Did I get fobbed off at A&E?

[PurblePlace]

I went to the doctor the other day. She took my heart rate and said my erratic heart rate was alarming. It was jumping from 95, to 75, to 85, back up to 95, all within 30 seconds.
She booked me in for an ECG in a couple of weeks time but told me to go to A&E if I get pains and/or fluttering. She said it was worrying.

Last night I did indeed feel fluttering and had palpitations constantly so I went today. My heart rate was again ranging from 98 to 78.

I had an ECG done.
It said “sinus rhythm normal, possible left atrium enlargement, ECG borderline”.
This panicked me.

But when I went into the next room with the consultant, he asked me how old I was. When I said 27F, he said “ah okay, it’s all fine then”. He said my fluttering is “perfectly normal” and my ecg is “100% fine”.
I asked him why it said borderline, why my heart rate is so erratic and why I’m getting flutters then; and he just said not to worry and sent me home?

Am I missing something? I’ve never had an ECG so I don’t know what’s normal?

My ECGs say all sorts of things, right bundle branch block, short PR interval and something else I can't remember. I also had an incident like yours where a doctor listened to my pulse and said it was concerning, but I've been checked over by a cardiologist including a five day holter monitor and my heart is fine. I also get flutters but they're benign ectopic beats which are very common. Another time my ECG showed atrial fibrillation, but it turned out to be interference with the machine.

Does your heart speed up when you breathe in and slow down when you breathe out by any chance?

Go to your GP for a second opinion if you're concerned, I just wanted to try reassure you that abnormal ECGs aren't necessarily anything to worry about.

Can I just third what has already been said, it sounds like your ECG was normal. The report said something else but as above anyone who has worked in hospitals and ordered or interpreted ECGs all ignore the machine generated report. It is always wrong!

Machines can be incredibly good at measuring and recording medical data. They are not (yet) able to interpret it in the way a trained professional can. Automatic reports are generated to give the clinician some ideas of what they might want to look closely at, not to diagnose.

Ask for a 7 day monitor a much higher chance of it picking up an abnormality.

my Apple Watch records my heart rate and also does a mini ECG which tells my consultant enough to know what’s going on with my heart.

You can buy these https://www.boots.com/kardiamobile-single-lead-ecg-monitor-10338220 which are also used by the NHS. It does a mini ECG for you when you feel symptoms come on.

I had an ECG recently as part of cancer treatment and the operator told me that A&E mostly don't even do them properly (I've had them in A&E as well and commented that I'd never had sensors on my wrists or ankles before).

Check with the GP, are you being referred to cardiology?

that will be a rhythm strip then, not a 12-lead ECG. Similar, but not the same, and the person interpreting the rhythm strip will have known the difference.

Locally cardiology would have a standardized pathway of investigations for this. You can't just ask for the ones you want or think are better.