why would a doctor delay or postpone a left sided heart catheterization for 3 days?
366497
Let me guess...you're a lawyer or paralegal.  Okay, I'll humor you... One thing that can delay a catheterizaion is a concommitant condition that would put the patient at risk of adverse reaction or death.  Although you do not mention his troponin I level (which is more specific for cardiac muscle than CPK), this is clearly a myocardial infarction (STEMI), and the patient likely needs a cath.  Some cardiologists are hesitant to cath a patient who has recently received thrombolytics such as tPA or TNK, but there are clinical trials of patients being cathed very soon after receiving thrombolytics.  It also depends on whether the hospital where he was treated is able to perform an "interventional catheterization".  If not, they would only be able to visualize the arteries.  If they found a blockage, they would need to ship the patient to another hospital to perform the angioplasty or open heart surgery.  Hope this helps.
1098099
First I would ask for an echocardiogram with & without saline (water bubbles); this will show any & hopefully all holes in your heart. I had it done & they found I was missing a chamber and had holes on the opposite side of my heart which required them to "cath" my heart. They make a small slice in the groin area & go through a main artery in your leg up to your heart. I'm only 5' & 100 lbs & they couldn't knock me out with morphine (I watched the entire procedure & ticked off my cardiologist -lol). My personal opinion would be 1. ask questions, make a list if you have to, 2. check out the surgeons & their history, & 3. if they are as good as they check out to be the procedure will be a cakewalk for you. I was 38 when they found all of this & now I'm 43 and alive to see my baby (23) get married this coming August to a wonderful young lady. My Dad had 2 triple arterial bypasses & he lost a leg in Korea and God bless him, he'll be 79 this July. Yes, I had a good role model but it is normal to get upset when a Dr mentions a prob w/the heart & that you have to face surgery. I now know how a lobster feels having its chest cracked but thorasic & cardiac surgery is so advanced that I can promise you that you'll be fine. Try to keep a positive attitude and have faith; they told me after 3 days that if I could walk up & down a flight of stairs 4 times, I could go home..........I bolted & got my boney butt outta that hospital & back into my own home in no time. My thoughts & prayers are with you (Navy brat here) but above all : keep the faith.\nBeth
248164
As chslaw said, the laws on the subject vary between states, and you didn't say what state you want to know this about.\n\nIn California, there's no "time limit" per se.  There is a rebuttable presumption that deals with a three hour time limit, but there's no actual law that says blood must be drawn within a certain amount of time.
522710
wait another 5 days if it s not come take a pregnacy test.but taking postinor cause this efect
678222
A trip to the Doc will help in more ways than one. Especially if its been a while since you were at the Doc last. maybe your leftside tube is blocked, cause you should have pain on both sides at one time or another. Or chaos if you have PMS on top of that.
920417
How much time elapsed? What else was going on during this time period? What proof do you have that the cancer spread during this time period? These are some questions to consider. \n\nA delay in treatment in the order of a few weeks to even a month is not out of the ordinary. You say "suspected Stage III", perhaps staging was going on during this time including scans. You need to know what stage the cancer is before you can determine what chemo regimen to use on someone. Also, I don't know how old the patient is, but was the doctor trying to get testing done on the heart and lungs to be sure they were strong enough to take the chemo? All of this info is quite necessary to safely treat someone or else the physician could be found negligent if something bad happened to the patient.
421556
As long as your doctor tells you to wait.
975227
You can ask the doctor to try the stent/ angioplasty procedure in both legs instead of just the left.
207506
Usually when the reperfussion of the clotted area happens and this can be within the first hour....and sometimes minutes after Retrovase or TPA is started, (clot busters), there will be an arrythmia of several PVCs in a row.  It always makes me catch my breath a bit when I see this run of PVCs.  So far, everytime I've seen this, the irregularity corrects it's self...WHEW!!  Usually within the next 24 hours the person is sent to cath lab for a cardiac cath and depending on what is found and the history of past medical intervention(s)(past by-pass surgery for instance) for cardiac problems, a decision is made to do a by-pass or put in a stent.
