Do You Need a Stress Test to Tell You to Change Your Life?

A nuclear stress test might be ordered after a regular treadmill stress test. During this analysis, your doctors will be looking to see how much blood flows to your heart both while you're resting and while you're exercising.

Aside from just monitoring your body through an ECG or EKG, your doctor will get images to analyze. Nurses will inject a dye into your bloodstream that helps the doctors see how blood travels to your heart.

Any irregularities show up so that a physician can quickly pinpoint the problem. A nuclear stress test might be done using a myocardial perfusion scan or a multiple gated acquisition.

A myocardial perfusion scan is when you get onto a treadmill or stationary bike and work to an intense state. Once you're there, you get injected with the dye for doctors to view the blood flow process.

With the multiple gated acquisition scan, they inject you before the exercise starts. Images are taken before, during, and after exercise to show the movement of blood to the heart.

Some people can't exercise for whatever reason. If this is you, then the nurses will inject a different medicine that simulates exercise, so that the doctors can see how the process unfolds with a maximum heart rate.

A nuclear stress test just gives the doctors more information - it's nothing to be panicked about. In fact, you ought to be relieved that your physician will have all of the detailed information he or she needs to ensure you live a long, healthy life.

The answer to this question all depends on what type of insurance or coverage you have. At the very least, you may have to pay for the nuclear injections, which run about $200 dollars.

You can call ahead and check with your insurer and physician to see what costs you'll be paying on your own.

Heart disease is due to a combination of factors. Poor diet, lack of exercise - they can all lead to clogged arteries that require you to get a stress test in the first place. But another dynamic in what leads to heart health woes is stress.

Chronic stress has been deemed an extreme danger to your longevity. If you learn to manage your stress, you can help your heart perform better physically - it's not just an emotional salve that makes you feel better.

When a person encounters stress, they feel physical symptoms. Their neck tenses up, they sometimes feel queasy in their stomachs - and their blood pressure sometimes rises, as well as cholesterol levels.

Learn how to alleviate stress that affects your heart. Some stress symptoms can't be linked directly to stress, but you can logically connect the dots and see the relationship.

For instance, many people who come home stressed day after day wind up overeating or smoking too much - two factors that explain why the person could be diagnosed with heart disease during a stress test.

Take matters into your own hand. Learn how to let go of stress, how to keep your heart healthy and fit, and live a better life. Discover how to identify your triggers and relax without enjoying something that could do irreparable harm to your body.