Stress Test

I am going for a cardiac stress test today. Last winter, I found that I often felt queasy while shoveling snow. My sugar levels were fine, and I took mental note of it happening but accepted that it was a fluke. This past fall, I had similar symptoms while clearing leaves.

Make no mistake about it – I am out of shape. It’s been a long time since I went to yoga, my gym membership was collecting dust for a long time, and while up until a few weeks ago I was walking every day in the middle of my work day for at least 30 minutes, it was hardly exercise and more for a mental break.

Diabetics are more at risk for heart problems due their tendency to have poor blood circulation. Having good blood sugar control is key in keeping this at bay. Since I’m prone to high cholesterol I’m on meds to help control that, and it’s lucky (I guess?) that I tend to have low blood pressure because high blood pressure increases my risk of heart issues too. In truth this is likely the case with most people, but since part of my body don’t work right, I feel compelled to be a bit less head-in-the-sand about stuff.

I met with the cardiologist last week and she was very nice and asked a lot of questions. I felt pretty silly, truthfully, because I didn’t have chest pains, or any symptoms aside from the queasiness, which I read somewhere at some point was a sign of heart distress in women. I kept saying, embarrassed “I’m pretty sure I’m just incredibly out of shape, but…”

She agreed that it was probably nothing (aside from a case of the lazies), but since the queasiness I experienced wasn’t a “one off”, she thought we should do a text.

Meanwhile, a relative of mine who is a cardiac nurse (I think?) told me that stress tests aren’t all that reliable in predicting heart attacks in women. So, that’s cool.

Sidenote – getting to the gym has been frustrating. I’ve tried to go to the gym twice in the past week and couldn’t go in the end because my sugar levels were too low to accommodate (you burn sugar when you work out and T1s can’t regulate that resulting in massive sugar drops if we exercise while already in the lower range).

It’s extremely annoying because it takes so much mental prep for me to even motivate to go in the first place, and then to not be able to go – frustrating.