My Dr wants me to schedule an appointment for an echocardiogram?!


Question: My Dr wants me to schedule an appointment for an echocardiogram!?
I've never done this!.!.!.what is involved in this procedure!.!.!.what could it find out!?Www@Answer-Health@Com


Answers:
You just have to lay down, your chest will be exposed but not overly!. The technician will apply a gooey jelly like substance to your chest and rub a wand over your chest and take recordings and pictures with the machine!. This is an ultrasound of your heart!. It is not painful, put sometimes the gel is cold!. The cardiologist will examine the images and look at the structures within your heart, such as the valves, chambers, wall motion, blood flow!.Www@Answer-Health@Com

I have had a few and can tell you what happens!.
Firstly the echo cardiograms come in a variety of forms some use low energy sonic reflection!. This is where they place pads on your back,chest and usually wrists!. They send a low frequency pulse down one and listen and document the result!. A fantastic non invasive and wonderful process take s little time wonderful results!. We have this service available at my local Dr provided by some one else but at my GP's rooms!.
Then there is the echo cardiogram where they use similar stuff to those they use to take echo pictures of babies in wombs!. These provide a detailed picture of hart function and require your attendance at a hospital or center !. I go to the Royal Melbourne Hospital once a year and get an echo cardiogram and a report!. They poke me in the chest with pointy things get me to lie on my left side and poke me with other things about 40 mins!. They use low frequency sound waves and a quite large set up that has got a lot smaller in the last 5 years and get a picture very similar to the ubborn child!. They can focus on individual valves or area's of the hart muscle by sticking the proby thing in different bits and getting me to roll this way or that!.
Remember to ask them to send a copy of the report to your Dr and ask him / her for a copy when your done!.
I am always glad to get out of the echo cardiogram place and I have a Cardiac Clinic visit 2 weeks later where we look at the results and they tell me to keep taking the pills and go away!.!.

Should be no problem mind you theres always the chance that they find something that needs action now so don't put it off or take it too lightly!. Www@Answer-Health@Com

Many of the above posters are very wrong, because they think you're talking about an ELECTROcardiogram, not an ECHOcardiogram!. EA is right; it is an ultrasound!. Most of the time they do it from outside the body and it's painless, but my mother found hers unspeakably painful because they have to press down a bit and most of her chest wall (an interior structure) had been removed years earlier!.

Sometimes they do the echocardiogram from your esophagus, which means you have to swallow this bulb-like thing!. I hope this isn't what they're planning - people often gag and throw up!.Www@Answer-Health@Com

it is just a machine that measures the electrical impluses of the heart!. it takes about 5 minutes and they will put about 8 to ten sticky things on your body, like 4 surrounding the heart than 2 by your feet 2 by on your upper legs and and one on the upper right side of the chest and 2 on your each arm!.!.!.it measures the impluses coming from and going to the heart it sort of follows the line of circulation!.!.!.
it doesn't hurt at all!.!.!.Www@Answer-Health@Com

Just go and take care of that first, it really isn't no big of a deal alot of people get this done just like the people above said it is over before you know it!.Www@Answer-Health@Com

It is basically an ultra sound of the heart!. Shows structure,valves, blood flow, size of heart and any abnormality that maybe present!. Does not hurt!. Www@Answer-Health@Com

You basically lay there!. The tech attaches several electrodes to you and it takes a reading of your heart rhythm!. The entire tests lasts about 45 seconds!.Www@Answer-Health@Com





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