![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I have been to a cardiologist (John Minutillo, M.D.). I basically like him, as far as I can tell from one visit: he asked what seemed like sensible questions, and said reasonable things, including that often they examine people, conclude it's not the heart, and send them to their regular "excellent internist" to try to find the problem, but I've already been there and ruled out lung stuff. I described the shortness of breath, and (as best I could recall) when it had started, and that it had mostly not gotten better or worse, except for the night I went out in the blizzard (definitely worse) and the few days in Montreal (enough better that I had briefly thought the problem was gone).
Before the doctor came in, one of his staff did an EKG, which was unsurprisingly normal (since my GP's people had done one at the beginning of this, and it was normal), and took my blood pressure, which is a reassuring 120/83. The doctor asked me about high blood pressure (no), high cholesterol (no), and smoking (no), and noted that I have no risk factors for heart disease except maybe my age. This would be more reassuring from a GP than at a cardiologist's office (and Minutillo also does primary care, so I suspect he tells people this moderately often).
After I talked to him, I had an ultrasound of my heart. That, too, came in normal, which again is good if not terribly informative. The next step is a stress test, with ultrasound immediately before and after. After some discussion of schedules and locations (he has the office a block from where I work, and one on the Upper East Side; he is on Madison Avenue one day a month, other people in the practice are there on a similar schedule but different days) we settled on the morning of February 15, on East End Avenue, with him rather than one of his colleagues. (I said I wanted either to see him or go to the Madison Avenue office, not see someone else and go to the less convenient place. I know nothing against them, but liking him is worth something, along with not having to re-explain things.)
I wound up not needing or referring to my notes about stuff from before the last few months, but I'm glad I had them with me, just in case.
Before the doctor came in, one of his staff did an EKG, which was unsurprisingly normal (since my GP's people had done one at the beginning of this, and it was normal), and took my blood pressure, which is a reassuring 120/83. The doctor asked me about high blood pressure (no), high cholesterol (no), and smoking (no), and noted that I have no risk factors for heart disease except maybe my age. This would be more reassuring from a GP than at a cardiologist's office (and Minutillo also does primary care, so I suspect he tells people this moderately often).
After I talked to him, I had an ultrasound of my heart. That, too, came in normal, which again is good if not terribly informative. The next step is a stress test, with ultrasound immediately before and after. After some discussion of schedules and locations (he has the office a block from where I work, and one on the Upper East Side; he is on Madison Avenue one day a month, other people in the practice are there on a similar schedule but different days) we settled on the morning of February 15, on East End Avenue, with him rather than one of his colleagues. (I said I wanted either to see him or go to the Madison Avenue office, not see someone else and go to the less convenient place. I know nothing against them, but liking him is worth something, along with not having to re-explain things.)
I wound up not needing or referring to my notes about stuff from before the last few months, but I'm glad I had them with me, just in case.