Treadmill Stress Tests and Women

[cchafe]

Good morning!

I attended to the ER on Tuesday evening after a strange sensation in my chest (i am female and 41). I would describe it as a light pulling sensation. Defintely not pain but odd nonetheless. I then panicked, broke out into a sweat and went to the ER. The ER Dr. did all of the appropriate troponin testing x 2 (8 hrs apart) as well as 3 ECG's and everything came back normal. He then suggested going for a treadmill stress test which I did today. I got my heart rate up to the required 160 bpm with no pain etc. The results of the stress test were "normal". I am now reading that stress tests in woman very often given false negative results. I don't have high bp, or high chlosterol, I am overweight and wroking on getting it down, no diabetis etc. Realistically no risk factors. I also have no immediate family memebers with heart disease (grandparents, mother, father, sisters). I do suffer from GERD and take 2 x 40mg Nexium daily. A recent scoped showed everything was fine. Despite all of this i'm very concerned about how accurate that stress test was. Any information you can provide is greatly appreciated. .

[DenTek]

I would find a cardiologist sooner or later you are going to need one anyway we all do as we get older.  Good luck.

[Paderla Anitha, DNB]

Hello and hope you are doing well.

Cardiac pain or chest pain can be felt as a tightness and worsens with activity or exercise. The pain is due to inadequate supply of oxygen to the heart muscle. Stress testing tests the response of the cardiac muscle to exercise. So, a stress test should be able to pick up areas of reduced blood supply. As it is normal, please don't worry and you can carry on with your normal activities.

Hope this helped and do keep us posted.