Eczema_Sufferer

Hello, A little while back I became really sick & ended up with an infection on my tricuspid valve. The infection was a growth(?) about a quarter inch diameter. I also had septicemia & a pulmonary emboli. Treatment ended up being Vancomycin. As the "growth" died it scarred the lung tissue causing extreme difficulty breathing at one point.

Q1) Why did everyone think I was an IV drug user?

Q2) Why did the cardiologist decide not to replace the valve?

Background - 35 yo Male. Never smoked, never taken any kind of illegal drugs (smoking or IV). Minimal alcohol consumption (3-4 drinks 4 or 5 times a year). Suffers eczema, asthma. Allergic to penicillin. Long term user of prednisone/prednisolone (30 mg daily) to treat eczema. I'm in Australia if that makes any difference.

Thanks. It was really soul destroying to be treated like crap by doctors & nurses alike. The behaviour seemed to ease off once they got to know me (I was in hospital for about 5 weeks).

Q1) Once I said I didn't use drugs why couldn't/wasn't that verified via blood tests or something similar. I remember they were taking blood daily every 4 hours for a while.

What's the biggest change a person can make to improve their cardiovascular health?

Also, super awesome that you didn't need a valve replacement!!

The team of cardiologists said that I had a healthy heart for someone my age as I hadn't ever smoked so a valve replacement wasn't necessary. They also said the surgery may introduce unnecessary trauma or words to that effect (I may be misquoting here but this all happened a bit over 4 years ago).

Around week 2 or 3 the continued & consistently high usage of prenisone was identified as a key probable contributor. I stopped taking it & that significantly changed my life, both positively & negatively.

Positive - Less hot flushes, less anger. Less susceptible to Staph infections.

Negative - Taking it in high doses kind of acted like an anesthetic in terms of not really feeling when my skin was really bad/bleeding in my clothes. It meant I could work normally in a suit & have a limited social life. Not taking it means everything is at the mercy of whether or not I can wear work type attire for the next 8 or 9 hours. Going out is now relatively non existent. Hot sunny day? Staying in. Weather over 24 degrees? Staying in. Likely to perspire? Staying in. Been in that cloth covered chair for more than 20 mins? Get up to cool skin on back (or sit on timber chair).