I forgot to describe the stress echocardiogram test in my first post, so here it is now:
Stress Echocardiogram:
Test Prep:
They wire you up to a heart monitor, with sticky pads on your chest and under your breasts. The leads are attached to a unit worn around your waist, and from there fed to the EKG unit to read the data. They read your blood pressure and oxygen levels and an initial EKG to get a baseline.
Echocardiogram:
They take a images of your heart using the same equipment as used for an ultrasound - gel and 'joystick' to get the image, which they (and you) can see as it's being done. They find your arteries and get images of them from the side and front, holding your breath, and breathing normally. This part of the test sets a baseline heart-function at rest.
Stress Test:
This part of the test takes place on the treadmill. You start walking at a moderate pace, with no incline, then they begin to incline the tread. While you're walking they're recording your EKG readings. They also take your blood pressure reading while you're walking. During this first phase, they ask how you'd define your shortness of breath - minor, moderate, severe, etc. My heart-rate went up like it usually does when I'm doing weight-bearing cardio, and after 5 minutes of increasing incline to the treadmill my answer was 'moderate'. I think the duration of this phase of the test is mapped against either the patient's heart-rate (an absolute number or a % above the baseline) or to the moderate degree of shortness of breath. Unfortunately I didn't ask so I can't supply that here. I'll ask later and put in an update though. Whatever the point of measure is, they continue to increase the treadmill incline until this state is reached.
The last phase of the test, once the first level is reached, is to increase the speed of the treadmill to a rapid pace, but below jogging. You only have to do this for 30 seconds, and I managed it, but I identified my shortness of breath as severe during this time.
Echocardiogram:
As soon as the 30 seconds are up during the last phase of the stress test, you immediately lay on your side and they quickly repeat the echocardiogram, this time to get heart functions under stress.
They continue to run the EKG until your heart-rate returns to the baseline level. Mine took about 12 minutes. The doctor reviewed the test results, then discussed them with me. As I said in the first post, he said my heart looks great, even though I got up to a high rate and experienced shortness of breath relatively quickly.
In short, the stress test is pretty easy to do, and doesn't really take very long. You could spend up to an hour or even an hour and a half on the test protocol, but most of that time will either be prep (relatively short) or waiting for return to baseline state and then the doctor's review. Mine was scheduled for 9:15 am, they got me in on time, and I was done my 10:15, so my full test time was 1 hour, with about 12-15 of that on the actual test.
Here's my PAG (Pain Assessment Grid) for this test:
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Preparation (sticky pads)
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Echocardiogram (at rest and after stress test)
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* Note that usually the rating represents the amount of pain experienced, but in this case, there is primarily a rating on degree of shortness of breath, with 0 = none, and 10 = Extreme. Shortness of breath on the extreme end is distressing, but I don't categorize it as pain. That may of course be different for others. Of course if you have a heart condition, I suppose it's possible that the response you have during this test might include other symptoms than simply shortness of breath. They also ask if you're feeling suddenly weak overall, or in your legs. I suppose this would not be unexpected if you were having blood flow issues, especially to your extremities, during the stress portion of the test.
Okay, more later.
