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tball

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So….yesterday after our discussion here I made an appointment with my doctor to get a referral for a cardiologist who might perform a TTE. Today I got on my home Stairmaster and had a weird episode at the 23 minute mark. I felt a twinge and my heart rate decreased from 150 to 133 instantly. No pain but I felt a bit uncomfortable. So I immediately drove to Park City Hospital.

The ER doc did an EKG, called the attending cardiologist who noted a possible anomoly associated with a heart attack. 30 minutes later I’m on Lifeflight headed to their primary cardiac treatment center in SLC.

I land on the roof and less than 3 minutes later I’m drugged and having an angiogram. Turns out no heart attack, very clear arteries and no indication of anything concerning. Best guess at this point is dyhydration coupled with a long workout at 98%+ of my aged based theoretical max HR.

So here I lay in intensive care for overnight observation but it seems pure formality, no one thinks anything is going on. Follow up with the cardiologist tomorrow morning and likely discharge.

Educational, scary and well surreal.

My view from inside the helicopter.
View attachment 179479

Foliage is beginning to turn and looks good from the air.
View attachment 179480

Very clean angiogram.

View attachment 179481

Good news is, aside from the bullet dodge, I don’t seem to have the heart issue gene that runs through part of my gamily.
Well, that's one way to find out you have clear coronary arteries! ;)

Yikes! Glad you are OK!

Did they check your troponin level (blood work that shows an MI) before they put you on the helicopter or took you to the cath lab? Or maybe troponin was elevated from exercise?

Fortunately, I don't have CAD, but I've been to the ER half a dozen times with my Dad having chest pain and they always check troponin along with the EKG before doing anything.
 
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Lorenzzo

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Well, that's one way to find out you have clear coronary arteries! ;)

Yikes! Glad you are OK!

Did they check your troponin level (blood work that shows an MI) before they put you on the helicopter or took you to the cath lab? Or maybe troponin was elevated from exercise?

Fortunately, I don't have CAD, but I've been to the ER half a dozen times with my Dad having chest pain and they always check troponin along with the EKG before doing anything.
I’ll be seeing the cardiologist first thing tomorrow morning. Part of the reason I posted was to see if anyone raised issues like this. I’ll check on the troponins.

Yeah talk about silver linings! At least nice to know things are clear.
 

Jwrags

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So….yesterday after our discussion here I made an appointment with my doctor to get a referral for a cardiologist who might perform a TTE. Today I got on my home Stairmaster and had a weird episode at the 23 minute mark. I felt a twinge and my heart rate decreased from 150 to 133 instantly. No pain but I felt a bit uncomfortable. So I immediately drove to Park City Hospital.

The ER doc did an EKG, called the attending cardiologist who noted a possible anomoly associated with a heart attack. 30 minutes later I’m on Lifeflight headed to their primary cardiac treatment center in SLC.

I land on the roof and less than 3 minutes later I’m drugged and having an angiogram. Turns out no heart attack, very clear arteries and no indication of anything concerning. Best guess at this point is dyhydration coupled with a long workout at 98%+ of my aged based theoretical max HR.

So here I lay in intensive care for overnight observation but it seems pure formality, no one thinks anything is going on. Follow up with the cardiologist tomorrow morning and likely discharge.

Educational, scary and well surreal.

My view from inside the helicopter.
View attachment 179479

Foliage is beginning to turn and looks good from the air.
View attachment 179480

Very clean angiogram.

View attachment 179481

Good news is, aside from the bullet dodge, I don’t seem to have the heart issue gene that runs through part of my gamily.
Wow. What a coincidence to this thread. Glad you are ok and the coronaries are clean. I hope you have decent health care coverage because after you see the bill for the helicopter ride it will be good your heart is healthy!
 

Jerez

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Wow. What a coincidence to this thread. Glad you are ok and the coronaries are clean. I hope you have decent health care coverage because after you see the bill for the helicopter ride it will be good your heart is healthy!
You are not kidding. I had one of those from San Juan Island. It took almost a year, but I fought the egregious charges and got them reduced by more than half. So if the bill looks crazy and above what is considered normal, fight. There are even consultants out there who specialize in that.
 

Rod9301

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So Doctor Skinny Jeans Houser just added come comments to my lipid panel.. "YOUR CHOLESTEROL IS REALLY HIGH!" We need to address some lifestyle changes ASAP! My cholesterol is exactly the same as it was 3 years ago and only a couple points higher than it was 8 years ago. It's not great, but hardly had me super worried. it's 214 and I'm not on any statins.. LDL is 148, down 4 points from 8 years ago. It was 152 then.. Guess I just won a supply of Lipitor!
Yeah, try to get the ldl under 40. New research shows that under 40, the plaque starts to recede.

Your doctor will probably say under 70, but research it yourself
 

Lorenzzo

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You are not kidding. I had one of those from San Juan Island. It took almost a year, but I fought the egregious charges and got them reduced by more than half. So if the bill looks crazy and above what is considered normal, fight. There are even consultants out there who specialize in that.
Thanks for the suggestions. I’m covered particularly in this situation so we’ll see. But let’s just say at the time it wasn’t elective so…that’s life? :)
 

crgildart

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Just got back from the lung function tests. They gave me a printout but I have to wait a few days for the doc to review the details.. All my dots are in the green area but a couple are right at the edge of yellow. So nothing that looks alarming not knowing what the data really means though..
 

