Testing time

Well that has been an interesting day.

Lots of testing today. Of the medical kind, not the physical limit kind. Still not much the wiser about what is going on heart wise, but I sure have learnt a lot.

Headed to the doctor first thing this morning. His response was really good. He wasn't able to put forward any definitive causes, which I knew he wouldn't be able to, but he outlined a path forward, which is exactly what I was after.

As I am learning, the problem with these sort of heart issues is that they are highly personal. It is very hard for a doctor to look at something like an ECG and say 'yep, you are definitely suffering from...'. It seems that something that might be a serious condition in one person could be almost completely unnoticed by another. An added complication is that when somebody starts doing lots of exercise the heart starts doing funny things. In people who don't exercise, these things could be of the 'go straight to hospital' variety. Things like erratic heart beats, funny ECG readouts etc, all sorts of irregular occurrences, end up being normal in athletes.

All this is why I wasn't really expecting the doctor be able to look at me and give me any sort of definitive answer. He did set up a the aforementioned tests though and give me a referral to a cardiologist. Those tests included another ECG, a couple of blood tests and wearing this thing for 24 hours which will monitor my heart rate etc for the day/night.

World's worst selfie

The ECG yielded some potentially interesting information. The doctor pointed out that on this latest ECG I have an inverted T wave. Ummm, sure okay. It basically meant that a couple of the squiggly lines on the ECG readout dipped below the central line when really they should know better. Now like all other bits of this process, this can indicate a few different heart issues, or it can indicate that the ECG leads were connected incorrectly, or it can indicate nothing at all. Hmmm, helpful. What was of more interest to the doctor was that last time I had an ECG (this time last year) there was no inverse T wave. This change is what got his notice, combined with the fact that I have been having chest pain. At that point he said this interesting gem of a sentence 'If I had a non athlete who had an inverse T wave in conjunction with chest pain, I would send them to hospital'. Okayyyy...

It is this combination of symptoms that makes him think that further testing is worth the effort.

I should get the results of all these tests on Friday and I am hopeful that if there is anything to see, then we will get a glimpse of it then. Chances are that the answer will still be that everything seems fine, but there is also a chance that the answer is the opposite and that really is why I am doing this. Whatever the results are on Friday, I then have an appointment next Tuesday to get an ultrasound done of my heart to see if there are any structural issues, followed up by an appointment with a cardiologist. If there is an issue there we will find it.

In the meantime I have some funky wires to sleep with.