Written By: Debjani Arora | Published : October 23, 2017 11:15 AM IST
If you have been suffering from some mild heart problems like breathlessness, excessive sweating, fatigue, etc., which made you make an appointment with your doctor, don t fret if you are asked to go for an ECG to check on your heart functions. Your doctor might not suggest you one if you don t have any kind of risk factors for heart diseases. Here are six risk factors that make you prone to silent heart attacks.
However, if you reached out to a doctor complaining of occasional chest pain, breathlessness, etc this might be necessary. As an ECG or electrocardiogram is a primary testing method used to test your heart functions. We spoke to Dr B S Sanjay Consultant Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgeon Fortis Hospital, Cunningham Road on how effective this test is to know about underlying heart conditions.
What is an ECG?
An ECG is a simple heart function test that records the electrical activity or impulses of the heart at rest. This is a painless and quick procedure where electrodes are attached to the skin on the chest recording the rate and rhythm of the heart, nerve impulses, triggers, etc.
How effective is an ECG?
There are times when an ECG can give false negative results and might not be able to point to the underlying conditions that need attention. The more effective form of test is an exercise ECG or a stress test where the heart functions are recorded in the active stage. However, your doctor might not ask you to go for a stress test right away and still stick to an ECG. If your ECG shows any suspicious reading then it is followed up with a stress test. Sometimes, for people who don t have too many risk factors the resting heart functions might fail to show any kind of abnormalities, even if they exist. Here is what you need to expect during a stress test.
What should you do?
If you are facing repeated problems of breathlessness and chest pain reports it to your doctor who might suggest you tests beyond an ECG. Else, if you are over 40 it makes sense to repeat an ECG after three months to pick on any heart condition early. This is more important for people who are having a family history of heart diseases.
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