No More Catheterizations

Its been awhile since posted, altho I check the site daily, just went threw another cath, this is the final straw.... After a heart attack, full blockage on right side, had stent, then later another stent on left side, then another on right side, then another to open prior stent up, then six months ago was told there was nothing more they could do for me except try medications, of which i had been on for oveer two years, well a week ago the doctor decided to do another cath as was experinceing chest pains, needless to say this cath exposed more blockages, but not large enough to stent and was told we will just continue you on meds to correct the problem.. To me if the meds have not worked in three years and blockages still occuring why go threw the procedure over and over, has anyone else been in this situation??

2 Comments

Sticky Wickit

by ElectricFrank - 2009-10-11 12:10:34

That is a hard one to decide on. As I see it a cath has the potential to actually open the artery, but has risks. The meds really can't open things back up and can only help your heart get along on less blood. Kind of like dealing with a clogged drain in the kitchen sink by running less water down it.

I am not a fan of cath procedures, but in this case I would likely go for it. The other more drastic option is bypass surgery. Difficult for you to make a decision. With your history though doing nothing is an almost certain route to another possibly fatal heart attack.

I would suggest getting another opinion before deciding. I'm puzzled about them not giving you more options unless they have some financial motive for not doing so.

best of luck,

frank

No More Caths

by SMITTY - 2009-10-11 12:10:53

Hello Jim,

I have, to some degree, been through what you are going through.

My first knowledge that I had a heart problem was a heart attack. This was before the advent of stents (27 yrs ago) so I had a quadruple bypass. Over the coming years I had many caths. To date my best count is the total is 17. That includes the ones where doctors just wanted to take a look and the balloon jobs and then the stents. I now have 4 stents, of which I can truthfully say one made me feel much better. If the other three made any difference, I could never feel it. Of course along the way I have had I don't know how many different heart meds prescribed.

Today I take four meds. One for a low thyroid and three that I guess you could say are all heart meds. One is a calcium channel blocker, one is a diuretic and one is potassium. The potassium is to replace the potassium I lose from the diuretic. I've had my share of battles with the doctors because many of the meds, especially beta blockers and ACE inhibitors make me feel worse than death warmed over and I refuse to take them. In fact my current cardiologist put in my records that he was no longer gong to try to push medicines on me that I didn't want to take as he thought I had reached the point that "quality of life rather than quantity of life is more important to this patient." What he will never admit is the beta blockers and ACE inhibitors were killing me!

The reason I'm telling you this is that since Feb. '07, during which I got three of those stents I have had many problems, mostly irregular heart rhythm and chest pain, Although I have a pacemaker that had a low set point of 70, I would frequently find my heart rate in the mid-40s to mid-50s, which invariably would bring with it chest pain.

Then one day I had a brain storm and decided that my pacemaker, which I got in 2000, should be able to do a better job of controlling my heart rate. I reached this conclusion mainly because of what I had learned here from other peoples experiences. So, I got a Medtronic representative to join me and one of the technicians at the pacemaker clinic I use and the three of us made some decisions about the settings on my pacemaker. My input was to increase the low set point from 70 to 80, the manufacturer's rep fine tuned some of the settings and the technicians convinced me to let him restart the rate response. I had tried the rate response three times before and it just caused additional problems. The main thing done to the rate response was to lower the set points and to decrease the sensitivity. In other words my physical activity had to be more than previous before the RR would kick in. This happened in June '09 and I can honestly say I have felt a 100% since better since those changes were made.

I saw that doctor a couple of weeks ago that said quality of life was more important than quantity of life and he admitted that my appearance (from about Feb. '07 to June '09, I had a white ring around my mouth due to low blood flow) and test results showed my heart function was much better than the last time he saw me and his only recommendation was that I get more exercise. But he is a jogger and thinks everybody should have more exercise. I do exercise more now, because before June it was a real struggle to walk a 100'. But at 80 yrs. old I don't plan to be entering any marathons, so I'll just stay with my 20 to 25 minutes on a slow treadmill and be happy with that.

So, don't give up. Help can is possible. Sometimes we just have to change the place and the people that are taking care of our health problems.

I wish you the best,

Smitty

You know you're wired when...

Your pacemaker interferes with your electronic scale.

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