EKG machine interperation vs human interperation

i am a 57 year old male who had experimental heart surgery in the 1950s to repair a septal defect. at a recent appointment my electrophysiologist looked at my ekg and crossed off the computers interperation which was"marked bradycardia with marked sinus arrhythmia left bundle branch block" and wrote in "aterial bigeminy lbbb". is having bigeminy better or worse than what the machine interperation was. the machines(many differant ones)have been saying the same things for years.how accurate are the machines as opposed to human intervention? also, when my heart is going 130-170 bpm for anywhere from 4 hours to 2 days, what is that called? i usually have 1 "attack" per week and during these attacks i have severe chest pain(feels like an elephant sitting on my chest) what causes this extreem pain? what do you know about DRONEDARONE and its side effects as compared with CORDERONE. i have heald off going on corderone because of the blindness and turning blue in the sun side effects(i am outside quite a bit). i have had 1 cardio oblation (ablation) that failed after 9 months. recently i had occasion to talk to a bunch of people who had had oblations and the vast majority either had unsuccessful oblations or they failed after a time. one lady was going in for her 4th oblation (ablation). whats up with that? are oblations not perfected yet? i am waiting for a sure fix(if i can stay alive long enough)like a stem cell injection to the heart to repair a haywire electrical system. how far away are we from that? is there anything on the horizon to repair defective wireing in the heart with stem cell? thankyou

[Cleveland Clinic]

b79c85,

Thanks for the post.

Remember machines are programmed by people, so what ever the machine spits out is its interpretation from a program designed by a person. Very often, the ecg interpretation is faulty due to the strict limitations of the program, Also, ECG machines tend to over call the worst case scenario so that if someone reading the interpretation is not qualified to interpret an ECG, then they wont miss something important. In general, I would believe a cardiologist interpretation over that of the machine.

The attacks your having Im unsure of but a holter or event monitor would be able to tell you what the rhythm is. The chest pains are also difficult for me to diagnose over the internet and I would discuss them with your cardiologist.

Dronedarone is still an experimental drug. There is some thought that it probably is not as good as codarone for atrial fibrillation.

Ablations are not 100% effective and there are some predictive variables such as time in fibrillation and atrial structure.  The experience of a center is important also.  There will probably never be a sure fix.  Stem cell therapies for this type of treatment is probably at least a generation away.

good luck

[joco712]

I had an EKG (not an ECG) this morning.  I'm 35 years old and recently have had heart palpitations.  The EKG was a little abnormal.  It said "Chronic Pulmonary Disease" and "Left Atrial Enlargement".  I'd like to know how accurate this informaton is.  The test itself took all of 3 seconds.  My doctor sent me for a pulmonary function test, which I think I did well on.  The printout said "normal".  Now I have to have a nuclear stress test tomorrow.

What is left atrial enlargement, and how common is it to get this reading on a EKG?

[jan]

The ekg's "diagnosis" is based on algorithms, the cardio's interpretation should be the correct one.  I have had mine say different things (like MI and such) and they've crossed it out.

[LukeL]

Also the EKG usually will not interpet past EKGs and any type of surgery you may had. This is why it is important to have a series of EKGs from an early age so the doctor can correctly diagnosis whether or not the computer calculated correctly.

[CollegeGirl143]

i cant speak for everyone.. but i myself have had an ablation and it was 100% effective for me and it was the best thing ive ever done for myself.

[noahh5]

Left atrial enlargement on an ekg means that your left atria is having to work extra hard to get the blood into the left ventricle. Due to the extra work load, the muscle mass increases to get the blood pushed through. As far as I know it is probably common with mitral valve stenosis or something that is causing resistance to the blood flow down the line.

[Poli3]

Hi-my brother has almost exactly the same problem with heart rythm.he could not stand them and is taking cordorone for 4 years.He has not had any trouble with his eyes,lungs or skin colour and he lives in Arizona.
I am on it for awhile due to afib after my bypass.They said it would resolve itself in time because I did not have it before.
I feel that despite the risk of side effects,I can ccontrol taking this drug for a bit,whereas I cannot control the afib.There are other drugs  that can be used.
All drugs seem to have the risk of side effects,even aspirin,and as long as the doctor keeps checking you,you should be okay.
My brother just had his eyes checked and they are fine.The corneal deposits that you might get,can be detected,and go away after the drug is discontinued,but it might take a while.
The opthamologist said to have the eyes looked at every six months to a year.
Good luck with this problem.

[Fran71]

What's the difference between EKG and ECG? And what does the K stand for? I thought the correct name for it was ECG = ElectroCardioGram.

Fran

[Prof. ATP]

The doctor's comments that the machines are programmed by people is only accurate at the face level.  Many of the algorithms used in interpreting data are "trained" algorithms such as neural networks, not directly programmed.  In other words, the machine's interpretation is really its own, not that of a human programmer.

[superman727]

A related discussion, atrial fibrillation and cardio-ablation was started.