Believe what your HRM is telling you - You might need to see a doctor

We received this from Greg. It’s his story of how he came across a medical issue by monitoring his Heart rate monitor. hope you are on the mend Greg. Wishing you a speedy recovery.

Little story below as to what happened this week when riding.

About 10 days ago I was out on a ride and my HRM went up to almost max Heart Rate. I felt pretty good but slowed down a fair bit but the BPN didn't correspondingly drop. A bit concerning but as I felt ok I thought the HRM was telling untruths.

So the Monday just gone out I went again for a gentle ride around Romsey. All was ok for about 15 mins with the monitor showing 120 -125 bpm.  I then was pushing up a small hill and the heart rate jumped up rapidly to 167 bpm and the monitor screeched at me to cease time trial. But I wasn't in a time trial !!!!!.

I stopped and physically checked my pulse and it did not seem overly fast so I concluded that it was telling lies again.  I waited for about 3-4 minutes for it to drop which it usually does but it only dropped to 155 bpm. Very unusual for me. Any how thinking that the HRM wasn't kosher I continued but it quickly indicated a very high HR again. By this stage the was a small amount of pain going from the centre chest up to the back of my throat.  Had not experienced this type of pain before although I had felt a dryness before and thought it was thirst.

I rode a further 2 - 3 km and the Hr was still up there although I was not riding hard. The pain was not decreasing so I decided to ride to the local Dr's surgery. I was taken straight in as I mentioned that my HR would not go down. A Dr checked me out and asked the heart attack questions but I was not experiencing the (normal) symptoms. So a ECG was done and even after about 20 mins the HR was still at 155 or so. A couple of sprays of stuff were sprayed under my tongue.  An ambulance was called and next thing I was off to Royal Melb Hospital. After the spray the pain went and the HR came down.

After initial examination I was moved to the Melb private next door and scheduled for an angiogram.  The up shot of this was that a narrow small artery was found on the top of my heart that was considered to be genetic because I did not have the other risk factors such as diabetes or high cholesterol and a stent was inserted.  As a consequence I have 8 different types of tablet to take for a minimum of 3 - 4 months and after that hopefully will be taken off a number of them but I'm on low dosage asprin for life.

I'm feeling great overall but with a sore groin. Can't ride for about three weeks until I see the specialist again.

Moral of the story?  Believe what your HRM is telling you!!!!!!
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Regards,
Greg B

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