Who Is Your Favorite Cardiologist?

and you’ll be in better shape than ever with better circulation!
my wife got 10 years younger from her stent.

Best wishes, Willis and prayers of thanks it turned out well.
I had an accident and ended up with a metal rod down one femur and a second rod at an angle into my pelvis plus the bolts and screws to keep them in place. Ten weeks in a wheelchair and about 500 hours in the gym and I could walk again without a limp. Then my 180 lb dog came running, throwing clods of dirt with all four feet, and hit me going about 30 miles an hour. This time I ended up with a metal plate and eleven screws from various angles to pin the lower part of the same leg together. My x-rays look like something out of a sci-fi film. I was in a wheelchair for another 10 weeks and my surgeon just laughed when I asked if I could rehab it back to normal. She said, “Of course not!” I still have the dog and a limp. But, I won’t be getting an MRI.

Glad they could take care of you so quickly.
The most memorable cardiologist I met was a guy in business class on a flight from Sidney to LA. The plane sucked up 5 birds into the number 3 engine of the Boeing 747, and we had to spin around Sidney Bay dumping fuel.
Unlike the Australians, who, upon hearing some very odd sounds for an airplane to make coming from the outside of the plane, I was terrified. These Australians heard there was a problem, looked up, and went back to reading their papers. The Americans were all looking around, wondering “What the he** is going on.”
As it turns out, the guy sitting next to me was a Cardiologist. An aged fellow. And not any cardiologist, but the guy who had worked to develop the original procedure for open heart bypass surgery. He wasn’t the primary doctor, but an attending. As the plane circled around Sydney Bay, dumping Kerosene, he calmly explained to me that “After we lost 50 patients in a row, I almost quit.” That wasn’t the extent of it. He told me how they could not use a heart lung machine on infants because there heart is too small, and how they cool the body down. There is one hour of time to perform the surgery, and the lawyers are waiting to see if there is any twitch or tick in the baby afterwards.
He is a smoker (and was irritable, as he could not smoke), and explained to me that he tried to give up smoking one time. While quitting, he was incredibly irrataded, because the he was having a problem with a surgery. For some reason the person he was doing surgery on would not clot, and he was having a terrible time. He explained he was berating the nurses, and one finally asked “What DO you want, Dr.?” At which point he said “I don’t know.” I waited for a moment, and asked him “Did the patient live?” And it was odd to watch him realize he had never considered this, thought for a moment, and replied “I don’t know.”
He expressed his disdain for modern ideas about fat being the problem with Caucasians and heart attacks, saying “The body converts fat to energy, and vice versa. Americans die of heart disease, the Japanese die of stomach cancer.”
My other experience was personally resuscitating a person whose heart had stopped. Really stopped, as in no pulse. The man went blue in the face. I performed CPR, and fortunately, we had a D-Fib kit recently installed. The CPR and the d-Fib kit worked, and the guy lived. But it took putting the guy into a deep chill for a couple of days for his heart to repair, followed by surgery. He says he can’t remember two weeks before the incident. He’s older, and retired.

Regards,
My dad had a similar incident, and I commented to him how he sounded pretty cheerful for a guy who just had a heart attack. He asked me how he was supposed to sound, and said with a smile he could try to sound sad and upset if I thought that was appropriate. I’m 47 years old and still learning from this man.

Best wishes for a full recovery and long life, Willis!
If you think that was a wild ride, you should try my epilepsy brain surgery – 9 hours on the table, and my entire right temporal lobe is removed. I got a sexy scar and an attitude. D-Day was Sept 23, 1999…no seizures since then. Modern medicine is amazing.
We both survived, take advantage of it! I have a hunch we both will.
Best, Charles the DrPH

