Cardiopulmonary exercise

[mikeydt]

I am due at some point to have a cardiopulmonary exercise test. has anyone out there had one and what is it like.

the reason for this is that i was very ill and they are looking at performing major surgery should i fall so ill and it is needed to safe my life.

[Chappychap]

It's similar to an ECG Stress Test, but as well as measuring the heart while you perform some exercises that are graded to your fitness levels, this version also has you breathing in a tube to measure your lung performance.

As far as the heart is concerned this test falls into a large group of "flow" tests, they all basically measure the flow of blood through the arteries of your heart, The problem is that they rarely reveal any problems until your cardiac arteries are more than 50% occluded. So by the time these type of tests show problems you're already drinking in the last chance saloon.

[Hidden]

I cannot agree more.

It's interesting that mainstream medical tests are always/often geared toward finding the established diseases that are associated with morbidities/death rather than aiming for catching the diseases at the first sign/at the earliest possible stage (which will minimise/contain the damage). It's really a wasted exercise to keep throwing money/resources/more tests at patients when the patient's heart is quite badly damaged and the damage is irreversible. It's not the best timing to intervene, obviously.

[NathanBlau in reply to Hidden]

Have you considered how much it would cost to provide universal screening for cardiac and other potentially fatal diseases? I cant agree either that tests on those exhibiting coronary disease is "wasting money"! These tests quite likely made the difference between life and death for many on here!

[mikeydt]

it has all ways been the same in this country it is a case of when it happens then the tests are carried out.

going a bit off the subject i kept getting bad abdomen pain because i have a catheter they presumed without tests that it was a uti 4 years down the line the obvious happened and the pain got worse and only then were the tests carried out but it was then too late as the damage was done.