Heart Problems

[kathyjune]

Does anyone know what it means to have something wrong with your "Q Wave"? The doctor said that it wasn't serious but he didn't explain what it meant. He discovered it when I was in the hospital and they did a stress test and and echocardiogram.

[Mr Jones]

type Q wave into your search engine.

lez

[Sheryl]

The Q wave is the first of 3 points which form the QRS complex, the part of the EKG that rises up (or goes down, depending on which lead is used) and represents the contraction of the ventricles. There are normal values for the width of the QRS complex and for the depth (or height, again depending on the lead) of the Q wave. I don't know specifically what the abnormality you had was but it might have been in one of those values. Some people just naturally have slightly abnormal values, in other cases it can be a sign of a problem. One way to tell, aside from the presence or absence of symptoms, is by comparison with past EKGs; if it is an idiosyncratic finding (just an individual difference and not sign of disease) it will appear in past EKGs as well. Of course, if this was your first you won't have anything to compare it to.

If you have a copy of the EKG it will say what the abnormality was. If you don't have a copy you should get one for future comparison if for no other reason.

Once you have the EKG, if you want you can post or PM to me with exactly what it says and I can give more info.