Echocardiogram & EKGs

What does an echo really do?  What does it really check for? I had one 4-5 years ago after a panic attack to rule out a heart attack...how long are they good for?  I had an EKG & a check up with my cardiologist last year, too...
I get concerned about the increase of heart problem in women. I do get the occassional sharp pains in the chest and it looks like stress really doesn't agree with me where I get the shoulder/neck pains & now I've been getting the heartburn feeling (unrelated to food consumption).  My GP thinks it's all anxiety.  
I just want to make sure it's not.
I think I eat well: try to stay away from meat & all the bad things.  I should exercise more though & deal w/ stress better.  But overall, healthy for being in my early 40s.
Thanks!

[BrokenPen]

Despite the many functions of the echo, it is the last tool you would use to diagnose ischemic heart disease. Doctors ask for echo to:
1- Check the state of your valves.
2- Check the size of your cardiac chambers.
3- Check the heart muscles (size, contractility and synchronicity.)
4- Calculate the effectiveness of your heart muscle pumping, namely the Ejection Fraction.
5- Detect the presence/absence of any abnormality like vegetation, thrombus, tumour, pericardial effusion (excessive fluid around the heart.)
Accidentally, a cardiologist might detect that one part of a muscle is not contracting properly, thus making a conclusion that it lacks proper blood supply.

The echo is not the investigation of choice to diagnose or follow up ischemic heart diseases or arrhythmia. If you have done an echo and the results were good, you can repeat it every 3-5 years. ECG is more affordable and is used to start investigating any chest symptom.  

[kenkeith]

To be sure the appropriate exam for you would be a stress test.  Blood flow through open vessels can be visualized at rest, and then perfusion during exercise (treadmil).  You may have a small occlusion of a coronary vessel that is causing your chest pain. Mental stress can cause angina (chest pain from heart disorder).  Take care.

[skydnsr]

My guess is that the purpose of your echo 4-5 years ago may have been to check for mitral valve prolapse.  The doctors would have pretty well known from your EKG and your enzyme levels that you were not having a heart attack.  But mitral valve prolapse is associated with anxiety, and the echocardiogram is an appropriate test to check for that.  

To me, it sounds like you are getting good follow-up.  I  think you are doing all you can to eliminate any unpleasant surprises from your heart.  If cardiac disease should develop in the future, I believe the doctors are going to be able to detect it in time to treat it.  What they seem to be telling you, perhaps not in so many words, is that you don't have anything that is going to cause sudden cardiac death.  

If, by some chance, you have some kind of heart condition that is so mild that the doctors can't detect it with standard tests, then it is mild.  It will either stay so mild that they can't detect it, or it will progress to the point that it can be detected and diagnosed.  But maybe there is nothing there, at all.

When you say you had an ekg and check-up with "your" cardiologist, it makes me wonder if the doctors have found something that does make you a heart patient.  If so, would you want to elaborate here, so you can get feedback on it?