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Hi - I’m not sure what “capturing an episode” is going to tell you, beyond what you already know?
Id push for a cardiac consultant (or go private) to discuss risks of intervention vs leaving as is.
As above ^^^ 30 years ago I was told there was little actual risk if you were young and healthy, but more of a risk of clots as you got older. Be interesting to hear if that view has changed!
cookiemonster
@ewanmac
So I'm a little earlier in the process.
Over the past 4-5 years I have had occasional episodes where, during or immediately after bouts of interval training, my HR spikes to 220-250 and stays there for a few minutes before returning to normal (screenshots of two examples attached). I guess I've had maybe 4 or 5 confirmed incidents (where I've both noiced the sensations and also caught it on an HRM) plus a handful of other suspected episodes. Shortly before COVID, I went to the GP about it, and while they seemed pretty unconcerned they sent me for an ECG and echocardiogram - I never heard back from them and what with COVID emerging I just assumed that no news was good news.
I think my previous episode was in 2021, but then a couple of weeks ago it happened again, but this time, rather than experiencing an elevated HR for ~3minutes, it was going for nearer 20. This prompted me to go back to the GP who said that the reason I never heard back about the previous tests was that the results appear to have been lost. He suspects that the cause is "exercise induced SVT" (supraventricular tachycardia). Again, he wasn't overly concerned - he said that he'd be concerned if I was experiencing several episodes per week, not approximately one per year, but he did say that if it ever stays high for 20minutes again, or if I get a shorter episode accompanied by any of the following symptoms: chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness then it was ambulance time.
I'm now waiting on a new bout of tests, but the GP felt that these would inevitably fail to provide a diagnosis since my episodes seem to be triggered by high intensity efforts. Even a stress ECG in a lab was unlikely to uncover anything since I only get episodes in about 1% of interval workouts. So he recomended getting a portable ECG to see if I could capture an episode.
Does anyone have any experience with these? He recoomended Kardiomobile, but I see that a growing number of watches (Apple Watch, Garmin Fenix 7 pro etc) also have this functionality, as well as ecg heart rate straps.
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