Just want to say that your bellybutton is adorable. Would you mind if I asked for a close up photo of it?

I'm flattered that you like my belly button, but I'm also super self-conscious about that specific part of my body—to the point where it's basically a massive turn-off for me. So, I won't be sharing photos focused on it, sorry.

Summer greetings from me and director/camera man @heartymcheartface! It's not super visible & there's no sound, but I like the unusual angle and the holiday vibe! 😎🍓🍓🍓☀️

(Slightly belated) Happy New Year to all fellow cardiophiles from @luxcardia and @heartymcheartface, and may your 2023 be cuddly, kinky, or both, according to your preferences! 🤗🩺💕

My Mitral Panic

AKA LC’s Adventures in Cardiology

When I decided to stop lurking and start sharing cardiophile content, I always had this fear at the back of my mind: what if someone catches something abnormal in my recordings? For most of my life, I’ve struggled with health anxiety and hypochondria, so this worry was a natural extension of that.

When I got my Littmann, I could hear my heart much better than with my previous cheap steth, and started noticing new things. I’d already been thinking I had an extra sound, especially when lying down, but now it was much more distinct. Occasionally, I thought I could also hear a murmur, although it was so inconsistent, I figured it might just be my ears playing tricks on me. I studied auscultation guides trying to figure this out, but didn’t find anything that fit. In the end, the solution came from a fellow cardiophile with good ears and more knowledge. He said that the extra sound is most likely a mid-systolic click, which would mean mitral valve prolapse (MVP). Instantly, the pattern of my abnormal heart sounds made sense: a murmur that becomes more noticeable when going from lying down to standing up is common in MVP, and that was exactly what I was hearing.

I know there are plenty of others here who also have MVP, and it’s very common and nearly always benign. But I also learned from various publications and websites that it’s not always harmless - in some unlucky few, it can lead to severe mitral regurgitation that requires valve surgery. With my background of health anxiety, I got very worried about all this. Listening to my heart, which has always been a major turn-on for me, turned into something distressing, because all I could hear were these abnormalities. Occasional skips, which I’ve always had and are almost certainly harmless PVCs, also started to bother me in a way they never had before.

There was only one solution to this situation, and I knew it: I’d have to go and see an actual medical doctor, to find out what was going on with my heart and get some peace of mind.

Of course, seeing a cardiologist was a terrifying idea to me. The mix of excitement/arousal and anxiety/fear in these situations makes them really really difficult. After putting it off for many months, I finally somehow managed to gather up the courage and book an appointment with a cardiologist. Since it didn’t seem like a good idea to explain that some random online person had diagnosed me with MVP, I rather went to the appointment on the pretense of other concerns, such as the palpitations.

The first appointment started with a “resting” ECG, pulse ox and blood pressure from both arms, taken by a very professional and not very talkative nurse. Resting in quotes, because my heart rate was around 100, while normally it’s around 60 at rest, and my BP was something like 160/100, also very much higher than what I see at home. Then, I met the doctor. I was expecting him to auscultate me, but he didn’t do that at all - instead, he guided me to the room next doors for an echocardiogram! I’d never had an echo before, so this was pretty exciting, although the positive excitement was toned down by my fear of what he might find. The doctor had me lie down on my left side and pressed the probe to my chest, and there it was: my beating heart, projected on a big screen where I could easily see it! The doctor was very nice, and kept pointing out details to me - what valves are on the screen and so on. He also commented on how high my heart rate was at the start. Somehow, I was able to relax a little as he kept going, and then he commented on that as well, saying that clearly I’m less afraid now, because it was down to 80. I tried not to focus on his words too much, because the were really quite hot to me…

Finally, after looking at many angles and using the doppler mode as well, the doctor noted that my mitral valve seems to be prolapsing ever so slightly, which is causing a tiny bit of regurgitation. He even showed me the images where it’s visible. I feigned that I didn’t know what it meant, but inside, I was extremely relieved. It was the best possible outcome: I got the explanation for the extra sounds that I was expecting, and at the least serious grade possible. In his statement, he marked the amount of prolapse as 2 mm, when according to various sources >2 mm is the limit of what counts as prolapse. The regurgitation was also trivial, below what even counts as mild. Aside from this, everything else was perfectly fine, all measures were normal, ejection fraction was good, no structural abnormalities. I was incredibly happy to hear all this!

Even though my mitral panic was over, my cardiological adventures didn’t end quite yet. There was also the question of those palpitations, not to mention the high BP readings. This cardiologist was very thorough, and decided that the best way to get to the bottom of this was doing 24h Holter for both BP and ECG. When I went to get the devices set up, I was thinking this would be interesting and kind of exciting, but it turned out to be a complete nightmare. Taking the bus home, I was super self-conscious, because the weather was hot, and the bulky wiring was impossible to hide under a t-shirt, not to mention that the BP cuff was in plain sight. I’ve also always been concerned about having hypertension, and this became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Every time the cuff started to inflate around my arm, I freaked out. I tested a few times with my home monitor on the other arm, and the values were constantly high. At night, I couldn’t sleep, because the measurement went off every half hour. Funnily enough, the BP cuff was messing with my head so badly that I kept forgetting I also had the ECG electrodes on. They were itchy, and I would just unthinkingly start scratching at them until I remembered what they were and that I shouldn’t touch them.

