Leg Pain

When I was initially diagnosed with CHF, it seems that I lost a great deal of muscle mass all over my body, as if whatever attacked my heart, attacked the rest of my muscles.

I find that if I get the opportunity during the day to lie down and put up my feet, my leg muscles (what is left of them) ache.  The more I do, the more they ache.  It almost seems this is happening because of the process of replenishing them with blood causes at least some of this.

I don't seem to have this issue with my upper body.  I think I will bring this issue up with my doctor next time I am there.

Hot Flashes

When I was initially in the hospital in 2004 with heart failure, the nurses warned me I would be subject to hot flashes, as many CHF patients are.

I have have many during the last few years, but last night was the worst.  For some reason, around 2 AM I got really hot.  Just sticking my foot out of the covers was not enough this time.  I ended up having to take all of the covers off me for a couple of hours.

It was very cold outside, so I am sure it was not because of hot weather.  In any event, I was grateful when they went away.

Degenerative Arthritis

My degenerative arthritis in my hips and back is becoming almost as much of an issue as my heart failure and my heart block.

I live with increasing pain every day.  I take MSM, Glucoismine, Chondroitin, and fish oil, but I can't take any pain pills other than Tylenol, which is almost useless.

My wonderful wife is encouraging me to get hip replacement surgery, which I have been putting off because of the heart tramas from last year.  It feels like the proverbial rock and a hard place.

Guess I will have to figure something out.

Stem Cell Hope

Yesterday I spoke to a research institution that is recruiting patients for stem cell studies for heart failure patients.  This is the first one in the USA that I know of that includes non-ischemic as well as ischemic cardiomyopathy.  My wonderful wife also called another study that sounds hopeful as well.

I visited a doctor in Germany last year trying to get into the only non-ischemic study in the world but I did not qualify at that time.  Now it appears that we may have choices.

It is ironic that after I wrote what I did yesterday morning that this would happen yesterday afternoon.  

Feeling hopeful at the moment.

Life Expectancy

There is a model on the web that helps those of us with Heart Failure to look at some of the metrics that drive our life expectancy.  It is called the Seattle Heart Failure Model.  It is a very cool software program one can run in a web browser.  My last try had me at 9.8 years.  It is right here.

http://depts.washington.edu/shfm/

What we hope is that stem cell studies and other new technologies will become available before this thing gets me and we can extend that.  Technology can be a great thing!