LiquidFeet

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Just got back from the lung function tests. They gave me a printout but I have to wait a few days for the doc to review the details.. All my dots are in the green area but a couple are right at the edge of yellow. So nothing that looks alarming not knowing what the data really means though..
Best of luck on the news once the Dr. reviews your tests.
 

tball

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I’ll be seeing the cardiologist first thing tomorrow morning. Part of the reason I posted was to see if anyone raised issues like this. I’ll check on the troponins.

Yeah talk about silver linings! At least nice to know things are clear.

How's it going? Did they figure out what was happening that led to the life flight and cath lab?

One thing I want to suggest is finding a sports cardiologist or one who is an athlete. I think most cardiologists have few patients exercising with their heart rate in the 150s.
 

Lorenzzo

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How's it going? Did they figure out what was happening that led to the life flight and cath lab?

One thing I want to suggest is finding a sports cardiologist or one who is an athlete. I think most cardiologists have few patients exercising with their heart rate in the 150s.
As luck would have it a cardiologist lives across from me. I chatted with him about it and have an appointment on Monday. I haven’t considered the sports cardiologist approach, I’ll look into that as well as query my neighbor on it. His initial impression is what happened is an avoidable thing. Maybe electrolyte or other deficiency, perhaps coupled with a too high workout HR for my age.

i’ve worked out several times over the last few days, dialing back the heart rate (max 139), making sure I’m hydrated and salted up. So far no issues.

Thanks for checking and for your suggestion.
 

Lorenzzo

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I had my follow-up appointment with my neighbor cardilogist yesterday. He looked at the angiogram and said it's well below average build-up for my age and the main areas substantially below average. My troponin levels for the event were .07 ng/ml which is higher than the normal ceiling of .04 ng/ml and is probably what triggered the lifeflight. But he said I definitely wasn't having a heart attack so he attributes it to some combination of what's normal for me and the stress of what was going on. He considers levels many times higher than that to be an MI indicator.

He asked me how many times I've had the twinge and HR reduction during that same workout and I told him once in over 1,000 times in the last four years. He said so keep doing it, if it happens again just step off. The angiogram results and other tests show it doesn't associate with a real issue. He looked at all my factors and said my risk of an MI is normal to below normal, 10% over the next 10 years and that I can drop it even further by lowering my LDL. While my LDL is a bit high, HDL is high and ratio very good. He said do do everything, push the workouts as before, heli, etc. Had he not had a clean angiogram he wouldn't be so confident and to consider myself lucky that even though he wasn't so sure I needed the angiogram, be thankful we know enough now to rule out problems. Oh..and I don't know about the sports cardiologist aspect but this guy's a jock.
 
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Jerez

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@Lorenzzo I was in Frisco's emergency after a long day of hard skiing some years ago with weird twinges, and they got freaked out from high troponin levels. They said I might be having a heart attack, or it could be elevated levels due to extreme exercise stress causing a kind of Rhabdomyolysis. Apparently, high stress exercise can cause muscle damage that releases troponin. Asked if I wanted to be evacuated to Denver, I said no.

I'm still here! Could be that perhaps.
 

Lorenzzo

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@Lorenzzo I was in Frisco's emergency after a long day of hard skiing some years ago with weird twinges, and they got freaked out from high troponin levels. They said I might be having a heart attack, or it could be elevated levels due to extreme exercise stress causing a kind of Rhabdomyolysis. Apparently, high stress exercise can cause muscle damage that releases troponin. Asked if I wanted to be evacuated to Denver, I said no.

I'm still here! Could be that perhaps.
That’s very interesting and could be similar to what I experienced. This will go on the list of questions I’ll have for a follow up in three months. I’ll report back. We have so much experience and intelligence on SkiTalk, thanks to you all for what I’ve learned in this thread and in most of the others.
 

Shawn

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@Lorenzzo or it could be elevated levels due to extreme exercise stress causing a kind of Rhabdomyolysis.
I wonder what you'd have to do to get rhabdo from downhill skiing. There's usually a point for me where my legs turn to jello and I really couldn't push myself more if I wanted to. Just limp down the mountain doing some Reilly McGlashan low-energy skiing.
 

Jerez

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I wonder what you'd have to do to get rhabdo from downhill skiing. There's usually a point for me where my legs turn to jello and I really couldn't push myself more if I wanted to. Just limp down the mountain doing some Reilly McGlashan low-energy skiing.
Haha. You have to be stupid and ski with your godson and his pal on an epic powder day when you are working on sheer adrenaline and joy and are way too old to be doing so!
 
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no edge

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extreme exercise stress causing a kind of Rhabdomyolysis. Apparently, high stress exercise can cause muscle damage that releases troponin. Asked if I wanted to be evacuated to Denver, I said no.

I'm still here! Could be that perhaps.

It's really dangerous stuff. It's what Crossfitters die from.
 

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