Question:
what is a 2 day stress test

three month ago i had my stress test on the tredmill,was told everything was ok,now im waiting for my surgery date and they tell me i need to do stress test again because my heart rate wasnt high enough?what is this all about does anyone know? /    — snugglesandmike (posted on September 13, 2009)

September 13, 2009
I had a two day stress test,it was a piece of cake.The first day you go in they will give you a IV ,they will put some radio active medicine in you and send you out for a big fat lunch.then they will x-ray you.the next day you eat a big lunch and then they take more x-rays,then you are done.Hope this helps.I was so worried about this,but it was so easy.The only hard part was laying on that hard table for the x-rays. Take care, Blues
   — blues7

September 13, 2009
my two day stress test was different than the other poster described for hers. i had to sit in this seat for maybe 45 minutes...i had to sit STILL and it was hard for me not to fall asleep. during this time, a machine rotated around me, taking x-rays or scans of some sort, apparently. then i had to go in the next day and have the iv of the medication that made me feel HORRIBLE, go on the treadmill for a certain amount of time...and then had the same types of films taken as the day prior. note: the medication was horrible for me, but they said i had a bad reaction. they warned me that some people do, but it doesn't last a long time. i'm not trying to scare you - perhaps your two day test will be the same as the prior poster. they certainly didn't have me go for a big lunch. as an aside, i had done the regular stress test and gone for well over what i needed to, and with a high enough heart rate, but my program wanted the further testing.
   — rachieo

September 14, 2009
My two day stress test was different from the previous two. This stress test was targeted at my heart. They took pictures of my heart the first day and that was it. Then the second day I had some kind of injection that simulated a sudden hard stress to my heart. It hurt so bad and I was really scared, even though the nurse practitioner and the technician were right there watching my heart performance, and the nurse was holding my hand. It lasted about 3 minutes, but seemed like an eternity. After the antedote was injected, and my heart went back to a normal rhythm, they took more pictures. It's not a fun procedure, but necessary to make sure you won't die on the table during your surgery.
   — cydthekid50

September 14, 2009
Why didnt they do a chemical stress test if your heart rate wasnt high enough? I'd ask that if I were you.
   — Joseph Johnson

September 14, 2009
I just had my nuclear stress test today. Started me with an IV of sugar water, walked on the treadmill ( for 7 min and up to an incline of 14) 1 min before I was "getting out of breath" they instilled the clear radio isotope in the IV. I then had the nuclear scan. (Had to lie still with arms overhead)Lasted about 15 min. I was then told to have a high fat lunch and return 4hours later and the nuclear scan was done again (more radio isotope). That was so the scan could pick up blockages, previous MI's and also check out the gall bladder. I then had an echocardiogram. (how the blood is working through your heart)
   — over50woman1

September 15, 2009
I am a Nuclear Medicine Technologist and do this for a living. There are many variations of this test. For heavy people, a 2 day protocol gives the best results. A radioactive tracer is injected while you are at rest. Images (not xray; a nuclear scan; gamma rays that you emit to the equipment which converts the ray to light) are taken about 1 hour after the injection. The next day, you are stressed; either by walking or with a drug (adenosine, persantine or dobutamine) and given a second radioactive injection at peak stress. We trace the blood flow of the heart to the muscle to determine if there is ischemia (reduced flow) or scarring from previous heart attacks. The test can be done with rest first or stress first and the other part the next day. If you can walk, it's always better, but you do need to reach your target heart rate when exercising for the best result. If you can't, then the drugs are used to dilate the arteries and essentially simutlate exercise. Rebecca
   — rtempes