OT Docs....stress test question

Maybe your labs. Or your EKG.

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I had my yearly lab work done a couple weeks ago and haven't had a chance to do my follow up appointment. Yesterday my doctors office calls and wants to give me a referral to go have a stress test done. Could it have been something about my labs that triggered this?

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Sure, but most often it's nothing. Doctor's want to be safe, especially when being wrong or not catching, double checking something can lead to huge issues for them and you. Don't stress until there's something to stress about, otherwise this is just another test.

Doubt it has anything to do with your routine labs. Probably more based on age, risk factors or what you described on your prior visit.

Results may be WNL , but if your age fits the risk age, they typically order a stress if you've never had one or it's been several years since your last.

Your need for provacative testing also depends on your occupational demands.

128/78 at the time of the lab work.

It's a good idea to have one and get a good baseline for the future and their comparisons

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Just hope you don't get a false positive and they call you the next day and tell you to get to the hospital immediately only to find out your arteries are fine

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Bingo...come to find out they did the same thing to my mom a few years earlier.

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Results may be WNL , but if your age fits the risk age, they typically order a stress if you've never had one or it's been several years since your last.

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That's not typical at all. Routine stress testing (i.e. screening) is not recommended. The only thing I could think of is if there was some abnormality on your EKG or if you had any symptoms that the doc may have thought may sound like angina.

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Make sure it is a cardiolyte/nuc med stress test not just a treadmill stress test. The difference is that you will have pictures of your heart before and after exercise in addition to the ekg. It is a much more sensitive and specific test for coronary heart disease.

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Treadmill stress echo is the preferred test if someone is able to exercise. NM stress testing is fine, but it's a lot more expensive and you get more information with a treadmill stress test (symptoms at a particular workload, ability to assess hemodynamics during exercise, etc).

To answer the OP...it's best to discuss the reasoning with your doctor first. Without having all the information, it's impossible for anybody on this board to give a good answer. However, there does seem to be a trend of people over ordering stress tests on people who don't really need them. They are generally not recommended in asymptomatic patients outside of rare situations.