More testing

Well another day, another test and more interesting stuff that I didn't know before.

So today I had my stress-test. Despite the name, this isn't an end of school exam, rather it is an ECG while you are on a treadmill. The idea of this is to see what your heart is doing when it is under load to see if it does anything different to when you are at rest. Quite an interesting test in the end. You are hooked up to a full 12 lead ECG and put to work. From what I have seen you can either do them on a stationary bike or a treadmill. I went with treadmill since that is where I get my worst symptoms. To be a valid test you have to go for at least 6 minutes and get to at least 85% of your theoretical maximum heart rate (they just use 200 minus your age which I think is a bit simplistic, but there you go). In the end I went for around 10 minutes and got my heart rate to up over 180bpm, so I feel like the test was pretty thorough.

The good news is that for me the test felt like it was a success. The bad news is that I say that because what I felt today was the closest I have come to replicating what I felt up in the race in Bintan. It wasn't nice. Whilst it wasn't pleasant I still consider it a success because that is sort of what I there to test. You know how when you go to a Doctor or a Physio etc you can never feel that pain you are there to treat and you end up saying 'well before it was really painful, right about there, I promise it was' sort of thing. Anyway, that is what I thought would happen today, particularly because all the tests I have had so far have come up shiny and positive. Turns out I needn't have worried. In a way it was nice to prove to myself that I hadn't been imagining things in Bintan. In another way it kind of sucked.

Despite the unpleasantness I am not entirely sure that I am any closer to an answer. Every time I have a palpitation, including today, I am told it is perfectly normal and everybody has them and that most people don't even notice. That sort of indicates to me that what I feel is nothing to worry about. But then, I definitely notice mine. I wouldn't say they are painful, but they are aren't a tickle in the chest either. In fact they feel exactly like you would expect it to feel when you heart stops beating for a fraction of a second and then starts again with a thump. Doesn't sound fun and it doesn't feel it when it happens. And during the test today they just kept coming. I was having periods were they would hit every six of seven beats of the heart. When you are trying to run it is distracting to say the least. I am not a cardiologist but that doesn't seem normal to me.

The people doing the test weren't all that forthcoming about whether they felt there was an issue or not, although they were impressed I made it to the end of the test protocol (apparently not many people do that). I think they were just leaving any discussion up to my appointment with the cardiologist on Monday. They did say that if there is anything catastrophically terrible going on then they would have been able to see it and would have stopped the test. So that points me back in the direction of what I feel being some variation of normal.

It really doesn't feel it though.