Jump to content
ACN Latitudes Forums

Chest pain/ cardio referral-- anyone btdt?


Recommended Posts

Dd has been having chest pains off an on for the past several days. She's just finished a double abx combo for recent strep. She has had periods in the past where she's encountered this type of chest pain, as well. Brought her to the doc today, and we were referred to a cardiologist. I'm glad for the referral-- this pain has come and gone for at least several years and prior to PANDAS dx all of her symptoms were seen as psych in nature w/o evidence or further testing to rule things in or out. Plus, my dh and his dad have a congenital valve defect (we don't know if either kid inherited it). The doc said it could be precordial catch, but that along with the congenital valve thing and dd's history w/ strep made a cardio referral seem necessary.

 

Just wondering if anyone else's children have experienced this or been referred to cardio for strep-related issues? What to expect? Anything I should be paying special attention to?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does the pain occur with exertion or at rest or both? My GP referred me to a heart specialist for the chest pain I experienced irregardless of exercise and he found nothing wrong!? It was my naturopath who found an infection of the pericardium - the sheath around the heart...so two doctors missed it! He said an antibiotic would have treated it, though by that stage I was happy to go with the naturopath's treatment considering he had more of a clue!

 

Here's hoping you get some answers, but maybe keep in the back of your mind that infection can sometimes be a cause.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lyme and some of the co-infections can cause chest pain. That is what my DS has gone through for yours, and as Ozium pointed out, her chest pain was infection, and abx would clear it. DS still gets occasional chest pain, but 2 cardiologists have said that DS's problems (including the fact that he was getting tachycardia) were from "infection", but they didn't know specifically what.

 

Good luck getting answers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We saw Dr. T this week and he suggested an echocardiogram to rule out endocarditis, well known complication of rheumatic fever and Sydenham's so perhaps not a stretch for PANDAS as well. He also suggested a spinal tap to look for various sources of infection--not sure this recommendation was strictly related to the possible heart problem as DD has stuff going in her spine as well that could be infection related. We're seeing the neurosurgeon spinal specialist today to see if we can get any headway on that aspect. The echo and cardiologist are scheduled for next week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

tpotter thanks for mentioning Lyme and co-infections. We've only had the Labcorp test, and since she'd responded so well to IVIG and abx we hadn't gone down that road any further. But maybe we ought to run the Igenex and make sure our bases are covered for the co-infections, too. Would probably be worth some extra testing just to know.

 

ko's mom thanks for sharing what Dr T is doing for your dd-- good to know. Dd had a baseline ekg when she was younger before we did a trial of adhd meds (pre-PANDAS dx when we kept getting independent dxs for all of its various symptoms). If nothing else, we'll at least have that for comparison when we see the cardio.

 

Good luck with the appointments and tests-- hope they'll lead to the answers you need! Keep us posted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thenmama,

Just to let you know some of the infections Dr. T recommended be tested for in the spinal tap included lyme, West Nile, and chicken pox (DD, now 19, had a light case when she was 4). As long as they are doing a spinal tap I may ask that they look for babesia and bartonella as well--better to over test on a spinal tap as one really doesn't want to have to do it twice. DD had an echo two years ago because of syncope episodes--they found nothing and she didn't fail the tilt table so POTS was rules out at the time. On the plus side, that means she's already a patient of the cardiologist and we could get in without much of a wait.

Ko's mom

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...