Wow. Needing bypass was my big fear going into the cath. Glad to hear things went well with yours.
Just heard from an old friend I’d lost touch with. Her husband had a quintuple bypass a while ago. It had no impact on his lifestyle, and he recently needed angioplasty and stents in two of his bypasses!!
Yep. 
You’d think having read his tale would have had more of an effect on me. Denial is freaking powerful stuff.
My brother said his heart attack felt like heartburn too, but after several hours he decided to go in. He had one stent and then acute heart failure (at 38). He was out for at least a week, intubated. That was about eight years ago. A couple of years ago he was travelling and had another episode, and got two more stents and a few days in the hospital.
As far as I know he is on cholesterol medicine and he was and may still be on Cumadin.
Some of this runs in the family but he also blamed his “lifestyle” of drinking and drugging.
I’m now on Lipitor, although my lipid profile has always been good (cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL, LDL, etc).
And I’m blaming it all on genetics. The drinking and drugging if anything reduce my stress level, and stress is a huge factor, per my cardiologist.
Gospel. I’ve heard those words from everyone on the cardiology team.
In November of 2000 I was racing my daughter up a long steep hill on bicycles. 100% max effort on both of our parts. She won. I felt some chest pain and pain down my left arm. It wasn’t too much different than when I’d pulled a chest muscle a few years before. We rode 25 miles back to the car. The next day I rode 35 miles and still felt the pain plus felt a little “ill”. So I told my wife who is a nurse. IF LOOKS COULD KILL! To the ER we went.
The did a couple of blood tests then decided to do a cardiac cath which confirmed that I’d had a heart attack. BTW: If they say the dye might burn some, they aren’t kidding. It was a 90% blockage of a little artery. If I hadn’t been doing a max effort, I’d probably never have felt the problem as the cardiologist said I had excellent collateral circulation probably from years of aerobic exercise.
They were ready to put in a stent, but the artery was too difficult to get to at least in 2000. I’ve heard that they have improved procedures and technology since. So I wear a heart rate monitor and keep my heart rate under 160 bpm as 170+ starts to cause pain. Not to bad for a 59 YO though. I also take a beta blocker to artificially keep my heart rate and blood pressure down. The beta blocker is horrible for aerobic exercise. There were times I couldn’t get my heart rate over 105 BPM. I’m on a fourth of the original dosage now.
I was out of the hospital in 4 days but only missed 3 days of work because it happened on a weekend. I’m sure that if I hadn’t had the heart attack, I might have been out of the hospital no later than the next day. The cath didn’t cause any real pain and even the injected dye didn’t cause much of a burning sensation.
BTW: when the nurse talks about shaving you, it isn’t your face being talked about!
Glad you went to see the doctor and that you’re doing okay! My husband has two stents and hasn’t had any problems with them.
Re: Listening to your body, even it it’s just whispering instead of shouting . . .
But I wonder when to think “Just crying wolf?”
I have frequent but very mild chest pains. But this is nothing new: I’ve had this for years and years and years and years . . . Occasionally they get just a little bit more severe (just slightly), or a little more frequent, or a little longer at a time . . . But when do I decide to call a doctor or 911?
On the occasion that I’ve talked to doctors, they say it’s nothing. (Sometimes, they’ve actually done an EKG or blood test first, but sometimes not even that :dubious:) And I can’t go calling 911 every other day. Problem is, I’ve never had any really serious chest pain, and I really have no idea where the line should be drawn between ignoring it and pushing the panic button.
Not me, but when my Dad was about 45 he had a blood clot and was in the hospital for about two months. 45 years later he had a heart attack and got a double stent. He was in the hospital for two days. He was fine after it and lived for another five years.
I was surprised at how well the recovery went, except for needing to adjust some of my meds. The hardest part was not being able to drive for 6 weeks. But the first day I was allowed to drive happened to be my birthday.
But the pain of thoracotomy? I’m a pussy, I’ll admit. I’m tattooed and pierced, but hey, there is discomfort and there is pain.
On the bright side, I saw my PCP 48 hours ago and he OK’d return to work. I worked a full day yesterday and all went well. Never felt better.
A friend on Facebook had a similar situation and just went through a stress test as a precaution. If you have health insurance (don’t we all?) why not?
Heh, yesterday in the mail I received my letter that my insurance OK’d my stress test. Glad I didn’t wait to hear. * old rolleyes*
Heh. My mom had breast cancer that spread all over and caused her lungs to fill with fluid. They did the thoracentesis once to help her breathe and she said it was worse than childbirth!
(Re: My question: How to decide when to get worried, given mild chest pains):
Okay, I did that once. (I was having palpitations too, which were eventually diagnosed as PAC, Premature Atrial Contractions, which are common and no big deal.) I was a frequent and very in-shape hiker at the time, so I passed the treadmill test. The doctor said it was very rare for anyone to make it through the entire test like I did.
But the last phase of the test (the most strenuous part) trashed my joints. My hips and knees got sore and inflamed by the end of the day. Okay, that was to be expected. The problem was, instead of recovering in a day or two, they got worse, and then a bunch of major joints throughout my body (like shoulders and elbows) got sore too. I guess there was a systemic inflammation response going there.
And I guess that did some damage, because I never recovered fully. My hip joints, in particular, have been sore ever since, and I’ve hardly done any hiking since then, and so I’ve completely lost all the cardio conditioning I had. Today, 15-some years later, I’m mostly a sessile couch potato, consuming 7 times my weight in Ibuprofen daily. A barnacle could outrun me.
I doubt I’ll be doing any more treadmill tests.
I had a heart attack a year and a half ago. I woke up with chest pains and woke up my wife, who responded to the situation by putting me in the car and getting me to the ER within fifteen minutes. I was in the cath lab shortly thereafter, where they out a stent into my blocked artery.
The small complication was that the bleeding at the incision site took a long time to stop. I was up on my feet about four hors later, and was released from the hospital the following afternoon.
I took a week off of work to recover, and enrolled in cardiac rehab. I have been doing fine ever since.
Love all the success stories!
A week and two days since my stent and I’ve never felt better. (Well, maybe 30 years ago). I worked three days this past week. My daughter drove from Virginia to visit. I assumed she had other business in western PA; her fiancé’s parents live near here. Turned out she just wanted to see me! Made the heart attack almost worthwhile.
Feeling better and a kid visit?
Thats living large, alright!
Glad to hear you’re doing fine!