Willis,
I thought for many years that I would never experience a heart attack because I began taking a daily aspirin religiously in the late 1970s and was quite active. I overlooked several other important aspects though: 1) I grew up in a house of smoke and had smoked heavily for about 7 years during my 20s; 2) My mother and her only brother both had CAD and experienced heart attacks; and 3) My HDL cholesterol was always borderline low for many years and my total cholesterol and LDL were always modestly elevated. Then in 2006 at the age of 66 and never having had any chest pain, I experienced a sudden heart attack, arrived in the ER at 8:30pm, underwent immediate cardiac catheterization when my EKG & cardiac enzymes confirmed a heart attack, and when there was too much coronary artery disease to attempt any stent placement + I had to be defibrillated, I was taken for emergency CABS and was on the operating table by 2:30am…multiple bypasses plus another defibrillation. Of course I don’t remember anything beyond the ER except I had an out of body experience. Post discharge I entered a cardiac rehab program and was discharged early because I was tearing up the treadmill. So now 12% of my heart muscle is gone, and I take Lipitor, Zetia, high grade fish oil, a beta blocker, and have continued on my daily aspirin. I feel fine other than some Lipitor muscle pains in my legs (I’ve tried other statins…same problem, and CoQ-10 doesn’t help), and I have never had any subsequent episode of chest pain. My cholesterol & LDL are now in great shape, although my HDL still is borderline low.
So if you are a smoker, it’s time to stop, and I suspect that you will have lipid & cholesterol abnormalities as well as they are common in our affluent society. And what is your family history of heart disease? You may have a family history of lipid abnormalities.
Incidentally, that business about Linus Pauling and Vitamin C….I read his first book when it was published in 1970, and at that time I began taking high dose Vitamin C daily, 1000mg+, which I have continued religiously even to this day. Obviously it did not prevent me from developing advanced CAD.

Willis, be just as skeptical of cardiologists as you are of climate scientist. Don’t be afraid to ask questions or get a second opinion. I met my first cardiologist clinician when I was in intensive care suffering from congestive heart failure as a result of myocarditis and pneumonia caused by whooping cough. I had just spent 2 weeks in Indonesia with these medical problems. This first cardiologist kept telling me that I couldn’t have had myocarditis caused by whooping cough because I would have died. He also didn’t believe I had had pneumonia. Then after a couple of days when the confirming pathology tests came back he didn’t believe them and sent fresh blood samples for further tests. He still didn’t believe the results. As he was a little fat man I then told him to get some exercise! He left the practice after I got out of hospital so I got a new cardiologist who naturally put me on different drugs for the residual atrial fibrillation that I had.
I modified the drug dosage and times prescribed by the second cardiologist because they were making me feel ill. So eventually that cardiologist referred me onto a third cardiologist known as an Interventional Electrophysiologist with a note that I was non-complaisant. After vainly trying for two years to get me to have the operation that he specialised in the third cardiologist finally referred me to another cardiologist who did a different (cryogenic ablation) type of procedure that I believed was right for me. He also stated that I was non-complaisant. The fourth cardiologist did the (successful) operation using both femoral veins but the next day argued with me about the cause of my complaint – presumably because he didn’t believe I could live through what I said had happened to me. I therefore got my hospital records sent to him to put him right. After that he returned me to the third cardiologist who now wants to do another echo-cardiogram as if the 3 hours of echo-cardiogram taken from inside the esophagus during the operation wasn’t enough. I refused to have an appointment to have the new echo-cardiogram and I probably wont return to that practice.
So don’t accept without question what cardiologists tell you any more than you would accept without question what climate scientists tell you without question.
Finally, you were lucky to have the stent inserted through your arm. When they do these type of operations through the groin they shave you first. Just before I went under the anesthetic I chatted up the flirtatious nurse who presumably did this and after the operation when I stood in front of a mirror I discovered she had shaved me in the shape of a heart! Touche!

Max Hugoson,
Dr. Davis from Wheat Belly Diet/Track your Plague noticed something similar to what you wrote about people being in good shape (endurance stuff) and they still got heart disease… it turns out that they tend to have Lp(a).
Dave L, you might want to read Wheat Belly Diet and Track your Plaque by Dr. Mike Davis. It changed everything I learned about heart disease and nutrition. I’m very familiar with Pauling’s work on vitamin C. I’m not convinced anymore. Saturated fat such as coconut milk will push your HDL significantly higher (I’ve heard of crazy numbers esp in triple digits!). You need to pay a close attention to two types of LDL, One is harmless large fluffy type and one is dangerous small dense LDL type. It is driven by how high your blood sugar level is 24/7. If it stays high, mostly small LDL type that is directly responsible for plaque build up in the arteries will be produced. Also Vitamin D3 at the right dosage will keep your HDL level up (plus many more all kinds of health benefits). Low fat, high carbs diet is very dangerous! Calculated cholesterol test is totally useless as it cannot accurately measure two types of LDL. You want a blood test that would measure them precisely. Don’t get too hung up on total cholesterol as it is totally useless. Best to pay attention to each type of cholesterol separately. You’ll learn a lot from Dr. Davis’ books/websites. He’s a cardiologist that mainly focus on nutrition instead of drugs if possible. Lp(a) is another story though.
Look at his Facebook page for before and after pictures after going on Wheat Belly Diet – https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wheat-Belly/209766919069873?hc_location=stream

