Exercise Induced Pulmonary Hypertention

[justme6233]

I have a strong family history of primary pulmonary hypertension. My mom and her identical twin sister have been diagnosed. My grandmother had it. There's also a very strong possibility that my great grandmother had it. I had an echo on the 7th of this month and got the results yesterday. It shows exercise induced pulmonary hypertension. I was wondering what exercise induced pulmonary hypertension means in general. And what it means based on my family history. My dr is sending me to a cardiologist, but the referral for the echo took 6 months so no telling when I will get to see a specialist.

[CCFHeartMD18]

It sounds like you had a stress echocardiogram based on the description above.  We use echocardiography to estimate the blood pressure in the lungs.  The definition of pulmonary hypertension is a mean pulmonary pressure greater than 25 mmHg at rest or 30 mmHg with exercise.  The echocardiogram cannot tell you what the mean pulmonary pressure is.  Instead, it provides you an estimate of what the right ventricular systolic pressure is.  This is usually extrapolated to represent elevated pressure in the lungs but is not the gold standard for diagnosis.  This echo finding also does not differentiate if the pressure is high in the lungs from a primary cause or secondary cause.  

I would recommend discussing your family history with your cardiologist.  Based on the findings you described above and your family history the cardiologist may wish to do a right heart catheterization to further define what the pressures are in your lungs.

[justme6233]

I got a copy of my echo report dictation and reports from my pcp. Says post exercise tr velocity 3.1 m/s. what does that mean. I am having trouble finding out what my pressures are from my pcp and the heart center.

[justme6233]

Yes it was a stress echo. They were able to get me into the cardiologist right away but he couldn't tell me anything new. In fact, he was looking up stuff on the computer when he was talking to me. He suggested I got to Pulmonary hypertension clinic in Seattle but I don't know if he is going to recommend that to my pcp or not. I'm having my pcp send me a copy of the echo report as when I asked the cardiologist what my pressures were he wouldn't tell me. It was actually a wasted visit. I'm going to send a copy to my aunt and she is gonna have her dr check it over real quick when she sees her next.