether they were were physicians or surgeons but they all dealt with blood vessel disorders of various sorts, ranging from peripheral vascular disease to GCA and PMR.

Or they found something on the other tests - for example, I have atrial fibrillation which was caused by the autoimmune part of the vasculitis and that is managed by a cardiologist. It isn't ideal - the PMR/GCA aspect is under the care of the rheumy, and at present the management of the a/f and the PMR seem to be on a collision course!!!!

Typically when you're in the emergency room and at a certain age they give you an EKG. And an EKG is something so small and so quick he could very easily not remember it or didn't know what it was for. And with what I'm sure was multiple other tests they were running he may easily not have remembered it. Emergency rooms can get kind of chaotic at times. So my point being is that it is possible that the EKG showed something and that is why they called in a cardiologist. And it may eventually come to nothing at all but they are exercising caution. This was my experience several years ago. I went into the emergency room, they did an EKG and it came back with a little abnormality. So now I have a cardiologist I get it to see once a year.

Hi Jones when first diagnosed with PMR 3+years and was admitted to hospital for a few days a cardiologist appeared by my bed and said I needed an angiogram as something had showed up on an ECG .Angiogram showed nothing wrong but it succeeded in frightening the life out of me ..Hopefully your husband has the same result .