Willis,
Don’t know how much you have read about cholesterol and heart disease, but, in case you haven’t, it is a wild goose chase. The body uses Cholesterol that it produces to cover inflammation in the arteries. You need to find a doctor who can attempt to address the inflammation and not one who tries to put you on cholesterol drugs which are more damaging.
The other bad news is that using a stent to forcibly expand an inflamed artery means you are physically weakening the artery wall even more than it already has been weakened by the inflammation. Again, start looking for a doctor who is not stuck in the past and is aware that the old solutions are based on incorrect guesses.
Just noticed Lou above is giving you the Consensus view which is incorrect!!!

Hi Willis, we’ve never met but welcome to my world, even to the “inferior” bit. My favourite cardiologist, who I’ve never met since, was the one in the emergency room who said “if you’re going to have one of these things, this is the place to have it” (to be precise, the anterior descending artery, hence inferior). You may be pelasantly surprised how normal things will probably become, probably fairly quickly. I was promised all sorts of restrictions but most fell away and life, over a period of eight years, has returned to relatively normal. The one restriction I dreaded was “only one cup of coffee a day” so I determined then and there it was going to be the best coffee money could buy. So now i enjoy a little more than one pot (yes, about 6 cups) every day of the most glorious Kona coffee that I buy green and roast myself. The dreaded medication regimen reduced to just Lipitor and either Plavix or aspirin (I find Plavix gives confidence); the ace inhibitors and beta blockers were found to be unnecessary and perhaps the Lipitor is as well but I tolerate it so no problem. You may well be asked to go to cardiac rehab – I found it the best support group there is going and discovered one thing common to almost all my fellow sufferers – the common symptom is not a massive pain but vague discomfort accompanied by a feeling that something is terribly wrong but you can’t quite put your finger on it!
Good luck and hang in there.

Be well, Willis. Get ready to take pills for a year including the dreaded statins for chloresteral lowering and Plavix, which is a blood anticoagulant. The worst pill is pravastatin because it can cause peripheral neuropathy which usually starts in the toes. Most cardiologists don’t realize this side effect of pravastatin. You wouldn’t wish neuropathy on Roy! The first symptom may be pain in your toes when you orgasm. If so, discuss this with your family doctor or with a neurologist ASAP. Don’t settle for pain relief pills, insist on treating the root cause.
After your wrist heals a bit you can type to your heart’s content. Having been all over the world, your bucket list is probably not too long but fulfil in due course whatever it has on it.
I look forward to reading your epistles for many more years.

Will your reading at the breakfast table prioritise the Obituaries; jsu to make sure that you’re not in there? 😉

Allan MacRae says: “I was told if any of them were metal, they could be sucked right out of my body by the gynormous magnets in the MRI machine.”
No, only magnetic metal is a problem. Metals like titanium and cobalt are no problem at all. For example, some stents are made of a non magnetic alloy of cobalt chromium molybdenum. I would assume any austenitic stainless steel would also be okay.

Hmm. . . . I wonder if the stent you had placed in you was one I helped invent that delivers an anti-restenosis drug directly to the affected artery wall?

Willis, so happy to see you came through everything and are doing well. May God Bless you and keep you.

Glad your still with us Willis, Get well and take care.
v/r,
David Riser

Willis, hell doesn’t want you and heaven isn’t ready for you yet, ‘nite

Willis – welcome to the club which counts me as a reluctant member for the past seven and a half years. I had two stents put in after my MI and was awake for the procedure – quite fascinating watching the blood flow return to my heart in real-time. Best of wishes to you.

