Hi Everyone,
Next week i'm going to have a stress test done with Persantine IV injection and a nuclear agent at day one to stimulate my heart and take pictures of it when it's working harder, the Persantine stimulation part of the test last 10 minutes, they inject it and wait 4 minutes and inject the nuclear agent and you have to go lie down on a table where a big machine take pictures of the heart for 2 minutes and after the pictures are done they inject another drug to stop the persantine effect. You go eat and 1:30 h later you return on the table where they take pictures of the heart for 30 minutes...apparently eating foods and drink liquid help the nuclear agent to be more active. The second day it will be the rest part of the test and they inject only the nuclear agent, you go eat something and return after 1:30 hours and they take pictures of the heart at rest for 30 minutes.
I know that Persantine causes vasodilation when given at high doses especially in a IV injection form so what should I expect?
I have extreme anxiety and panic attacks everyday. Also my blood pressure is already low on a average of 95/55. If I understand well, the vasodilation will decrease my blood pressure even more so the heart rate will increase?
My Cardio Doc want to see from witch parts of my heart I have angina and also look for possible arteries dammage or blockage, if he will see something wrong he will RX an angiogram test. He want absolutely to see the results before I will have my surgery the 24th september... a surgery not related to my heart.
I ask this cause they try to do a stress test with Dobutamine who is an beta 1 agonist, so the effect is strong activation of the heart, increase heart rate and increase blood pressure. They had to abord the test after 1 minute cause my heart rate was in the 200 and more and had artrial fibrilation. So they wasnt able to do the echocardiogram since they had to inject the antidote (beta-blocker IV drug) to stop the Dobutamine effect. I was scare to death and of course I had several panic attacks the same day from that test.
I ask the Cardio Doc about the dangers of the Persantine stress test, he say that the Persantine drug dont stimulate the heart in the same way than the Doputamine and that I will feel weak, will have headache cause of the vasodilation (already have chronic headache), a drop of blood pressure and small increase of the heart beat, he said it's an easier test with less side-effects than the Dobutamine test and more accurate since it's a nuclear imaging test, who is better than the usual echocardiogram done with the stress test.... BUT i'm very anxious now cause I read on severals website stories about peoples who had that test done and almost die...Also I know that side-effects are worse if you are a really thin person and not very healthy like me or an older person, i'm only a 36 yo and dont weight a lot, need to gain weight, also i'm in a deconditionning state, mean that physically I can do a lot of things, it was impossible for me to only walk on the treadmill so that's why they sent me for a drug stimulation stress test, I assume they will use lower dose of Persantine to avoid problems like collapse or tachycardia?
Well, if someone had that test, can you share with me your experience please.
I know I should trust my Cardiologist, but i'm scare to death, the bad experience I had with the Dobutamine don't help me to feel less anxious about having another heart test done in the same way, I mean stimulation of the heart...
Thanks ;-)