Death By Bra - Pt. 2

Trying to find answers

This is the second part of a three-part case study.

In the aftermath of the cardiac event on the highway, I could lie on the couch and will my heart to remain calm, but too much pressure or exercise was stressful, causing a heaviness that threatened to seize. Bras were completely out since they compressed my chest and, presumably, limited oxygen. Sometimes I could doze on the couch, which held my body in a slanted position, but, at night, when I lay flat on my back, my heart slowly crushed. I could sleep lying on my side, but, even so, every night at about 2am, I’d slam out of bed in a panic, feeling as if my heart had completely stopped. One night, Charles lay awake watching me and confirmed that my breathing was, in fact, stopping. 

My father had terrible sleep apnea. The sleep center he finally visited told him it was the worst case they’d ever seen and provided him with a succession of CPAP machines over the years. Now that he was dying, he often forgot to wear it at night and this seriously compromised the sleep that he so desperately needed. Over the years, my awareness of my own sleep apnea had been growing, apparently worsening as age loosened the skin in my pharynx and blocked my breathing. But post-heart attack, my sleep apnea was revealed as being much more dangerous than gentle snoring.    

Luckily, my dad gave me one of his old CPAP machines. This was such a boon, since they can cost over one thousand dollars—not to mention the peace of mind it provided. But, like many mainstream medical interventions, it only palliated my symptoms instead of solving the underlying problem. 

Since mouth-breathing is closely associated with sleep apnea, Linda encouraged me to listen to Breathe, a bestseller by journalist James Nestor about the horrors of letting your jaw hang open, including dental problems, poor posture, facial changes, and high blood pressure. I turned off the CPAP to give ‘mouth taping’ a try, and found that my right nostril had severely limited air flow. When I told Linda about it, she asked, “Want me to run a nasal structure vial?” And, bingo presto, I could breathe through that side. 

My day-time grogginess improved as soon as I began mouth taping, presumably improving my blood oxygenation, but my heart was still stopping every night around 2am—and preventing my returning to sleep. So my overall exhaustion mounted. What would happen if I simply didn’t have enough energy to maintain my rigorous and mindful breathing? I did not want to end up in the hospital, which I feared would only complicate my situation. I did make an appointment with my MD, but it was for weeks out, and, when I was finally able to see him, he agreed that I’d probably had a heart attack, but felt like I was already doing everything I could for it.

Meanwhile, since I had a lot of time on the couch and couldn’t move around much, I did some research. I’d previously read Thomas Cowan’s book, Human Heart, Cosmic Heart, but now I revisited the renegade MD’s ideas through his podcast appearances. Cowan’s contention (and Rudolph Steiner’s) is that the heart is not a pump. This perception stems in part from the mathematical calculation of the amount of energy needed to push viscous blood through every capillary—it’s many times more than the heart could supply. Instead, Cowan believes that the blood is pulled through the body thanks to the positive and negative charges between the water molecules in the blood and the vessel walls, making the heart more of a catcher or regulator of blood flow. Furthermore, he contends that heart attacks aren’t due to cholesterol blockages (he cites some interesting studies to prove this), but lactic acidosis, which occurs in anaerobic conditions.

A tight bra could certainly lower oxygen to the heart, as could stress. Cowan’s contention also accounts for the efficacy of my breathing technique, which presumably promoted blood oxygenation. It could also explain why keeping my attention away from my heart was so helpful, since paying attention to my heart sent its rate up, via vagus nerve stimulation, which in turn raised its consumption of oxygen, triggering that horrible seizing feeling.

I also educated myself on the German New Medicine view of my issues. Interestingly, the GNM folks link sleep apnea to heart attack, thinking of it as recurrent small heart attacks. And one major cause of heart attack they believe is ‘overwhelm.’ In an experience I took as confirmatory, I encountered dirty dishes in the kitchen sink one day. Looking at them, I thought, “I don’t have the energy to clean those,” and wondered what to do. Leaving them there felt lame, like I could contribute to the betterment of our environment, but wouldn’t. But cleaning them also felt insurmountable, something I simply didn’t have the energy for. When I started to clean the dishes anyway, using willpower to push aside the limits of my body, my heart began seizing. 

Forcing myself beyond my capacity, I realized, is what I’d been doing for many years. I’d even prided myself on how much I could persevere and get things done. The situation with my father was a case in point: Early on, I’d realized that I was probably putting too much energy into treating him, but I’d pushed back on my own warning signals, telling myself, “Of course I’ll give my life force for my dad!” Now I could see what a dangerous bargain that had been. 

Following the Traditional Chinese Medicine paradigm, we might consider the willpower to push past overwhelm and stress as ‘Heart Qi.’ Finding reserves beyond our capacity is, after all, the quality that we see in athletes whom we say ‘have heart.’ In fact, bodybuilders, whose job it is to regularly lift past their capacity suffer heart attacks at a greater rate than other athletes. So while it’s necessary to be able to call on the heart’s will and reserves occasionally, the cost can be high if this becomes a pattern. 

Bodybuilders have a higher rate of heart attacks than the general population

This realization made me wonder which reserves might be depleted by routinely overtaxing Heart Qi and which I could supplement. I considered neurotransmitters, nitric oxide, and beets. At that time, I tested well for a neurotransmitter blend, which I began taking, and beets, which contain precursors for nitric oxide, but did not test well for nitric oxide supplement. I also tested well for and began to take a Classical Chinese formula called Tian Wang Bu Xin Dan.

Somewhat miraculously, I had, a week before the heart attack, happened to order the supplement that Dr. Cowan recommends to reverse cardiac damage, Strophanthus, also known as Ouabain. It’s so effective that it used to be given intravenously in the hospital to patients presenting with heart attack, a therapy that has since been abandoned for inscrutable reasons. I tested both the capsule and spagyric version and found the latter to be right for me; it’s the only supplement I still take regularly.

With Linda’s encouragement, I also considered the role that perimenopause might be playing in my situation. Other than noting a distinct uptick in heart attacks in women at menopause, there’s not much literature on the link between the two. But I’d also had my panels run a couple of weeks before my heart attack and found myself to be low only in testosterone, which can be depleted by cortisol, which is to say ‘stress.’ In an effort to counteract the massive amounts of stress I was still experiencing, I began supplementing with progesterone, which buffers cortisol, at night. This proved crucial in the first few weeks of my experience, when my stress was highest, but then seemed to worsen my menopausal symptoms.   

It was impossible to ignore the role that synchronicity was playing in my situation. I just happened to have the necessary supplements on hand; I had 24-hour access to miracle-level healers; My husband, who often travels, was home to take care of our son; and I had scheduled an IMT appointment with one of my favorite healers a month before all this happened, so that I was able to get in to see her within a week of the heart attack. I felt as if I were being divinely supported, which is to say initiated. Perhaps my life would radically change, but my faith grew that, even if that were true, I could still emerge from the whole process better than before…