Hi windy, I had a cac done and it's called "ct heart w qualitative eval of coronary calcium" in my patient portal. Basically it gives me a calcium score of my coronary arteries, and mine showed a score of 38 at my lad, the main of the 3 coronary arteries. My cardiologist didn't really want to do this test because they'd already seen the mild calcification from my chest ct but I insisted and wanted to know my score. It is said that if one is on statin treatment, the score could be artificially raised a little bit.
Your cardiologist probably is thinking about a CTA (CT coronary angiogram) test for you, which needs a contrast. This is the more accurate yet non-invasive way to know whether or not one or more coronary arteries are diseased due to any soft or hardened plaques. Sometimes a person could have a 0 cac score but could have many soft plaques resulting more than 70% of blockage, which usually starts to give symptoms. So CTA is better at evaluating any blockage of coronary arteries due to soft AND hard plaques.
Thanks @mayblin. This, for me, is an example of a poor risk/benefit balance! My afib with heart rate 190+ happens very infrequently (every 1-2 years) and when cardiologist asked if I had left arm pain, I said I seemed to remember one time. But I have left side pain a lot. I have no risk factors for narrowed arteries: I can walk 10 miles and go up and down stairs without being short of breath. No angina. Low blood pressure etc.
The pain in spine (fractures, scoliosis, stenosis) from the treadmill was not worth it to me. I really liked this doctor and appreciate caution, but I am just going to try to let this request vanish in the minutiae of medical details at a large hospital practice if possible. I am also going to enlist the opinions of endo, ortho, neuro, nephrologist on stress tests as I told cardio I would.