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I'm going to get preachy for a minute here so sit down.
About a month or so ago, I started having chest pains again, mostly while doing the aerobic parts of my daily workout. The discomfort was centrally located in my chest this time, not in the center left, like it was 6+ years ago.
Being a typical idiot man, I tried to rationalize away the discomfort, thought perhaps it was GERD so I backed off on my pre-workout coffees, but no luck. Then about 2 weeks after that I started experiencing jaw tightening so I knew I could no longer ignore it; for those unaware, jaw pain is a leading symptom of cardiac issues. Brought the symptoms to my nurse practitioner wife (who was seriously pissed at me for not bringing it to her earlier) and 4th year med school student son and the next day to my cardiologist. The decision was immediate- another cardiac catheterization, which occurred Tuesday.
I had a 95% blockage to my right coronary artery this time, which I guess helped explain the different location for the chest pressure. Another stent was placed (my third) and an overnight stay in the hospital.
Why am I telling ya'll this? When the first cardiac events occurred some 6.5 years ago, I was waylaid by it all. Couldn't really believe it all was happening to me. I ate pretty healthy, lots of fruits/veggies in my daily diet, exercise 6 days a week, etc. but one can never outrun genetics. I couldn't. Virtually every member of my family has some type of cardiac issue and received stents or had open heart surgery.
I think I wrote about this first event many moons ago; the only symptom I experienced was chest pain- nothing else- but it was a crushing pain when I was jogging, the typical 'elephant sitting on your chest' type discomfort. Two of my heart's arteries on the left side- including the widow-maker- were 95% blocked then also, ergo my first 2 stents.
And now this third one.
I turn 60 in a couple weeks and have had the worst year, medically speaking, I've ever had- between the hip tumor removal, the screwups that occurred in that operation and the long-term recovery, which I'm still going through- and now this.
However, I live to fight another day and hopefully to serve as a reminder to ya'll to pay attention to your health issues, especially as we get older. Men are blockheads. We try to rationalize or ignore the aches & pains... until we can't & it's potentially too late. Had I ignored the signs/symptoms much longer this time, likely w/in another week or so they wouldn't have done a cardiac cath & would've instead split my chest open. That's not something I even want to consider but that fear had crossed my mind.
Now I've got to get my drugs & lifestyle adjusted, as well as my diet because of the triglycerides and sugar levels. I'm hoping to avoid the insulin route but my current meds are not working effectively enough.
Bottom line- don't ignore your health fellas. Pay attention to those signs & symptoms. I'm just glad to be home on Thanksgiving, surrounded by my family, not stuck in the hospital... or worse.
Lee
About a month or so ago, I started having chest pains again, mostly while doing the aerobic parts of my daily workout. The discomfort was centrally located in my chest this time, not in the center left, like it was 6+ years ago.
Being a typical idiot man, I tried to rationalize away the discomfort, thought perhaps it was GERD so I backed off on my pre-workout coffees, but no luck. Then about 2 weeks after that I started experiencing jaw tightening so I knew I could no longer ignore it; for those unaware, jaw pain is a leading symptom of cardiac issues. Brought the symptoms to my nurse practitioner wife (who was seriously pissed at me for not bringing it to her earlier) and 4th year med school student son and the next day to my cardiologist. The decision was immediate- another cardiac catheterization, which occurred Tuesday.
I had a 95% blockage to my right coronary artery this time, which I guess helped explain the different location for the chest pressure. Another stent was placed (my third) and an overnight stay in the hospital.
Why am I telling ya'll this? When the first cardiac events occurred some 6.5 years ago, I was waylaid by it all. Couldn't really believe it all was happening to me. I ate pretty healthy, lots of fruits/veggies in my daily diet, exercise 6 days a week, etc. but one can never outrun genetics. I couldn't. Virtually every member of my family has some type of cardiac issue and received stents or had open heart surgery.
I think I wrote about this first event many moons ago; the only symptom I experienced was chest pain- nothing else- but it was a crushing pain when I was jogging, the typical 'elephant sitting on your chest' type discomfort. Two of my heart's arteries on the left side- including the widow-maker- were 95% blocked then also, ergo my first 2 stents.
And now this third one.
I turn 60 in a couple weeks and have had the worst year, medically speaking, I've ever had- between the hip tumor removal, the screwups that occurred in that operation and the long-term recovery, which I'm still going through- and now this.
However, I live to fight another day and hopefully to serve as a reminder to ya'll to pay attention to your health issues, especially as we get older. Men are blockheads. We try to rationalize or ignore the aches & pains... until we can't & it's potentially too late. Had I ignored the signs/symptoms much longer this time, likely w/in another week or so they wouldn't have done a cardiac cath & would've instead split my chest open. That's not something I even want to consider but that fear had crossed my mind.
Now I've got to get my drugs & lifestyle adjusted, as well as my diet because of the triglycerides and sugar levels. I'm hoping to avoid the insulin route but my current meds are not working effectively enough.
Bottom line- don't ignore your health fellas. Pay attention to those signs & symptoms. I'm just glad to be home on Thanksgiving, surrounded by my family, not stuck in the hospital... or worse.
Lee
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