Quoted message said:
This is the "rest of the story" , now that you have got me thinking
about this test. When they rolled me down to the Nuclear medicine
area, the first person I met who was one of the technicians who
greeted me . I asked him, " Am I going to do the treadmill or is
there some other way this test can be done, because they told me up on
the ward that I probably would not be using the treadmill?" This
was his reply.... " I have been working here for years and if I was 90
years old , and using a walker , I would still rather do the
treadmill than take that horrible drug............"
I got so freaked out over hearing this that I went to the persons
supervisor ( At least I figured that's what he was, because his shirt
was cleaner) and repeated the first person's comment to the
supervisor. The supervisor said, " Oh don't listen to him, he doesn't
know what he is talking about, this test is perfectly safe. ".
Now this sounds like a conversation overheard in the kitchen in a
McDonalds Restaurant , but in fact this is exactly what took place in
the Nuclear medicine Lab in one of the best Cardio Hospitals in the
Southeast .
Now I am thinking, " I should really get up and out of this wheel
chair and just leave and go home while I am still able". I finally
decided to stay, after 2nd and 3rd guessing . Next thing I know they
shoot me full of this medicine with "no warning or explanation of what
was about to occur " and I felt like they just injected me with 1/2
quart of hot DRANO. When I asked the nurse, " Is it normal to feel
like your chest and abdomen are " On Fire" or am I dying , the nurse
then told me that this is a side effect of the medication I was
given. ( Talk about insensitivity, these people were experts at that)
As they were rolling me back to my room on the Cardio ward, , I was
thinking that this entire experience that I just went though was about
as unprofessional as you can get.
Bob
They should have given you a better explaination. It sounds like they gave you
Persantine (Diprydamole). Do you take Coreg or another beta-blocker? If so,
that is probably why they did not do the treadmill. The idea of the treadmill
is to get your heartrate up pretty high and beta-blockers tend to lower it -
so you can't achieve the target. You can go off the drugs for a couple of days
so you can do the test on the treadmill, but some Drs. don't like to do that.
Another, obvious, reason to avoid the treadmill is joint problems, etc.
From what I understand, I think your reaction was fairly common. Mine was a
little different. It was sort of a great anxiety - almost panic.
Bill
