Well my husband failed his stress test. Most people who fail it, fail it in one way, but his showed a problem in two ways. Besides that, he has blood pressure that has reached the low end of high blood pressure and his cholesterol remains high, always has been high. His mother was having chest pain this year and had a cath with 3 blockages and stent put in, and his father has cholesterol problems and blood pressure problems also. So the family histoy is there, also. Which brings me to my question- He wants to skip the heart cath (bc he's nervous) and just start doing some things with his diet (Weston Price recommendations). Doc said he's convinced he has blockage that's more than 50% somewhere to show up like it did. He has no chest pain. I know this would strictly be opinions here, but I would like some feedback on this. He has been doing Atkins for about 18 weeks to help with the cholesterol, but it actually went up a little, which I read is not uncommon and sometimes unmeaningful. What do you think? Should he get cleaned out then make the changes, or skip the heart cath and just take his chances and start making the changes now? Thanks you for your input.

Donna

Before making a decision, I would go here:

http://typ.trackyourplaque.com/about.aspx

Dr. Davis is a cardiologist and treats patients much like your husband.

I would probably recommend a heart scan and starting on Dr. Davis' program.

Dr. Davis also has a blog that is invaluable for keeping your heart and your arteries healthy.

HTH

Progress not perfection.

Lisa

My opinion (an RN with many years of Critical Care experience)? Discuss this (both you and your husband) with the doctor more extensively. The thing is, your doctor (not one on the internet) is the one who knows exactly what is happening with your husband's health, so his opinion is the one I would value.

If it were me or my husband, I would not hesitate to have cardiac caths done as advised. And you never know, the situation might show to be not nearly as bad as feared.

Please let us know what he decides, and keep us up to date.

my son was born with a heart defect and along with 3 open heart surgeries, has had 10 cardiac caths with more of both in his future. cardiac caths are very safe and i would suggest going for it. it will show the cardiologist exactly what's going on in his heart and he can clear out any blockages. i know any procedure can be scary but not doing it can be very dangerous.

I second Lisa's vote for checking out TrackYourPlaque. If it isn't critical and he's got some time to change things around, that doctor has had good luck reducing coronary artery plaques with diet and supplements -- and it's backed up by improving heart scan scores.

Dr. Davis criticizes other cardiologists because they rush to surgery and never, ever try anything else. He says it is motivated by $$'s because the surgery is so lucrative.

Thanks for the advice ladies. I'll continue researching and praying for wisdom. Seems there's a dangerous risk either way, but with the cath there's the bonus of getting cleaned out. With not having the cath, I feel like we don't know what were facing. Decisions, decisions. My husband will have to ultimately be the one who decides. Thanks.

Donna

Donna, a cath doesn't "clean out" anything. It is simply an investigation. They insert catheters into the heart - usually via the groin, or sometimes the arm - in order to test pressures and to pump in some dye to check for blockages in the coronary arteries.

They do insert stents that way, but not on an inititial "cardiac cath" investigation. So, while it is an invasive procedure, it is not nearly so serious as having stents, and nowhere near as dangerous as having surgery. And the surgery these days has very little danger attached at all.

I still think it would be a good idea for your husband to discuss this further with his doctor. Talking doesn't lock him into anything.

Actually this would be an intitial cath and he did tell him if the blockage is more than 50%, he will do the ballon and then place a stent during the same procedure. If it is less than 50%, then he won't do anything, but medicine. If it's really bad, then he will stop and schedule a bypass.

Donna

Well, I just wanted to update this post. He did have the cath. They found 4 blockages, 2 in the same vessel, all on the left side of the heart. They were not able to reach a blockage in the back of a vessel so stent were out of the question, as was the robotic procedure. He was cathed Wednesday at 1pm, told he needed open heart surgery by 2pm. Met with the cardiac surgeon by 3pm and scheduled for surgery the next morning at 8am. No time to absorb it all. They began to prep him within a few hours after scheduling Wednesday. Surgery was 8am to 1:30pm with no complications. Friday was a horrid day bc he told the nurses to only give him 1 pain pill instead of 2, bc he doesn't like medicines. BIG, BAD MISTAKE!! He won't do that again. Pain was unbelievably out of control until late Friday night after they adminstered several doses more along with xanax to relax him. Chest tubes out Saturday, which brought considerable relief. Home Sunday. He went to church Sunday night and to the 4th picnic twice today with a nap in between. Had a great day. He is tired tonight.
I believe we made the right choice to cath. Otherwise, it could have been much worse, since he was having no symptoms of blockage whatsoever. He has no other health problems. Very health man. We feel we've been blessed with an extended life and his health should be better than it was before, considering he had 4 blockages. Now for the decision on how to eat?? They say no butter, low cholestrol foods, and low on red meat. We don't believe this, so I guess we will be bucking the doc on this one. Has to make a decision about the Lipitor they put him on also. He's not happy about this. They make it sound life threatening to not take it now with the heart grafts. "Oh you don't want those new heart grafts not to take." Oh what to do about the Lipitor? We shall see??

Donna

Donna, while I am sorry to hear that your husband needed surgery, I am really happy to hear that it went so well, and that he is now he is recovering so well. Scary for you both to have the surgery performed so quickly, but good to know it is now over.

I wish him the best of health for many years to come!

Glad to hear your husband did so well with the surgery. This is my first reading of this thread...what you have faced is something many of us will, in time. I would find it very hard to choose which course to take as well!

Hope he continues to improve.

A word of encouragement on this part - my BF had (triple or quadruple, I can't remember) bypass surgery 11 years ago. For most of the time since he's been LC. One of his grafted arteries had to be stented this year, but, as I understand it, that frequently happens anyway within a few years and they have to be fixed. But he went way longer than the usual interval and I attribute that to the LC'ing. He has passed his thallium/treadmill and other tests with flying colors every year since his surgery except for this one thing. His heart is in great shape and he's 70.

He is on Crestor but he does say he will not allow them to ever increase the dose. I remember talking to his cardiologist about the negative information I've read here and other places about statins and he did not disagree with most of what I said!

Donna, glad to hear he is doing so well.

I had heart bypass surgery in 2009 and still eat low carb also. I'm finding more and more doctors willing to be open minded about it.

Thanks Cheri! The dietary teaching we will be undergoing soon maybe be more than we care to hear. I hear the no butter, use Promise already. What is Promise anyway? Margarine? Who knows? Who cares? Everything is soooo confusing anymore.

Donna

We didn't have to have any "dietary teaching" after the stent was installed (can you say no thanks?), but there were booklets in the recovery rooms that included the usual BS dietary advice, like "cut down on saturated fat, etc". When no one was looking, I took a pen and did a little uh, correcting in one of them. Would have done more than one booklet if I'd had the chance. My bad!