Jon R. Sherman, M.D.

You should certainly be evaluated by your cardiologist.

First obtain an echocardiogram and complete pulmonary function tests (PFTs). You may or may not need a stress test, but you need immediate weight loss. Meet with a nutritionist and start a medically supervised weight loss program. You may benefit from the new injectable GIP/GLP-1 agonist medications.

You have hypertension and untreated hypercholesterolemia, with admittedly a poor diet and you have significant stress so there are certainly cardiac risk factors here. While your symptoms are only intermittently associated with physical exertion, its not unreasonable to screen you with a stress test, particularly since going to the gym would likely have aggravated musculoskeletal pain and it didnt seem to do so. You have both typical and atypical features of your symptoms, so further evaluation should help provide you piece of mind if not an early diagnosis.

While its not uncommon for an elderly person to feel some discomfort and a bit weak after even a small surgical procedure, it depends in part on their condition prior to surgery. If you feel she is weaker than prior to surgery, and certainly if her speech is slurred but wasnt slurred at all prior to surgery, your worry about her may be well founded. You should consider taking her to the ER or her PCP for evaluation and if they concur with your concern then she may have had a perioperative stroke. Its a week later so she should be recovering by now. If not, she may need diagnostic imaging and assistance with rehabilitation.

Yes, often medications can be helpful in treating arrhythmias. It would be appropriate to discuss this with a cardiologist.