Originally Posted by
Slim11
Go to the Cleveland Clinic web site for cardiology. Their web site has been most informative for me.
I'm dealing with a hypertrophic cardiomyopathy misdiagnosis. The staff at the Cleveland Clinic is excellent and the cardiologist who reversed the previous diagnosis is well known and highly regarded. Now I'm waiting on a decision from Washington.
Good luck!
Thanks for the advice and good luck on your up and coming decision.
At first I thought it would be great if the doc told me no blockages, just a thick heart muscle until I started researching and discovered that little gem HCM. The bulletin I found was a bit old and at the time the FAA wouldn't issue a class 1. I found out from a subsequent conversation with the Colorado doctor ALPA contracts with that it is now possible to get a class 1 even with HCM under certain circumstances but I was still really nervous going into my nuclear stress test.
Anyway, the nuclear stress test went as well as it could have. My WPW didn't even show up on the initial resting EKG (if only I'd had the same EKG 2 weeks ago, none of this follow-up mess would have ever even happened), I made it to 14 minutes on the stress test until I hit 100% effort, but I still had the "drop" (can't remember the specifics, s-wave drop perhaps?) from between 165 and 175 heart rate. The pictures of my heart both pre and post exercise showed excellent blood flow. The cardiologist could not definitively determine what caused the unusual EKG at high heart rates but based on how well I did on the stress test and how quickly I recovered he said it is likely that's just my own personal physiology and there is nothing wrong at all. I'm now just waiting on the results of my halter monitor, and barring any crazy unexpected requests from the FAA I should be good to go! To say I'm a bit relieved would be a gross understatement.