Do we have any cardiologists here or someone who knows how to read and echocardiogram?

Slight abnormalities could be anything, so please don't be worried about this. IF it was anything serious, she would've addressed it immediately and assigned you to another specialist. The high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol commonly comes with age (same thing suddenly happened to me a few years ago when I hit 55), so it's not 'out of the normal'. She addressed this with meds for now, though you can bring the cholesterol and HBP down on your own with diet and exercise.

PLEASE don't worry about this for the next week or Google anything - Google will have you dead by tomorrow. Just follow up with her in 8 days. If she says anything which worries you, you can always go for another opinion with another cardiologist.

- Been in your shoes the past few years. I worried un-necessarily.

Cardiologists are generally alarmists, so if anything was seriously wrong they'd have your ass in their office immediately.

About 15 years ago, my mother called me in a panic because she'd just been in for an echo and her doctor called her and said "My nurse is on the phone scheduling the OR for you TOMORROW. Report there by 6 am." and proceeded to perform open heart surgery, pulling an artery from her leg to replace the one in her heart that was about to explode.

Thanks, r1! I got really freaked out when a nurse called me on Friday a couple hours after my appointment and asked me if I was "having any symptoms" and could I come in before the end of the day for another BP reading. My initial BP reading at beginning of visit was 154/96, then the sonographer agreed to do it again, this time while I was on my back, and it was 172/110. I told the nurse no, and she even asked me if I had a BP cuff at home, which I don't.

After that, she said the doc would call me, but I didn't receive a call...just an email from doc saying the quoted things in my first post. I think that's probably why I became slightly freaked out.

rip...heart emoji

R1, I hate it when you get classy.

No.

OP, can I have your things?

But seriously, as r1 has said, if it was anything serious, the doctor would’ve recognized it and not told you not to worry about it. Please don’t worry yourself over this.

I'm sorry OP, but because of your crap insurance plan I'm going to need a referral from your doctor in order to provide a second opinion.

Just to clarify, was the doctor who read the EKG a cardiologist?

It was done by an outside local hospital unit, and they send over the results to my doctor. So I have to assume THEIR cardiologist who is charged with reviewing the records did so and then sent the results to her. I have the exact report word-for-word that she would have received and when I reviewed it, "slight abnormalities" didn't stick out to me, but I'm not a doctor and she is one.

Your EKG might have shown that you have a slight heart murmur or something that wasn't detected before. That is not a big deal in and of itself, but warrants some follow up. As others have said, an EKG showing gross abnormality would be dealt with as an emergency, so the fact that you weren't ordered to the hospital is a good sign.

OP, you try even my patience. Don't call me, I'll call you.

r11 - I had an EKG in the doctor office over a month ago and it showed a slight weirdness, which is why I was ordered to have an Echocardiogram (a sonogram done by a sonographer) this last Friday. It was the Echocardiogram to which my doctor said there were some slight abnormalities in her email. But not before I received a call from a nurse asking me if I was able to come to the office for a follow up blood pressure that day, was I having any "symptoms" (of heart attack) and did I have a blood pressure cuff at home.

This was why I got a little freaked out, along with the fact that I've had some slight chest pains over the past few months and an episode that woke me in the middle of the night and took about a half hour to go away (and made me vomit). Also, I have an autoimmune disease that specifically attacks the body and organs. So, with all that being the case, I was wondering if maybe there is something I need to be worried about. But my doc knows all of that, so I'm trusting that she's right. I was just really curious WHAT the abnormalities exactly were because I'm not going to see her for another 8 days. More like curiosity on my part.

So, I'm sitting in the Dr's office and she is carefully analyzing a piece of paper.

"I'm quite concerned about this".

"My EKG?" I said with a wavering voice.

"No. Your credit rating".

LOL^^

[quote] I've had some slight chest pains over the past few months and an episode that woke me in the middle of the night and took about a half hour to go away (and made me vomit).

What did she say about this? Personally, you’re better than me. If I had chest pain to the point of vomiting in the middle of the night, I’m calling an ambulance.

Get a blog, OP.

No one on Datalounge gives a shit beyond your initial inquiries; we all have our crosses to bear.

Good luck and good health.

R16 she knows about it, that's why she did an EKG in the first place and then ordered the heart sonogram.

r17 what good would a "blog" do - I know there is a built in audience here with DLers of all walks of life who visit and post; why wouldn't I pose the question? And if you don't like reading, then simply don't click and move along.

Thanks, everyone. I do feel a bit better, but I really just was curious as to what was seen as an abnormality. That was the point of my post.

OP / R18: Stop making a mockery of Datalounge and yourself. This is not the place in which to air your personal issues which are irrelevant to this forum.

You present as a self-serving medical version of "greg." I repeat: create and publish a blog for your dedicated psychoses.

^^Fuck all the way off!

What's on your I-pod?

^^Heartbreak Hotel r21

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Is there a First Amendment scholar in the house?

Proceed with caution here, Muriel. We are being set-up.

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[quote] OP / [R18]: Stop making a mockery of Datalounge and yourself. This is not the place in which to air your personal issues which are irrelevant to this forum. You present as a self-serving medical version of "greg." I repeat: create and publish a blog for your dedicated psychoses.

Wow, R19 sounds like a miserable fuck. Don't worry, OP.

"... a self-serving medical version of 'greg'" — hahahaha — I can't stop laughing.

Get lost, R19, we don't like you.

❤️

Don’t worry!