Well, I made it to the Cardiologist last week and what a bummer. I had an echo cardiogram done which everyone told me was OK.
While I was getting the echo my husband was talking with the doctor and told him my coughing was worse and we really needed to do something about it. The doctor said I should have called and told him about it and he would have changed my medication. He seemed to forget that I did tell him about it my last visit.
When I went in to talk to the Doctor about getting off the Ace Inhibitors because of the cough side effect he did not want me to go completely off the medicine. He changed me to Diovan, 40mg, once a day and gave me samples to try. He said coughing was not one of the side effects of this medicine. If that is so why didn't he change me to it last time when I told him about the coughing problem.
My husband and I could not seem to get a straight answer about why I needed to stay on the ace inhibitors except that it lowers my chance of getting congestive heart disease later on. I am worried about what they are doing to me now.
The doctor said it will take 2-4 weeks for the old medication to get out of my system and to call him back in 4 week and let him know what is happening with the cough.
I was reading the patient information sheet that was with my samples and guess what the second major side effect of Diovan is: Coughing. According to the sheet the occurrence is less than with the medicine I was on so hopefully my coughing will diminish.
Sometimes it is frustrating going to number of different doctors as one will say one thing and then another will say the opposite.
As a cancer patient it is said that you have a family of doctors: your primary care (the one you go to for colds, flu, etc), your surgeon (biopsies, ultrasounds, surgeries, etc), your oncologist (blood work, chemo, etc), your cardiologist ( heart related problems), and all the other specialist they can come up with.
How is it suppose to be a family of doctors if the doctors do not tell each other what the other is doing? How are you suppose to understand and feel secure when you get conflicting advice?
Well, as you can see I am feeling a little frustrated right now and I have to stop or I will really get upset. And that would raise my blood pressure. Which might not be bad since the #1 side effect of the new medication is low blood pressure. OH WELL!
Good health and god bless to you all, and hang in there if you are going thru what I have been.
I am having the same problem. I was told by the doctor that I will have to stay on the heart med for about a month after my lung operation due to heart flutter. He said my heart will fix it's self.
ReplyDeleteWould it be asking too much to slowly get me off of this med?