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Heart Disease (Expert Forum)
Stress Testing Questions
Answered by
Cleveland - OH
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Stress Testing Questions
by jerry1978, Dec 15, 2004 12:00AM
Concerning Treadmill exercise stress testing:
1) Is it a fairly safe test for a person with no known heart disease, but with risk factors such as hypertension, anxiety, and panic disorder, like myself?
2) If a cardiac event were to occur, would it occur at peak exercise, or would it happen during the recovery phase?
3) My last test was in 2001, at age 41....test was negative, and I worked up to 10.1 METS on the Bruce protocol.....I understand that stress tests can determine blockages of 70 % and higher, but I was told by the tech. that I worked hard enough to determine that there was not even a 50 % blockage.....Does that sound correct?
4) I am on Toprol XL 25 mgs a day.....will I be instructed to stop it before testing?
Thanks-Jerry
1) Is it a fairly safe test for a person with no known heart disease, but with risk factors such as hypertension, anxiety, and panic disorder, like myself?
2) If a cardiac event were to occur, would it occur at peak exercise, or would it happen during the recovery phase?
3) My last test was in 2001, at age 41....test was negative, and I worked up to 10.1 METS on the Bruce protocol.....I understand that stress tests can determine blockages of 70 % and higher, but I was told by the tech. that I worked hard enough to determine that there was not even a 50 % blockage.....Does that sound correct?
4) I am on Toprol XL 25 mgs a day.....will I be instructed to stop it before testing?
Thanks-Jerry
Doctor's Answer
by Cleveland Clinic, Dec 15, 2004 12:00AM
, Dec 15, 2004 12:00AM
jerry,
thanks for the post.
Good questions. The bottom line is stress testing is generally very safe, but does carry some risk.
1) Yes. The rule of stress testing is that there is always some chance of a false negative and false positive test. We expose people to the small risk of stress testing to avoid the higher risk of cardiac catheterization.
2) It could happen at either.
3) No. It really is impossible to tell amounts of blockages externally. We say 70% as a rule because there is some physiologic data to support it. However, I wouldnt be concerned with those numbers as part of a test. The most important thing is how long you exercise for. It is predicitive of all cause mortality. What that means is if you are in better shape, as a rule you will live longer.
4) Most likely yes. It allows you to reach a higher heart rate. There will be some instances where they ask you to keep it on, but for you they will probably ask you to hold your dose.
good luck
goo
thanks for the post.
Good questions. The bottom line is stress testing is generally very safe, but does carry some risk.
1) Yes. The rule of stress testing is that there is always some chance of a false negative and false positive test. We expose people to the small risk of stress testing to avoid the higher risk of cardiac catheterization.
2) It could happen at either.
3) No. It really is impossible to tell amounts of blockages externally. We say 70% as a rule because there is some physiologic data to support it. However, I wouldnt be concerned with those numbers as part of a test. The most important thing is how long you exercise for. It is predicitive of all cause mortality. What that means is if you are in better shape, as a rule you will live longer.
4) Most likely yes. It allows you to reach a higher heart rate. There will be some instances where they ask you to keep it on, but for you they will probably ask you to hold your dose.
good luck
goo
Had an MI 12 months ago.
The Toprol is tough, but you can train through it.
During a more recent stress test, I was not taking a beta blocker, but had been on a very low dose of an ACE inhibitor for about 6 weeks. This time, my BP and HR definitely responded to the increasing "stress" by going up as high as 166/?. Guess that just shows how all meds work differently.
Good luck on your test!
connie