u/herring-on-rye

hi folks! went to ER last week for slight chest & back pain and slight shortness of breath. ekg on intake showed the following: (unfortunately they didn’t give me a copy of the ekg itself)

-right axis deviation
-s1q3t3 pattern (importantly, with a negative d dimer blood result)
-mild ST depressions in inferior leads, and from v3 to v6

since my d dimer and troponin were negative, they discharged me without treatment. i asked if i should follow up with cardiology, they said i could “if i wanted” - didn’t make it seem urgent.

i’m wondering how serious these abnormalities are, and how hard i should pursue follow up with cardio. i am also wondering if the ekg could have been wrong? i’ve had one ekg in the past and all it showed was a sinus arrhythmia. i had a 24 hour holter and echo last october which didn’t reveal any congenital abnormalities.

i am 30F, regular BP, non diabetic, nonsmoker, no hormonal birth control, generally eat well and do low impact exercise several times per week.

hi! i unfortunately had to go to the ER yesterday for chest pain and had to unmask twice very briefly while there. the rest of the time i was in an aura 9210+. there were a surprisingly good amount of people in the ED with surgicals on, i’d say 1/3 or so. some folks with respiratory symptoms, but not many.

first unmask was at triage so they could take my temperature. the nurse who was triaging me had a surgical over nose and mouth. they triage in the waiting room, and at the time there were three other people there: one with intermittent respiratory symptoms who was correctly wearing a surgical, one with no respiratory symptoms who was unmasked. i held my breath while they took my temperature orally and then re-donned my mask and exhaled forcefully.

second unmask was for a covid test, ironically. they let me self sample, i pulled my mask down for ~10 seconds to swab. i was in a room with one other patient, a nurse, and my friend who was n95’d while this happened. i tried to hold my breath here too, but am worried i inhaled a little bit involuntarily because of the discomfort of swabbing.

obviously going to the ER is stressful, especially being CC. wondering if any of you could weigh in on how dangerous these two small instances of unmasking were. for context i’m on the west coast of the US and wastewater levels in my area are reported as being very low. thoughts?