Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Orthostatic tachycardia

In the summer Pumpkin started experiencing dizziness.  We noticed it when she had been on Lexapro for a few weeks for her depression.  We played around with the dosing, and settled on a smaller dose in the evenings.  In August and September she had multiple episodes of standing up and falling down as she started walking and passing out during the night.  I thought the night episodes were seizures, but they were infrequent and as I never saw them, I wasn't sure.  On the 30th of September, she went to the neurologist (their time to get an appointment is long), the doctor found that she was having a very fast heart rate increase when she went from lying to sitting or standing.  The heart rate doubled from 55 to 110 from lying to sitting.  She got into a pediatric cardiologist the next week, and he seemed to think it was normal "vasovagal syncope" and didn't even address the tachycardia.  He recommended that she drink more. I talked with the neurologist's office about it, and she referred her to a different cardiologist that she was more familiar with.  He, at least, took time to listen to us.  He agreed that she was having postural tachycardia and recommended that she drink more and try to exercise 30 minutes a day.  He said there are medications to help with it, but that they have side effects in addition to their positive effects.  Pumpkin agreed to give the lifestyle changes a try first for a few months.


She is having consistent low back pain, RLQ abdominal pain and some diarrhea.  She will see rheumatology, allergy/asthma doc and gastroenterology in the next month.




She got a super cute haircut.


Pumpkin is in the top left corner with her tongue sticking out.  She is at a friend's birthday party.

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