150030
The law is they cant ask you if you are absent for less 3 days. You say I am sick - and they cant ask you what is it - or they would be violating the law (your privacy).\n\nMore than 3 days - they can ask you to submit a letter / note from a doctor. \n\n1) They cannot directly contact your doctor without your permission.\n2) They must comply and maintain the privacy of your illness (from coworkers, etc) if your make a request.
146032
You mention that you have seen several doctors and had several tests, but have you been to a Electrophysiologist ? This is a cardiologist who only specializes in diseases and disorders relating to arithmia's.While there may be several causes to your symptoms sometimes the only way to find out difinitavly what may be causing these fluxuations in your heart rate are two tests,one is what they simply call a tilt table test.simply put they strap you down to a table (only so you won't fall) and they monitor your vitals laying completly flat and start to tilt the table both forward and backwards (as if they were tipping you up side down)this is often done when your sypmtoms are caused when you go from sitting to standing.this could be caused also by a sudden drop in blood pressure from standing,the other test is is a Electrophysiology (E.P. Study)\nThe procedure involves inserting a catheter – a narrow, flexible tube – attached to electricitymonitoring electrodes, into a blood vessel, often through a site in the groin or neck, and winding the catheter wire up into the heart. The journey from entry point to heart muscle is navigated by images created by a fluoroscope, an x-ray-like machine that provides continuous, “live” images of the catheter and heart muscle. Once the catheter reaches the heart, electrodes at its tip gather data and a variety of electrical measurements are made. These data pinpoint the location of the faulty electrical site. During this “electrical mapping,” the cardiac arrhythmia specialist, an electrophysiologist, may instigate, through pacing (the use of tiny electrical impulses), some of the very arrhythmias that are the crux of the problem. The events are safe, given the range of experts and resources close at hand and are necessary to ensure the precise location of the problematic tissue.\n\nOnce the damaged site or sites are confirmed, the specialist may administer different medications or electrical impulses to determine their ability to halt the arrhythmia and restore normal heart rhythm. Based on this data, as well as information garnered before the study, sometimes the specialist will proceed to place an implantable cardioverter device (ICD) or a pacemaker or will perform radiofrequency ablation. In any case, the information proves useful for diagnosis and treatment.\n\nThroughout the procedure, the patient is sedated but awake and remains still. Patients rarely report pain, more often describing what they feel as discomfort. Some watch the procedure on monitors and occasionally ask questions. Others sleep. The procedure usually takes about two hours. The patient remains still for four to six hours afterward to ensure the entry point incision begins to heal properly. Once mobile again, patients may feel stiff and achy from lying still for hours. \n\nI have several arythmia disorders that i was born with and have been through these tests litterally over 50 times in my life,and while it may sound scary and painful it isn't ,you will receive sedation and pain medicine.Plus the info they can learn from these procedures in some instances can be life saving.Now i'm not saying you may have something life threatning.it may very well be something as simple as anxiety related but if it is bothersome enough that it scares you as much as it seems to i think i would see one of these doctors just to be on the safe side.
623128
It has that as a possibility if taken over a long peroid of time.  Most rx's are for 5 days which usually doesn't cause a problem.
509409
In the past 2 weeks alone, I have caught 4 mistakes by my husband's doctors during his pre-operative physicals, testing, and normal prescriptions.  They forgot to tell him to quit taking blood thinners a week in advance of the surgery (he could have had excessive bleeding during the surgery).  They prescribed the wrong medication (he could have had severe reaction to the change in medication, that would have likely been blamed on the response to anesthesia).  They through out a urine sample prior to culturing it without telling us.  I discovered this when I asked for the results of the testing and reviewed it myself.  They forgot to tell us that he needed blood work and an EKG prior to surgery (he could have had a condition underlying that would have caused complications during the surgery).  It is horrifying how many mistakes doctors make.  In their attempts to help us they can often poison or hurt us more.  I find this mysterious since, unless I would have not reviewed all of the pre-op requirements independently and questioned them, they would have blamed the complications on the surgery rather than on their mistakes.  You here about doctors accidently amputating the wrong limb?  Well the reason that is so publicized is because it is a mistake made by doctors that is apparent after it occurs.  On a daily basis, hospitals and doctors prescribe the wrong medications, medications with severe interactions with each other in combination, etc.  Be ever vigilant.
