No, I did not have a heart attack, but I surely got a lot of tests

When my cardiologist called, she used words I rarely hear. I asked her to hold on as I put my cell phone on speaker so my wife could hear. She repeated, “You were right!”

Many weeks before, after my Apple watch suggested I had Afib, I called my cardiologist, who happened to be on vacation. The doctor on call suggested that I go to a trauma-equipped ER hospital.

I arrived unannounced and explained the reason for my visit. Within 2 minutes, blood was taken, and I was hooked up to an EKG machine. After reading the EKG, they sent me to the waiting room. By the way, I was feeling just fine throughout. But they gave me lots of tests in the hospital, and my cardiologist gave me more a few weeks later. I passed them all, but the mystery remained. Why were my TROPONIN levels so high and not dissipating?

I suggested that I also had unexplained elevated CK levels, another muscle enzyme. She ordered additional blood tests to check both CK and Troponin levels. The blood lab determined that I also had something that caused a false positive for high troponin, caused by my mysterious high CK levels (I guess I’m just one of those people).

The reason for the background information is that I was instructed to include the lab report in the Medical ID and Health app on my phone. 

Her concern was the potential of being treated for a heart attack when, maybe, I just had indigestion.

Emergency personnel depend on the information we add to our phones. Keeping it up to date is a task we cannot ignore.