by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
One of my blog readers needlessly suffered debilitating cardiac symptoms for a number of years before she was finally correctly diagnosed (thanks to a second opinion) with coronary microvascular disease (MVD). During those years, she’d read everything she could get her hands on in a desperate effort to solve this mystery. But when she asked her own physician if MVD might be the culprit, he dismissed this diagnostic possibility, adding that he “didn’t believe” in coronary microvascular disease.
Didn’t believe in it?!
Please note, darling readers, that we’re not talking about the Tooth Fairy here.
We’re talking about a woman living with a cardiac condition that’s been well-studied (as in, peer-reviewed studies done by respected heart researchers and published in actual real-life medical journals).
Continue reading “When you know more than your doctors about your diagnosis”
In 2005, it was estimated that for the first time in history, there are now more adults than children living with childhood heart defects. That sounds like good news to me, because it means that due to major advances in medicine over the past few decades, more than 90 per cent of babies born with congenital heart disease are now surviving into adulthood. What it also means, however, is that as these babies grow up, they need continued and careful monitoring as adult heart patients.
For the freshly-diagnosed heart patient, the immediate and sudden change from “being well” to “recovering” cuts directly to the core of self-concept and self-esteem, according to 
Heart Sisters 