[MFAFF]

Matt,

Having been in your son's position (a long time ago tho') I'd suggest that you doing some heart monitoring yourselves; might make a difference. There are a number of relatively inexpensive heart rate monitors and data loggers...so he can wear one all day and you can download the data and see what is happening. (I use one on the bike every day... logs heart rate during the exercise period, I can download it, see the graphs and get max rates, time in zones and so forth....on my Garmin. However there are others).

This data is a fairly coarse information compared to the medical heart rate monitors, which will give the medics a more detailed picture of what the heart is doing during as opposed to how much its doing it.

Whilst the docs will not necessarily be happy with you supplying additional data, they are adults and should be able to deal with it, the issue is one for you and him to get to understand what is 'normal' heart rate for him at the moment. Getting an idea of what his overall heart rate range is over a typical day and during exercise is interesting (a bit of a science project) and may serve to reduce the stress associated with it.

I recall having to wear at HR monitor over a 24 hr period... fat lot of use as I was stressed out of my box because of it. This was made all the more ironic as my Dad was a medic and for him all this was 'routine' and 'nothing to worry about'; so I can imagine that the whole thing is doubly stressful for you and your son. I often look at my traces with my son (13).. he is fascinated by the whole thing... and it makes sense to make the most of it.

Hope everything is well with your son.