Maldorf,
For as long as I can remember I've always had a high resting HR. Sometimes it's mid 85/90 but usally around 75. My heart has "flurries" every blue moon for a second but back to normal. My doctor said he would only be concerned if my blood pressure was high, however it's always been spot on. 127/68- or around those numbers. He said if I had both then he would be worried. However I'm not so sure. Heart disease runs in my family and has killed alot of men on my father's side... including my own dad at only 56. Also, I get out of breath like any normal person training but return to normal at an average time as well. And my heart rate doing brisk walking on an incline after weights usually hovers around 135... so again not crazy high. Nonetheless I believe its time for a full heart specific check up. Which tests would you recommend me having done?
Everything sounds ok, but a resting heart rate between 85 and 90 is a bit high for someone that is fit and exercises. It could be a matter of carrying too much weight. I would think about water retention, but then you mention your BP is good. That's what your doctor was worried about. You say it is usually about 75 though and that is perfectly normal! I remember reading how Chuck Norris had a resting rate of 45 bpm. That was back in the 80s before all of the Chuck Norris Jokes,lol!
I would ask your family doctor. I think he would run an ekg there at his office, just you lying or sitting down. That probably wouldn't show anything wrong, but you never know. Have you at least had that done once? Its cheap to run. I would definitely have that.
Then you have a stress test where they do an EKG while you run on the treadmill to failure. They keep increasing the incline more and more till you say STOP! LOL. That's fun. More shows up when your heart has a big demand for O2, arrhythmias may show up along with other indicators like bundle branch block etc. I would try to get that done. They can also run a VO2 max on you at the same time.
Echocardiograms are awesome. That would show your heart's function in the ejection fraction measurement. They can see wall motion and if it is normal. In a heart that is enlarged and diseased the walls don't move as much as they should, hence don't pump blood so well. They may say the walls are akinetic.
To me the best test out of what I mentioned, if I could only run one, would be the echocardiogram.
This coming Tuesday I am having one and then on Thursday I am having my first PET scan. In the PET scan I will take a radioactive tracer and that goes into my heart cells that are still alive. When they do an image of my heart the dead parts wont light up on the screen like the live ones because they wont have the tracer. Going to see just how much of my heart is dead and if they should go back in and open up my right coronary artery. It is closed up again. I think it is closed though because all of the muscle it supplies is dead.