7/6/2010
triathlete
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Sharpsburg, GA
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Another Day in the Life…trip to the cardiologist
My first and hopefully last stress test!
Quite interesting-(for those of you who aren’t familiar), you’re hooked up with lots of wires like an EKG, and your heart is monitored resting. Then onto the treadmill, which starts at 1% incline at 1.7 mph. Every 2 minutes both the speed and the incline increase. The goal is to get to 150-170 heart rate. I actually don’t remember what it was at when I reached that point, then I had to keep it there for a bit. I do remember saying to Dr Guest when it was done, that I would have done much better if I didn’t feel like crap! Can’t stop the perfectionist in me I guess.
He then sat down with me to look at results. Looking at the resting EKG we could see some regularly spaced beats, then some quick ones (we have known this from past tests). As my heart rate increased so did the funky beats both in frequency and “craziness”-nothing drastic-but not normal. He said the spikes are the heart pushing out blood and the “valleys” are the heart refilling. So, when my spikes come too quickly the my heart doesn’t have the chance to refill; therefore, he said “you’re shooting blanks”. Consequence”? I am never getting enough blood/oxygen to the rest of my body.
“What would make this happen?” it is how my brain was wired from birth
“Why would it get worse now?” Age :(
“What to do?” There are 2 easy fixes. The first is medication-a beta blocker for 2 weeks to see if that helps. he said it may a little, a lot, or not at all. The second is a simple Outptient procedure. A catheter is put in your leg, and wire goes up to your heart and pretty much “zaps” it and blows away the irregualrity. Pretty cool sounding I think.
He suggested trying the meds first. I asked why not skip to the 2nd option? More invasive, and, I thought to myself (working for an insurance company helps), probably have to try the meds first before anything else is approved.
He did say he would give results to Dr Patel to look at. Dr Patel is another cardiologist in the group whose specialty is the “electrical” wiring of the heart-basically, this is his gig. He said Dr Patel has the personality of a piece of wood but he is a pro at what he does. If he says skip to option #2 we will do that, but he doubts that will happen.
Next quesion…could this be causing my overall weakness?? “No”-so that’s back in Dr McMillen’s hands. He did (voluntarily!!) say, it does affect training and racing and when this is fixed and I am getting 100% blood flow/oxygen, I will be much stronger and faster :)
So, I left there with a prescription; when I told him I am pretty sensitive to medications he gave me a child’s dose, and did say it may make me tired. Tired?? can’t get much more than it has been! I see him again in 2 1/2 weeks after I do the 24 hour monitor thing (hoping to get out of that one!), and we will see what the meds have done.
One more thing to ad to my medical resume!
Categories: Triathlons
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