Aneurysm and Stress Tests

Advertise with us
Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
Valve Replacement Forums

Help Support Valve Replacement Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Hi Aaron,

I am wondering what your plans are ?

I can only tell you that if I had symptoms, I would go to an aortic surgeon of my choice and review everything, including my symptoms, with him as soon as I could. I would take along a sample of daily blood pressure readings and a list of medications I am taking.

It is not good to be too sedentary - my husband walked an hour every day prior to his aneurysm surgery to keep in shape. He had been a very intense heavy weight lifter all his life - which ended when that aneurysm was found.

My husband managed to escape dissection despite doing heavy weight lifting, having very high blood pressure (we did not know....) when his aneurysm was found. He had zero symptoms in his chest - not so much as a twinge ever, before or after the diagnosis. I would think that his aortic tissue, even at 5.2 cm, was not as fragile as some others. It was a good day when that aneurysm came out!

Arlyss
 
It was probably a very wise decision to cancel that stress test. I had requested a stress/treadmill echo when I was stupidly stalling my surgery. The techs had me all ready to jump on the treadmill when a Junior cardio showed up to supervise. She took one look at my echo and told the techs, "If you put her on the treadmill, she could very well die." (a bit blunt) So of course I started shaking and crying, but it was the kick in the butt that I needed and I booked my OHS a few weeks later. Please be careful.
 
Stress Echo story

Stress Echo story

I remember one particular Stress Echo where the Jr Doc was pushing me to go further and faster. All of a sudden the "Echo Tech" (after reading the previous echo) came over and put her hand on Jr's shoulder and told him that was enough. That was when i was still at about .9 Cm.

You are in fact the person in charge of your life.

If you are having pain... why not do a cath to look for blockage. If its not blockage... it must be the aorta/valve. NO?

Paco512
Mini AVR at Cleveland Clinic 5-5-08
Dr. Joeseph Sabik
 
I took the chemical stress test and had a severe reaction following it. I'll never ever submit to another one of those again. There are plenty of other tests they run that it's not necessary to place anyone in danger.
 
AaronJ said:
That is VERY interesting. Makes me feel like I need the surgery done like now.
Click to expand...

It's an interesting thought to have, if you are afraid to take a stress test and are stopping weight lifting and generally becomming less active then whats the point of waiting longer.

Everyone stresses about the actuall surgery and the unmentionable outcome happening but i'd guess at the moment you are a fairly healthy individual in the general sense of the word and that unmentionable would be very rare.

If you wait 4-6 years until you reach 5ish and do nothing during that time what kind of state will you be in for the surgery then. Not to mention the worry and angst you will have every time you exert yourself during that time.

It's an unfortunate position to be in decision wise.

I didn't find out until i was 5.8 i think (or was it 5.6) but i had surgery within 3 months of finding out.

What would i have done had i found it at 4.8 ? can't say, but i certainly would not have been doing taekwondo etc during that time period like i did. I think i'd have just got it over and done with and moved on.

Having left it to later on i have thickening of the heart muscles which probably won't ever go away totally plus an enlarged heart which may also not shrink fully back to normal (although it has shrunk a bit)....getting this surgery done at 4.8 may have lessened my problems long term.

Anyway, even leaving it as late as i did and having a full bentalls i feel like a new man and the cardio only wants to see me yearly. I liken the surgery to getting a new pair of glasses.....you don't think your vision is bad until you try on the new pair......you probably feel ok most of the time now...once your problem is solved you will feel much better and calmer.

Good luck with your decision process.
 
Ross said:
I took the chemical stress test and had a severe reaction following it. I'll never ever submit to another one of those again. There are plenty of other tests they run that it's not necessary to place anyone in danger.
Click to expand...

What kind of reaction Ross?
 
paco512 said:
I remember one particular Stress Echo where the Jr Doc was pushing me to go further and faster. All of a sudden the "Echo Tech" (after reading the previous echo) came over and put her hand on Jr's shoulder and told him that was enough. That was when i was still at about .9 Cm.

You are in fact the person in charge of your life.

If you are having pain... why not do a cath to look for blockage. If its not blockage... it must be the aorta/valve. NO?

Paco512
Mini AVR at Cleveland Clinic 5-5-08
Dr. Joeseph Sabik
Click to expand...

I would do that, but there's risks to that too. My uncle just had a cath done and they tore the first layer of a coronary artery. He had emergency "bypass" to fix it. I don't think he needed the bypass at all. He just had bypass in 04 I think.

I have the 64 slice ct scan images but it doesn't show the coronary arteries for some reason. That's an excellent idea though. I've had so many CT scans that I can't really justify getting dosed with more radiation. I've been following Lung nodules for quite a while now with ct scans every 6 months or year, plus scans for the aorta.
 
You mentioned nodules on your lung. Have you ever heard the term "blebs"?

I'm wondering if you and I don't have something weird going on that involves multiple organ systems and these things are all but associated symptoms of something larger, yet undiscovered.
 
Ross said:
You mentioned nodules on your lung. Have you ever heard the term "blebs"?

I'm wondering if you and I don't have something weird going on that involves multiple organ systems and these things are all but associated symptoms of something larger, yet undiscovered.
Click to expand...

Ross, I'm sorry it took so long to respond to your post:

I haven't heard of blebs, but after doing a little reading I certainly would not want it and especially in the lungs. My grandmother I believe had pneumothorax and died of complications from surgery to correct it - I THINK. Both of my parents have had pulmonary embolisms, and my Dad has a portion of his lung that's permanently collapsed. If I'm not mistaken I might have that too.

I'm very open minded bro, so if you have thoughts or ideas feel free to PM/post them.
 
I went to a different cardiologist today and got my wish... I'm scheduled for that chemical type stress test in a couple days so I don't have to risk rupturing my aorta. I think it's called a persantine-thallium stress test.

I'm not thrilled about the extra radiation from the imaging required... but chest pain is chest pain.
 
hey aaron, i was put on a treadmill stress test with an active ascending aortic dissection and the Cardiologist said "its not your heart" so go home and if you have more chest pain then come back and see us. i did have lots of chest pain prior and after test, was told heart looked good so what else could it be? well 2 days later with many, many more test we found out that my aorta dissected from the coronary arteries all the way to were the aorta splits in the pelvis, and up into the 3 great vessels on the arch. so not always will the stress test show what they are or are not looking for. glad you didn't do the test, hope you are still agreeing with your discission.
 
So this reaction you had Ross, was this an anaphylactic reaction or did they basically trigger a mini heart attack?

It sounds like Harry basically had a mini heart attack
 
About 10 minutes after, I could not breath and was turning blue. Got the nurses attention pronto. They still don't know what the problem was. All I know is I'll never have another one. They don't need to do those anyhow with all the other diagnostic things the do.
 
AaronJ said:
What do you guys think about having a "small" aneurysm and basically pushing it to the maximum on a treadmill?
Click to expand...

In my opinion, there is no such thing as a "small" aneurysm if it is the one that kills you! My sister in law had a small brain aneurysm and died at the age of 41.

Err on the side of caution.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top