High Systolic BP during echo stress

[thelmerfud]

Hi,

I just had an echo stress test and the test was stopped early because my BP went up to 230/87 after 12 minutes.  My BP ramped up with my heart rate ramping up.  I have always had a high heart rate during exercise which is why my doctor ordered the test.  If I excercise at the normal heart rates the heart rate charts on the exercise machines show I usually don't even break a sweat.  I can exercise at 180bpkm for extended periods of time with no issue that I can tell and I have done so for many years.  I have seen heart rates as high as 212 during extreme exercise (mountain builing up a hill to exhaustion).  Do my BP symptoms indicate of a blockage of some kind or some other problem.  My BP is usually on the high side of normal 120/80 if I am laying around but jumps up quickly with any increase in heart rate.

I am waiting to hear from my primary physician but would like to have some opinions or a list of questions to ask top make sure my doctor is performing adequate testing to determine what is wrong with me.

Thanks

[Barbarella]

I wouldn't worry yet.  My husband's syst. BP went up to 224 during the stress test, and when the nurse told the Cardiologist who was present about my husband's BP the Cardiologist said "keep on going".  My husband was 60 yrs old at the time, and already failed one stress test, not because of chest pain or BP but because he couldn't catch his breath, he was still a heavy smoker at the time.  He failed the second stress test because of that.  Had to have an angiogram and they found NO blockages at all, thank god.


It depends on the Cardiologist.  Some of them get hyper about very high BP during a stress test and others don't.  Mine went up to 214 syst. during the test, and the Cardiologist said "you're going to live, don't worry about it", never stopped the test.  My heart checked out fine despite the high BP.

A Hypertension Specialist told me one time that he did a survey on weight lifters BP while they were lifting weights, they all had normal or low BP, but during lifting weights their BP shot up to 240 syst. or higher.  After lifting the weights their BP came back down to where it was before.