Carers’ chest pains

[Andrew_McP]

who is concerned with resolving this?

Sometimes in life there are no resolutions.

In an ideal world, extended families would rally round and support each other in any time of difficulty. In the modern world, we are wealthy enough to have become a much more isolated society, but nowhere near wealthy enough to afford the kind of paid support required to make up for that isolation. Even if we had infinite amounts of money, where do you find the army of dedicated, motivated folk to provide the care for getting on for a million folk afflicted with dementia in this country? And then all the other debilitating conditions we can manage with modern medicine?

Obviously there are lots of wonderful, employed carers out there, doing their best to help. But they are a sticking plaster on a broken society, not a plaster cast.

IMO anyway, but I always was a glass half empty kind of person and my mother's miserable experience of dementia hasn't given me an reason to change my mind. Other than for me to be thanking my lucky stars every single day that I haven't got dementia myself!

Yet.

 

[marionq]

@Andrew_McP The pattern of caring in my husbands family is interesting because his dementia and glaucoma are inherited so we have his father and grandfather to compare. His grandfather was looked after by his eldest unmarried daughter which was common. Tough on the daughter. I wonder who looked after her.

His father was looked after by a daughter in law until she rebelled and he was put in a care home. He wasn’t missed.

My daughters are all career women with families of their own and I would never let them sacrifice themselves for either of us. I like my husband and used to love him so I do what i can to give him a good life. That is only possible if I stop living the life that I would choose if I could. Hence the stress.

 

[Thethirdmrsc]

When we moved to our current house 5 yrs ago, we took the bath out, and put in a big shower. Wish I hadn’t. Because of my OH restlessness, I have sore shoulders, neck and back, brought on by tiredness and stress. A long soak would do me wonders right now!

 

[Daffy123]

Stress, fatigue and exhaustion can cause palpitations and chest pain. I’ve suffered from these issues for years and yes it is very concerning.

 

[Madchester city]

The thing is @granny G I got the height, weight, blood pressure, ECG, heart scan and blood tests and all from a top cardiologist. Who would you then go to for a second opinion? When I look up these symptoms the closest I see is that frequent stress means that chest pains don’t get the chance to recover so become regular.

So what’s the answer and how many of us have it?

If you've had an ECG and a heart scan (echo), as well as full bloods, it's very unlikely that it's something serious.

It could be costochondritis, which, when I suffered from it particularly badly, did seem to be exacerbated by stress (i.e. being a carer).

 

[marionq]

If you've had an ECG and a heart scan (echo), as well as full bloods, it's very unlikely that it's something serious.

It could be costochondritis, which, when I suffered from it particularly badly, did seem to be exacerbated by stress (i.e. being a carer).

@Madchester city I've never heard of that condition but looked it up. Nope - the description doesn’t fit. I think Daffy123 is about right - plain old stress which we all know about is probably the cause and why I’m awake instead of getting some much needed sleep.