Survived the stress test!

[ghostjmf]

No foolin'. I wasn't the least bit afraid of this until I read their printout saying that one of the risks, though "very rare", could be death.

From running on a treadmill? Huh? Are they dying like flies in those gyms I don't go anywhere near?

My brother, after his heart attack which turned out to be "from no apparent cause" other than a lot of uncharacteristic heavy lifting (he was moving, & got paranoid about leaving stuff in the car overnight); no arteries were sufficiently clogged, etc, had a stress test they they did have to stop because of unusual heart rhythms showing up.

They did, actually, manage to scare me. I had pictures of me saying "oh please stop I can't take any more". Unlike being locked in an MRI machine, where I basically did want to say that, this was a breeze.

Now, maybe they saw something awful & stopped it themselves, without announcement; I guess I'll know when I get my doctor's letter. But for me there were only 2 speeds, what they claimed was a 2-mile/hour speed, which is utter crap; I walk the 2 miles home in 40 minutes if I'm going "normal" & 1/2 hour if I really really book it, & I'm going nowhere near as fast as I was on the treadmill at any time during the 40 minute walk. It felt more like 4 miles/hour or worse. And yes, part of the walk home is uphill.

They didn't tell me what the higher speed, paired with the increased incline, was; they just kept warning me 'til they hit it, & the warnings scared me, but the actual speed was a piece of cake; it was actually easier for me to keep in time with the treadmill during that part than at the slower speed.


So I get back to work & my boss asks "so what about the 3rd speed" & I said "there was none". Now I don't know if they turned me off to avoid resuscitation being needed, or that when my boss had the test, the testers just made my boss go "even faster" 'cause they weren't getting desired readings at the lower speeds. They did have me continue at the 2nd speed until they got some heart rate they were aiming at, telling me things like "you're 3 beats away" & asking me continually if I thought I could keep it up 'til I got there, which I could & did.

[geoffil]

My dad had to get a stress test before his knee replacement surgery. But because he couldn't walk or run they gave him a drug to simulate the test. That sounds scary because when you get tired, you have to wait for the drug to wear off , not just hop off the treadmill.

[ghostjmf]

My mom had the "drug stress test" some months before her major stroke. She was deemed to frail at the time (& in fact had been having mini-strokes all along) to take the the physical stress test, even though she used to be an athlete. They judged her heart as being "very strong!". Didn't prevent those blood clots, or weak arteries in the brain (we know she does have clots; she's been on coumadin for 20+ years) from doing their thing when they did, though.

And I guess its OK to tell you, now that your Dad's all through it, but my Dad died 2 days after his 2nd knee replacement. And he'd had all kinds of "heart is strong" results before going in, too. We didn't have an autopsy done but the "visual judgement" was a stroke, not a heart attack, because he didn't look like he'd been in any pain. I kind of think they should be doing stroke assessment/prevention before major surgery, not just testing the strength of the patient's heart. Not that I'm saying they should leave that out, or anything.

[geoffil]

I wonder if the drug stress test puts strain on the arteries to the brain. After my dad's surgery, he has not been the same. He used to be very quick witted, funny and talked alot. Now he is different. His conversations are shorter, not as funny and he forgets things. He also was given too much morphine after his surgery and had a bad reaction. It still bothers me that elderly people are not treated the same as younger patients.

[gsabc]

I've had one of these. The speeds are irrelevant. It's how fast your heart is going that counts. The stress on your heart is the relevant part, though you may not agree when your muscles are aching, you're panting and wheezing, and the doctor increases the incline and treadmill speed. If you're horribly out of shape and reach their desired heart rate on the lowest speed, that's fine to them. I've heard that the more conditioned athletes have trouble taking a stress test, because they can't raise their heart rates high enough.

[ne1410s]

I've heard that the more conditioned athletes have trouble taking a stress test, because they can't raise their heart rates high enough.

My time was measured in nanoseconds...

[christie1111]

When I had one after my brother's heart attack, they said the people they had the hardest trouble getting to the target heart rate were dancers.