414485
Could be risky.  You had better ask your doctor to be sure.
853203
In looking into your inquiry, it turns out that a very rare complication can be artery perforation and resulting cardiac tamponade.  I located a study from back in the 90's about this complication.  Here is some background information that will help you gain perspective on the whole matter.\n\nDuring the 3-year study period, a total of 15 patients had cardiac tamponade during or within 36 hours after 6999 coronary interventions, yielding an incidence of 0.21%. No cases of tamponade occurred among 14,927 patients undergoing diagnostic catheterizations during the same period.\n\nThe diagnosis of tamponade was usually confirmed by echocardiography, with the exception of 1 patient who had hypotension and tamponade physiology while in the laboratory. Fluoroscopy revealed immobile heart borders, and pericardiocentesis was performed immediately without prior echocardiography, with rapid restoration of normal blood pressure. The echocardiogram was performed within 30 minutes of onset of hypotension in 9 of 15 cases, and in all, within 2 hours.\n\nThe clinical circumstances leading to emergency echocardiography and therapy varied, but with a common theme of hypotension. The 6 patients who had tamponade in the catheterization laboratory were immediately recognized on the basis of sudden profound hypotension and (in the 4 coronary artery cases) by obvious contrast extravasation. Of the 9 patients with delayed tamponade, 8 had unexplained hypotension. Four of these also had chest pain, 3 had dizziness, and 2 had severe bradycardia. Only 2 patients had asymptomatic hypotension.\n\nTreatment was surgical in 9 (60%) of 15 patients. These patients had various indications. In 1 patient, tamponade was not suspected until the chest was opened for emergency coronary bypass graft surgery. In 5 patients, pericardiocentesis was not successful in controlling the bleeding, whereas in the remaining 3 patients, pericardiocentesis was not attempted.\n\nThe mean time from surgical consultation to arrival in the operating room was 1 hour. Four patients had surgery as the primary treatment, whereas 5 had a percutaneous pericardial drain placed but required surgery for continued active bleeding. Six (40%) patients responded well to conservative treatment with pericardiocentesis alone. In cases of coronary perforation, prolonged balloon inflations, often with the use of perfusion balloons, usually were used to achieve hemostasis or as a temporizing measure before pericardiocentesis.\n\nHere is a case of having cardiac tamponade/pericarditis incidental to the procedure.  Two problems not necessarily related to each other.  Infectious complications of coronary angioplasty and stenting are uncommon. A 70-year-old man is presented who underwent percutaneuous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) and stenting of an occluded left anterior descending artery. This was complicated by Staphylococcus aureus pericarditis with tamponade. He was successfully treated with a closed drainage and antibiotics. This is the first reported case in the literature that documents purulent pericarditis and tamponade following percutaneous revascularization.\n\nBacterial pericarditis is very unlikely but then your whole experience has been very unlikely.  See the attached link to learn more about pericarditis, which is what you are currently suffering from.  As you will see viruses and inflammatory diseases can also account for this presentation too.  \n\nhttp://www.emedicine.com/med/topic1781.htm\n\nSo now that I have done all of this footwork for you...two questions:  1)  Why couldn't you look this up yourself?  2)  Why didn't you select a best answer on your last question about this matter?
422877
3 days in a urine sample, other tests can detect longer (blood, hair)
1013603
You need to talk to your doctor fast.