OUR JOURNEYS

Patient story

Barbara Howard

November 17, 2008

I am living with Pulmonary Hypertension.

In Dec 2004, I was admitted to the hospital, On an echo cardiogram it showed that I had mild Ph, I was not told about this, nor did I know. In August 2005, I started going to the Dr's with SOB, chest pain, and they assumed I did not want to work, so I was put on allergy shots. In September 2006 I had been to a cardiologist, three primary care dr's and two nurse practitioners, I was desperate to find out my problem, I had a stress test done and told it was negative.

I walked into the dr's office and I told him, in Nov 2006 that I could not breathe, could not walk, I was in really bad shape, he wrote me a prescription for a nerve pill, handed it to me and told me to be sure and take it everyday. I never took a one of them. I made it through the holidays that year and decided that maybe it was my nerves and I should have taken that pill after all.

At the end of Feb 2007, I went back to the dr's ofice because I felt like I was passing out, I was having severe stomach pain, mild chest pain, nausea, so he admitted me to the hospital again.

I had lots of test done and I was tired so I feel asleep, I woke up and there were 3 cardiologist, a pulmonologist, and a medical dr standing all around me, I thought I must have died. Then I was told the news and I was sent to a Pulmonary Dr in Lexington, ky, he was so good to me. I was put on Revatio after he did a heart cath, and my pressures dropped from 95 to below 30 now.

I just recently started taking Letairis 5 mg once a day along with the Revatio.

I am feeling much better now health wise, although I am not happy with the illness, I do pray for a miracle cure someday.