60 % LAD blockage management

Heart health and blood vessels
1

After under going testing for constant chest pain lasting several months an angiogram showed a 50 - 60% stenosis in my LAD. All other arteries are clear. The cardiologist is certain my chest pain is not related to my heart because of my very high exercise tolerence - 18 mins on stress test 

I have been put on aspirin and statins and was wondering  with this medication and lifestyle changes whether is is possible to stop the plaque progression or am I heading for a complete blockage and heart attack?

Would be interested to hear how people in similar position are coping and for how long?

Thanks

2

Frankly this cardiologist is talking out of his or her ass, "very high exercise tolerance" doesn't mean poo  ​

Have you got (or can you get) a glyceryl trinitrate spray, an alcohol based one like Nitromin ​

OK if your chest pain is genuinely eased somewhat by two or three pumps of this spray (under the tongue / as directed) then your chest pain is heart related and you are suffering from coronary heart disease, it's as simple as that

I can't really answer your other questions without knowing a little ...,, but yes things, generic things, are possible, but the question is are they probable

Can you stop ... probably not but what you are doing is better than nothing  Are you heading for a complete​ ... who knows, maybe, it's possible,, but you could get hit by a bus long before  

3

Hi Benny,

Sorry I wasn't completely clear earlier. I think the cardiologist is saying the pain is not angina/heart related because the pain is not eased by a glyceryl spray and also does not worsen with exercise.

He told me that because the pain occurs at rest I simply would not be able to exercise to the level I can because the pain/demand on my heart would be to much if it was heart related.

4

Hi Mark,

My wife had chest pains for 'months' and no ECG picked up on it and the doctors all said 'well you will be glad to know its not your heart'.

Then after another night of pain I took her to the hospital and yes, she was having a heart attack.

How can a heart attack go on so long.

You must insist on more tests,keep on to them, become a nuisance.

5

Just to give you a different picture, my husband has a serious heart failure or dialated cardiomyopathy, with orginally a left branch bundle blockage, that showed on his ECG, and we were told not to worry about the LBBB, it isn't a problem. 

A few days later he collapsed at home, couldn't seem to stay awake, he kept drifting off sitting in his easy chair, and I noticed he was sweating alot,and panting for breath, eventually called ambulance service, they took him to local hospital, he was in congestive heart failure, during all of this he had NO PAIN.

Discharged following day from the hospital, no medication, no indication he had even been sick, just told by so called cardiologist that he was fine, he collapsed again at home 12 hours later.

I drove him across the city to the heart hospital where they kept him for 8 days, stablised him, found out what was wrong, see above, and treated his condition with drugs.

Five years on he is doing well, watching what he eats, walks 3 - 4 kilometeres a day, yes he still has heart failure, and the LBBB has progressed to RBBB as well, pacemaker installed to support his heart 6 weeks ago, that has improved him out of site, no more breathlessness, and energy levels back to where they were before the heart failure even occured.

Echocardiograms every six months to watch what his heart is doing, from what I can see as a normal non-trained medical person, that seems to be the only way they can really diagnose whats going on, of course his echo's are done in the same specialist heart hospital where they treated him correctly in the first place.

I have alot of confidence in our senior cardiologist, but getting to see him can be interesting to say the least, he kicked butts even the last time my husband was in as his symtoms do not match the text book, and junior staff assumed he was better than he was in reality, and even in the heart hospital they delayed his treatment, pacemaker, and gave his pacemaker to someone else who was sicker, that was until the consultant specialist saw him and started raising cain, some very long faces from junior staff members when he started dressing them down in our hearing.

6

Oh right  Look up coronary artery spasm / prinzmetal's angina