The 24 hours that I had to wear the Holters felt like an absolute eternity, and I was so relieved when I could go back to the doctor’s office and get rid of that horrible BP cuff. As for the results - I was prepared to get a lecture about how my BP is too high and I have to do something about it. Really, I was trying to mentally prepare for a prescription for antihypertensive medication. Instead, the doctor - probably factoring in my explanation of how desperately uncomfortable and nervous I was this whole time - just declared that he doesn’t think I have a problem, and I could stop worrying so much. The ECG didn’t have anything too unusual in it, either. I saw the printout mentioned some PVCs, but apparently such a low amount that it wasn’t meaningful, as he didn’t even bring them up.

So, here we are: my heart has gone through the most extensive testing in my life so far, and the conclusion was that it’s perfectly fine! As a bonus, the very mild MVP does give me an excuse to ask for repeat echos later, if I’m brave enough… I sure would love to have another one of those, it was amazing to see my heart on the screen with the doctor describing all the details! One thing is for sure, though: I never, ever want to experience a BP Holter again! Cannot recommend that experience, 0/5.

I mentioned some time ago in an ask reply that I’ve been having some anxiety related to our favorite organ... I’ve now finally had quite thorough tests done, as you can see! This was partly exciting, partly really sucked. In the end, turns out everything is OK.

I might write a longer post about this experience at some point, but for now, just letting you know I’m still around, and super relieved and happy that I can enjoy my #1 kink again without constant worry! 🥰

which would you prefer to take you out Heart Attack Full Cardiac Arrest how would you want to be gone in minutes guess how many defibrillations you'd need to re-start your 30+ year old Heart yes no on having intracardiac injections. what will say once you've been resuscitated successfully and are conscious.

I don't know if you're the same person who already previously sent me a similar ask, but please stop, okay?

Not everyone who is a cardiophile is into darker stuff and resus. I'm not, especially not if it's about me. The fact that I haven't posted anything like that should give you a clue.

More than that, I've recently been going through some heart-related anxiety that is messing with my enjoyment of the whole kink. That's why I haven't posted anything in ages. Maybe I will get over this and post about it some time. Let's see. Anyway, I really, truly do not want to imagine myself in cardiac arrest or anything like that.

So, again, please don't send me asks like this.

Hi ! What is your favorite pulse point ?

For someone feeling my pulse: I've got to say carotid - there's just some kind of special intimacy to having someone's fingers on my neck!

For me feeling someone else's: very specific answer, it's this 😄

Eagerly waiting to feel that again soon! 😁😙

Eager fingers palpating my pulse.

I got this chest strap for running, but it’s also a pretty nice accessory otherwise, right? 😁

Something for those who are into BP measurements! First take with stethoscope on the chest, second trying to capture the Korotkoff sounds, with some success.

(No, these are not representative values for me, although I tend to be in the prehypertensive range. This was very much not a medically valid measurement, which they tell you to take at rest 😅)

So apparently my videos are not showing in @heartymcheartface‘s feed, and some of his stuff is not in mine. Is this shadowbanning? Tumblr being tumblr? Idk. Reblogging to signal boost this one, because it’s great, and also because he has the awesomest visible pulse, I really like that spot 😁🤩

I finally bought a simple phone stand/light thingy, so that I can record videos without having to hold my phone, and this is awesome. Here, from my first experiments: look closely, and you can see some visible beats 😍 Exciting!

Not exactly fulfilling this ask, but I was trying to record my currently surprisingly slow resting heart rate, and my gut refused to be quiet. So, here are some slow beats and belly noises, in case someone is interested in such.

Do you ever wear a lab coat or nurse uniform?

I've never worn or even owned a nurse uniform/costume. I used to have a lab coat, but gave it away as it was a bit small, and a friend needed it for actual lab work. Maybe I should buy one, or both 🤔 What do you think, people? If just one, which of the two should I go for?

Can you do a live blood pressure measurement?

I also had some people ask about BP in the comments for the latest photos, and, well, hmm. I can try, maybe, at some point? I don't have a classic manual setup for this, just an automatic one, though. Do people find that worth watching?

BP is a weird one for me, as my genes put me at high risk for hypertension, which means that measuring it is in this strange spot between "exciting" and "anxiety-inducing", and the values I get are always too high...

BELLY movement and belly sound please

This isn't really my thing (and I'm quite self-conscious about my belly not being super flat with washboard abs). Belly sounds are also a bit tricky to record because they come and go. Maybe some time later. Not promising anything yet.

For the anon who wanted some new pics with the Littmann: here you go!

Second one has some additional monitoring going on - the photo is not sharp enough to read the pulse ox screen, but the heart rate says 106 - I may have been just a little bit excited 😁