Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Heart Stress Test

So I had a good time yesterday, I got to go into the doctor for a heart stress test. I have had really high blood pressure lately and was feeling a heaviness in my chest when working out sometimes. I went to the local hospital for the test which is nice because I didn't have to run all the way to St. Cloud to do it.

Well what they do at these things is take your blood pressure and heart rate at rest both laying down and standing up. Then they have you take off you shirt to put on a bunch of probe patches all over your torso. Well for those patches to stick they not only have to shave patches off you but have to "rough" up the skin with what they call "scratch pads". Basically they rub you with sand paper which is fun let me tell you.

So after they got me all prepped I got to sit around waiting for the doctor for about 20 mins and then they put my on their treadmill. You start off at a walk and every 3 mins they raise the speed and incline of the treadmill. Every couple of minutes they take your blood pressure and they watch your heart on their equipment. When by the time you get to level 5 you are running up a hill and I am getting quite tired, thankfully I made it.

Everything in the test turned out well and man was I sore later that day. I guess I should have stretched first. Oh well. Now how do I get my blood pressure down.

 

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

you shoulda thought about that last question before you got married and had 2 kids!