I thought it would be marathon runners, nope.

[DadofTwins]

I don't want to scare anybody away from necessary medical care, but yes, death is a risk factor in a stress test.

It happened to me.

I was taking a physical to get my soccer referee liscence renewed, and the doctor put me on the treadmill. The first test was no problem, but he didn't trust the result. It showed a 90% blockage of the Right Coronary Artery -- the one that feeds the heart's electrical system. I don't drink, don't smoke, and had a Body Mass Index of 28.

So he sent me to a cardiologist who repeated the test.

I breezed through the running part, but as I tried to catch my breath afterward, my heart went "asystole." The part of my heart that houses the electrical system wasn't getting blood, so it quit working. For several seconds, I had no pulse and no blood pressure.

Turns out the initial diagnosis was right. I found out later that cardiologists refer to this particular blockage as the "widowmaker." Two days later, I had bypass surgery.

Seven months after that, I turned 30.

Since then, I have had the test repeated several times, both with drugs and running. I highly recommend the running test for anyone whose knees and legs can handle it. Thanks mostly to my wife, every subsequent test in the last 4 1/2 years has come back clean.

And if -- IF -- things go according to plan, a book about my experience and the lessons I've learned while getting better will come out this summer.

[ghostjmf]

One thing that got me, in addition to being asked 52 times to recite my name & DOB (often by people who apologized ahead of time; they just wanted to be sure they were testing the right person, I guess) was that they kept asking me "why I was there". I did, at one point, say "I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but didn't my doctor write something on that chart?", but they demurred to answer.

I told them what I'd been telling a succession of doctors for years, that very occasionally I have a jumpy, pounding heart beat that if I sit calmly eventually goes away. Periodically I wake up with this. Also, very occasionally, while wide awake, sitting down & for no apparent reason, I have a feeling of tightness in my chest; not pain, not shooting pains down my left arm or anything like that. Recently, after reading about microvascular disease, which I fear this could be & had recently asked the current doctor about, I take 2 aspirins during one of these episodes whether the doctors like aspirin any more or not. I've read that a couple aspirins during a heart attack can be the difference between life & death, & for the price of an aspirin I'm not taking any chances.

Sometimes this tightness does happen after eating, so theoretically it could "just be indigestion", but I'm not prone to indigestion. Allergic reactions to food that are acute cramps & diarrhea, sure, but no chest pain, vague or otherwise. Occasionally I feel "I have eaten too much", in which case I stop eating, but that isn't a feeling of pain or tightness (unless you're talking tightness of waistline). I try not to get to that point, ever, anyway. And I've read that women often are turned away & told "indigestion" when actually they are having a heart attack incited by constricted tiny vessels, instead of constricted major vessels.

I had an echocardiogram a couple years ago which said my blood flow through the major vessels was fine. But microvascular disease is about the teeny tiny vessels. Doesn't show up on a stress test, either. But once again, the medical profession is doing the "rule things out" route instead of going to directly to testing for what the symptoms indicate.

[Appa23]

I don't want to scare anybody away from necessary medical care, but yes, death is a risk factor in a stress test.

It happened to me.

I was taking a physical to get my soccer referee liscence renewed, and the doctor put me on the treadmill. The first test was no problem, but he didn't trust the result. It showed a 90% blockage of the Right Coronary Artery -- the one that feeds the heart's electrical system. I don't drink, don't smoke, and had a Body Mass Index of 28.

So he sent me to a cardiologist who repeated the test.

I breezed through the running part, but as I tried to catch my breath afterward, my heart went "asystole." The part of my heart that houses the electrical system wasn't getting blood, so it quit working. For several seconds, I had no pulse and no blood pressure.

Turns out the initial diagnosis was right. I found out later that cardiologists refer to this particular blockage as the "widowmaker." Two days later, I had bypass surgery.

Seven months after that, I turned 30.

Since then, I have had the test repeated several times, both with drugs and running. I highly recommend the running test for anyone whose knees and legs can handle it. Thanks mostly to my wife, every subsequent test in the last 4 1/2 years has come back clean.

