All the above is now rendered moot! I was up all night with pulmanary edeema. Many folks with my level of CHF have extreme swelling in the lower extremeties,i.e feet and calves. In my case it becomes manifest in my abdomen around the diaphragm. In that case its like I heve a super tight girdle on that keeps my lungs from going in and out. In that case, sleep is not in the cards. I can onlly lay on my back for a minute or so before I bolt upright gasping. To top it off, I went out to get my wallet from the car. I barely made it back in. I had to clear my throat and had an instant astma attack. I made it to the nebulizer and within 3 minutes i was greatly relieved. The deal breaker was the fact that symyomatic asthma will trigger a severe breathing problem no matter what med is used as it will cause the bronchial tubes to constrict!
Because of all this I ended up cancelling my stress test. Besides being dead on my feet from lack of sleep over tha past few days, I still cant lay on my back for over a minute without having to sit up. The test requires me to lie still, flat on my back for almost 40min while the Gamma cameracircles around me taking oictures. They do that twice. Once with the heartaccelerated and then 3 hours later at rest.
The evel receptionist read me the riot act and tried to refuse to reschedule. She finally put me down for 7/27. Thats going to really throw a monkey wrench into the cysto schedule!
britt