3 EKGs show attack but heart cath says no?

My 48 yr old husband went to our family physician last week for a routine check up.  During the exam he told the MD about some heart burn he had been experiencing that also at times made him lightheaded and sick to his stomach.  The MD decided to have him do EKG which he said was coming back with abnormal results.  He immediately called a local cardiologist and we saw that MD the next day.  They asked a bunch of questions again and took another EKG which the cardiologist said indicated he had a heart attack in his front valve.  He was scheduled for a heart cath immediately (3 days later).  On the day of the procedure, they did another EKG which again said the same thing.  My husband had the cath procedure and 30 min later the doctor came out and said he was fine - nothing at all.  A bit of plaque build up and sent us home with a low dose of cholerestrol meds.  We have 2 toddler children and you can imagine how pleased we were.  Now, after I tell people the story, they are saying we should question more...One nurse we know said that maybe they should have turned him on his back during the procedure to check that way too, and another friend is saying that it is unusual for someone with no high BP to have such unusual results.  How common is it that the readings would say that wrong three times?  My husband is very calm man, does not get stressed easily, has normal BP, is not overweight, fairly active, and not very high cholestoral (205).  Should we be asking more and doing more?

[Barbarella]

Both my husband and I had EKG's which showed that we had a previous heart attack.  My EKG was done at the ER, my husband's at the Cardiologists office.  We had to go through numerous tests just to prove that we did NOT have a heart attack.

The Cardiologist said "he is sick and tired of all the false heartattacks these computerized EKG machines are spitting out", and told us that we were not the first ones with this false diagnosis and probably wont be the last.

When I said the manifacturers who made these computerized EKG's should be notfified that their machines are spitting out to many false heart attacks I got no answer.  

Yeah, I know people as well as us are happy as hell when they find out that there was not heart attack, but the suspense and anxiety until you get that final diagnosis, and all the tests you have to go through, no thank you!  

But hey why find out why these machines spit out so many false heart attacks?  More tests to see if there was a heart attack means more money.

[anacyde]

Rest sure in knowing that a cardiac catherization is the gold standard, and you can take it's results with confidence over the EKG results.  As Barbarella noted above, false results on EKGs are not as uncommon as we would like.  I'm very happy to hear his cath looked good.  As a mother of two young children myself and having just had two health scares ourselves, I definitely can appreciate the feeling that good news brings.  Best to you both.