And if -- IF -- things go according to plan, a book about my experience and the lessons I've learned while getting better will come out this summer.

While that BMI figure can be misleading, it is good to hear that you have lowered it from 28. In the past year or so, I am broken into the threshhold between normal and "overweight" .

Best of luck on the book, DoT. Maybe I should use some of your lessons. Heart issues run in my Dad's family.

[mellytu74]

ghost --

Have they ruled out gallbladder issues?

[MarleysGh0st]

One thing that got me, in addition to being asked 52 times to recite my name & DOB (often by people who apologized ahead of time; they just wanted to be sure they were testing the right person, I guess) was that they kept asking me "why I was there". I did, at one point, say "I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but didn't my doctor write something on that chart?", but they demurred to answer.

That's apparently a new hospital protocol, silly or not. MarleysDad had to go through the same repetitions at the hospital, last month. Besides double and triple-checking your identity, it verifies that you're aware of what you're there for.

[ghostjmf]

gsabc says:

I've had one of these. The speeds are irrelevant. It's how fast your heart is going that counts. The stress on your heart is the relevant part, though you may not agree when your muscles are aching, you're panting and wheezing, and the doctor increases the incline and treadmill speed. If you're horribly out of shape and reach their desired heart rate on the lowest speed, that's fine to them. I've heard that the more conditioned athletes have trouble taking a stress test, because they can't raise their heart rates high enough.

I kind of took it when they said early on "do you do a lot of this" or something like that that they were making sarcastic commentary on my severely overweight bod. I responded "not any more than I can help it!".

It may have been that my heart rate was too low, not hideously out of shape after all. I know what my blood pressure was when they took it at a high point during the test; 185 over whatever. OK, so I was pretty winded by then, seeing as how apparently it affected my brain.

After the test was over & I had sat calmly for a while, it was 155 over whatever. When they took it to get the morning baseline, it was 111/80, which is pretty darn good. In the doctor's office the previous week, it had been 145/90 when the attendant took it, then 120/80 when the doctor rechecked it. That's a good example of the "all over the place" they are worried about. The highest they've read it at was 165/over 90-something, before I was having a surgical procedure. Which worried them, but hey, just the thought of having a surgical procedure is more stressful to me than actually physically running on a treadmill, & I guess this all proves it.

It kind of worries me now that my blood pressure was up to 185 over whatever & they weren't the least bit worried; I've got to go look "exercising norms" up.

[ghostjmf]

Should I worry about gall bladder? Sometimes this stuff happens after food (chestnuts in particular, & yes, I know there's an implicit pun or something in there, but I've actually tried to research if chestnuts have any heart-affecting drugs in them; since there's a Dr. Chestnut who's a heart expert, the googling for possible toxins in chestnuts is made difficult) but most often there is no trigger, either of food or activity. I've woken up at night thinking "cat, please get off of my chest", but turns out he wasn't even in the room.

[ghostjmf]

http://www.heartsite.com/html/regular_stress.html

[mellytu74]

ghost -

A couple years ago, I had such pains in my chest and across my back that I had a stress test.

The test revealing nothing. A couple more tests showed I had a healthy heart.

A month ago, my gall bladder attack was so bad that it mimicked a mild heart attack. But, my EKG and blood gases were superlative. Again, not heart-related.

Afterward, I thought about incidents that had triggered some sort of aches, that I had attributed to stress.

Almost all of them could be traced to food, although I didn't think that at the time because they weren't "indigestion," as in a traditional tummy ache.

I follow up with the GI doc at the end of the month. I have been keeping my food diary faithfully.

[ghostjmf]

Thanks; I will ask about gall bladder as well. That would probably be easier for them to check up on than on microvascular disease, because microvascular disease requires an MRI study during which they give drugs to constrict the vasculature & then measure how quickly it snaps back; this could, of course, trigger a heart attack.

However, some of my symptoms are "pounding heart in an erratic rhythm" (usually after sleep, not stress; & nightmares are usually not involved), & I don't know how a gall bladder could trigger that.