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Reason #88—The doctor said I need to relax more so that I sleep better.

What did I not expect about wearing a holter monitor for 24 hours? How itchy it would be! The pads to attach the wires to my chest were plastic with a strong sticky back, and then they taped the wires down in other places it keep things from sliding around too much. Talk about an itch you can not scratch. When they took everything off yesterday, I just sat and scratched and rubbed my chest for a few minutes. The nurses thought it was pretty funny.

(Even today, about 24 hours later, I have a few red spots that are quite itchy. Might have been slightly allergic to something in the adhesive.)

They took the machine to a technician to print out and interpret the results. I told the nurses I had exercised in the morning before I got there, but it must not have been relayed to this guy. He came bustling out of his room, wide-eyed, asking me if I had felt palpitations, saying I needed to go on medication right away. He said my heart rate had gone up to about 180 beats per minute. I told him that I had gone jogging that morning and he stopped in mid-sentence, rolled his eyes, and went back into his little room shaking his head.

I was sorry for him, but I had made the conscious decision to run while I had the monitor on, because I was curious to see how my heart did during strenuous exercise. I'm glad I did it. I actually think 180 is a bit too high. If I remember right, "they" say you should try to reach and maintain about 150 beats per minute when working out. I will have to do a little research.

So, the main doctor looked over the results and met with us to give us his opinion. He said he didn't see any palpitations or irregularity with the heart. However, he said my sleeping heart rate did not drop much at all from my awake heart rate. That was a little unusual. He doesn't think I'm falling into a deep enough sleep. His recommendation? Don't have such a stressful life, and relax more. :-) If he can tell me how to achieve this, I'll gladly follow his advice!