| Re: Event Monitor vs. Holter Monitor
I’ve probably had a half dozen 24 hour monitors on, plus a half dozen stress tests, half dozen echoes, a couple dozen EKGs, a couple pints of blood (lol), exec….. They ran the tests because I felt I was having heart attacks. My symptoms were; spells of serous chest pain, angina, sweats, weakness, hard heart skips with momentary blackout spells, shortness of breath, exec….;
The 24 hour monitor would show that my heart would beat slightly irregular several times a day but that they could not associate it with my activity so they said nothing serious was wrong. The stresses and echoes, the EKGs and the blood work ups all showed nothing serious wrong. Everything read almost normal.
Thus I continued having the same heart problems, plus, the ever increasing momentary blackout spells (what I called glitches). Everything kept getting worse. Then after I fell down my stairs and broke my leg from one of my ‘glitches’, my PC Doctor ordered another 24 hour halter monitor and another stress. Still nothing….. He said my chest pain and dizzy spells were probably all in my head and suggested elivil.
I decided to go to a neurologist for the ‘glitches’. The neurologist said it was my heart causing my blackout spells and sent me to a real cardiologist, they immediately ordered a 30 day event monitor. A week later I was getting a pacemaker. They said my heart had been pausing for 8 and 9 seconds at a time. Thus the glitches......
A 24 hour monitor never caught it. You can't tell your heart to do its little dirty tricks on command.
After I healed from that, I also had to have open heart surgery for my other symptoms. The Doctor that operated on me said my heart showed that I had had several heart attacks.
So much for standard testing……..
enie
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