# Dont be to quick to diagnose



## MedicDank (Sep 9, 2014)

I want to give yall something to think about..Since me and my wife were in high school (10 years ago) she would have moments of weakness followed by rapid breathing and would end in her passing out. Paramedics would come out and say " young, female teen must be anxiety" well 10 years later my wife was still having these same episodes but now I am a paramedic and have a better understanding of whats going on. Last August my wife had a syncopial episode in the kitchen and I was able to check her hr after she came to and told me that her chest hurt. Her hr was too fast to count and of course she was breathing fast. Paramedics were called and right away before hooking her up to lead II or checking manual pulse were "trying to coach her through a panic attack" I told them this is not a panic attack. Lead II finally applied and shows SVT at a rate of 280 bpm, right away they say " oh crap.." and they call for a engine and end up pushing ADENOSINE on her. My wife ended up having a heart ablation done to correct this. Long story short Don't just assume this is a panic attack, and keep an open mind and dont jump to diagnose someone


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## Angel (Sep 9, 2014)

so no one even did an assessment basically. a quick pulse check, especially THAT fast shouldve raised red flags. wow
at least now you finally know


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## MedicDank (Sep 9, 2014)

In the past the rate had already corrected itself by the time the assessment was done I guess cause they never found it


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## Tigger (Sep 9, 2014)

Well in fairness if she wasn't presenting with SVT, it's hard to blame them for missing it. Did she ever get evaluated for these episodes? 

Still, a reminder that to rule out other things before determining someone is "just" having a panic attack.


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## exodus (Sep 10, 2014)

Your initial coaching and assessment is based off of what your general impression is. From there you do your further diagnostic tests and change your working diagnosis based off of them. I don't think they did anything wrong.


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## MedicDank (Sep 12, 2014)

I agree with the fact that the medics most likely did the right thing since the hr had gone to normal before they assessed her but I know we have all seen it where someone labels it as ANXIETY without doing an assessment.


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