About 4 weeks ago, I had terrible sharp pains in left pectoral area accompanied with numbness in my left arm and hand. These pains did not subside after about 10 minutes, so i told my wife to get ready to take me to the ER. I had been having some short stabbing pains in my chest over the previous 2 - 3 weeks accompanied at times by dizziness. The pains finally began to subside after about 15 - 20 minutes, so I stayed home. My wife essentially made me call my oncologist and he immediately referred me to a cardiologist at Mayo. Over the past few weeks, I have had 2 EKG's, wore a heart holter for 24 hours, had some blood work done, and echocardiogram and finally a nuclear stress test (nuclear because they inject dye at rest and at target heart e=rate then take xrays to reveal ischemia. Long story short, I met with my cardiologist yesterday and he said that I don't need a cardiologist. Other than a few premature atrial contractions, which he said are totally benign and which I have known about for years, everything else was close to perfect. In fact I scored 17.5 METS on the stress test versus an average of 11 for 60 - 70 year olds (I am 65), which puts me in the same league as a very heart healthy 30 year old. He guessed that my symptoms were either musculoskeletal or neuropathy and likely cause by the TKI.
I am obviously thrilled with these results since Tasigna (my TKI of choice) is known to cause cardiovascular problems. But I am also frustrated because here is yet another potential side effect from Tasigna. I have not had any recurrence of this since the episode 4 weeks ago. Has anyone here ever experienced this type of side effect? If so, is there anything that can be done to prevent it from recurring? Thanks
