@carculmer I'm betting they don't want to do a right-side heart cath on you because the observed pulmonary artery pressures on your previous echocardiograms ( in the low 40's, if I recall?) were not that high, almost borderline. The right sided cath pulmonary artery pressures are always significantly lower than those seen on echos, ( the cath pressures have their own normal ranges as well) and it might well be that your right sided cath pressures might be normal. It's probably a good idea to continue to monitor your pressures with echocardiograms, as these are noninvasive methods of letting them know how those things are going.

My cardiologist didn't make any mention of a right-sided cath for me either, and I sure wasn't going to bring it up either as I really don't want to go through that especially if my cardiologist doesn't feel it's warranted at this point. If he believes the PH is due to left-sided heart disease I'll be happy to concentrate on treating that as we need to. He says he does prescribe sildenafil for patients for whom shortness of breath is problematic but we both felt I'm not symptomatic enough ( it's not all the time and it's very mild and short-lived) to take that medication at this point. When he mentioned the weight loss I jumped the gun and told him I had no intentions of taking any of the weight loss drugs (GLP-1's) but would do it the ways I'd found it worked for me, and he laughed and said he wouldn't prescribe any of those. Honestly, they might work but I'm afraid of the side effects, including the possible long term side effects I may not even live long enough to see ( I'm 78). My daughter's taken those, and has had pancreatitis twice, I have enough GI oddities already and don't want any more. I'm hoping the spectre of escalating heart failure if I do nothing will be enough motivation to keep me on track for the life style and exercise I need to keep it all as good as I can.

We'll see what the echo I have scheduled in December brings...