Q. To my surprise, I recently had a minor stroke. I have fully recovered. My doctor now wants to do a “bubble study.” What is this test, and why it is done?
A. A bubble study, which is done during an echocardiogram (heart ultrasound), can provide added information about blood flow through your heart. Doctors often do bubble studies on people who experience an unexpected stroke — that is, those who have no obvious stroke risk factors, such as high blood pressure or atrial fibrillation. The results can provide clues about a possible cause and may affect the treatment you receive.
During the test, a technician injects a solution into a vein in your arm. The fluid contains tiny bubbles of air, which then circulate through your bloodstream to the right side of your heart. You’ll be asked to cough or bear down, which briefly increases the pressure on the heart’s right side. On the ultrasound image, the bubbles can be seen traveling into the heart’s upper chamber (atrium), then down to the lower chamber (ventricle), and then out through the pulmonary artery into the lungs, where they are filtered out of the blood.
But in some people, bubbles are seen traveling through a tiny, flaplike tunnel between the right and left atria. This opening is present in all babies as a normal part of the development and usually closes up within a few weeks of birth. But in about 25% of people, the hole fails to fully close and is known as a patent foramen ovale (PFO).
For the most part, this condition is harmless, and most people with a PFO don’t know they have one. However, some PFOs may be responsible for certain rare strokes, which are thought to happen when a blood clot travels between the right and left atrium. Because the clot bypasses the lungs (which trap tiny clots before blood recirculates through the body), it can travel to the brain, lodge in a blood vessel, and cause a stroke.
To better assess the odds of this happening, you may also receive a transcranial Doppler study in conjunction with the bubble study. This specialized ultrasound of the brain’s vessels can show if the bubbles injected into your vein are moving all the way up to the brain. When that’s the case, the PFO may be more likely to cause a stroke.
PFOs could be at fault in some so-called cryptogenic strokes (those with no clear cause), especially in people ages 60 and younger. For these people, if testing shows a PFO, doctors sometimes recommend a procedure to close the opening, especially if it is large. But for most people, clot-preventing drugs are the initial treatment.
Bible verses for today’s meditation and inspiration: Matthew E. McLaren
2 Corinthians 13:9 For we rejoice when we ourselves are weak but you are strong; this we also pray for, that you be made complete.
Colossians 1:28 We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.
Colossians 4:12 Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bondslave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God.
2 Corinthians 10:15-16 not boasting beyond our measure, that is, in other men’s labors, but with the hope that as your faith grows, we will be, within our sphere, enlarged even more by you, so as to preach the gospel even to the regions beyond you, and not to boast in what has been accomplished in the sphere of another.
2 Thessalonians 1:3 We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brethren, as is only fitting, because your faith is greatly enlarged, and the love of each one of you toward one another grows ever greater;
2 Peter 3:18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
Ephesians 1:17-18 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
Ephesians 3:16-19 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, read more
Recommended contacts for prayer requests and Bible study
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