positive bad news?

Another episode last evening. I was changing into some lounge pajama pants for the evening's TV fare and in so doing felt my let-down reflex occur. That is, all of a sudden my body just relaxed. Almost immediately my heart kicked into high gear. The first reading showed 160 bpm. I did several val salva maneuvers to little effect. Then Jan tried lifting my legs straight up from a prone position while I bore down. Still no change. Readings around 174. Oxygen levels still good. So I tried sitting on the toilet--fully clothed--since that is the position we are almost all in when we val salva every day. Instant conversion! HR dropped into the low 100s and then into the 90s. Yahoo! So, the bad news is the recurrence. The good news is that I (we) were able to stop it from continuing and thereby avoided another ER journey. It may be notable that these incidents are seemingly related to the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. They usually start when I am relaxing in the evening. Perhaps the inhibitory nature of the sympathetic nervous system which keeps one alert and humming prevents the heart from speeding too much? For example, I have yet to have a tachycardia episode during a workout. They always occur sometime later when I am not active.

I was told by the last ER doc not to exert and Friday I was good--hung out, showered, puttered a bit, practiced, read--a nice day. And nothing happened, but then I have, to this point, not had these as a daily occurrence. Yesterday, I stepped it up a little, very little I thought. A local concern had a warehouse sale of linens they manufacture. Included were their gel foam beds. We bought a bunch of stuff that was knocked down 70% to make way for new product lines: a queen mattress, pad, frame, sheets, pillow cases, etc. Since these were all beautifully boxed they could just fit them into the Mazda. We drove directly to the storage unit and schlepped the boxes into it. We shared each box and even scooted one of them. It was really very little exertion. I hope this level of involvement is not too much for me henceforth since it will make me a virtual invalid. But--see above--the inevitable seemed to follow.

On the way to SLC today to begin the med rounds tomorrow a.m.