Good thing you could get it done before Obamacare kicked in. No doubt someone already said that. As for me, I’ll just let nature take its course. When it’s my time, then fine. I’d rather have that than the controlling and expensive Obamacrap that will wind up refusing “care” anyway. They can take their BS healthcare and put it where a proctologist might find it with an endoscope.

Glad it went well.
It’s a bugger to rattle like a pill bottle, but better than not moving. 😉

Willis:
Continue in good health. Your writing has taken us many places and looks like you just added another one which is very close to home for all of us.

Weird to read this so soon after your post about your stress test! My grandma had five heart attacks, starting in her fifties. After her third heart attack, the strangest piece order she got from her doctor – a young immigrant – was that she had to stop eating watermelons. Nothing else distressed her so much. Then during our annual visit my mom went along with her to see the doctor, and it turned out he had no idea what watermelons were, and had to reverse his order. Grandma was so relieved as this was her favourite fruit. She made it to 86, and died of old age.
Several people have mentioned bucket lists, which makes me wonder what yours could possibly be like, Willis, after all you’ve done? I’m sending you best wishes for many more years of glorious experiences, accompanied by your splendid accounts to share with us.

If we all lived each day as if it were our last….
a lot less would get built.
Re: rgbatduke Oct 18, 2013 at 2:54 pm
The [enchanted] frog croaks out “One door leads to freedom; the other door leads to certain death. You may ask me one question, but I always lie!”
[But the logic of it is] All doors lead to certain death.
Some perhaps sooner than others…;-)
I am glad to read that for you, Willis, the better door opened for you.

Be Well,
Adrian

Having survived the CABG routine several years ago, but still needing the occasional nitro tab, I asked my cardiologist about taking citrus bioflavonoids. He said they probably wouldn’t do any harm.
Tried ’em and after about two weeks I have not needed any nitrostat tabs at all and am still able to do my usual exercises.
So, Willis, if you are still having some chest pains you might ask your doctor about taking a supplement like flavonoids.
In the meantime best wishes and a speedy recovery to you.

Hi Willis,
I am so glad to hear you got to the right place at the right time and had the problem fixed! You should be right as rain now.
I had no less than five stents put in myself a couple of years ago, into the internal carotid arteries in my skull, by a magician and a complete genius, after it turned out that a vehicle rollover in the bush 30 years ago had done far more damage than I originally thought, and the advancing years had completed the job. And now, two years on, you wouldn’t even know there had been a problem.
The whole fascinating thing was done in two lengthy procedures, in a theatre like the bridge deck of a spacecraft, with a slimline version of what looked like the brake cable off my old pushbike, fed in through my femoral artery and then all the way up into my skull, guided on the X-ray display of six huge LCD screens, as I lay there conscious and able to comment, and let them know if things were going awry.
An utterly painless, un-troubling and completely effective modern surgical miracle, and a very interesting experience indeed. Hooray for modern medical science!!!
I did vaguely pause to wonder afterwards how the hell you go in and out of the biggest artery in the body without getting claret all over the ceiling, and what the little thing in my groin was that held the hole shut for a month or so and then quietly melted away, and also WHAT I should now do in the case of an incoming coronal mass ejection?
I mean, here I am, with five little tubular ring circuits wrapped around inside the meaty blood vessels that pipe the precious fluid to my frontal lobes. And what happens if these find themselves moving across a huge incoming loop of solar magnetic flux (..apologies Leif)? Do they fry?? Will there suddenly be smell like the burning insulation on a dodgy three pin plug ..and then nothing?
I had a contingency plan of course. My girlfriend’s old metal garden shed. I would monitor Spaceweather.com diligently, and every time we had a big incoming, out I’d go. I’d bash the rusted padlock off the hasp, dive in there amongst the sun-damaged plastic garden toys, termite-ridden cartons of forgotten books, broken garden implements and red-back spider nests, and there I’d stay until the danger had passed.
But then I had an even better idea. Maybe I was simply being neurotic? Perhaps I was over-estimating the hazard? And there was a website of course, or at least there used to be, called “Ask an Astrophysicist”! So I asked one, and some months later was pleased to receive a slightly bemused reply (possibly from a very young astrophysicist who wasn’t even aware that he had carotid arteries), telling me that the tiny circumference of my stents – about a millimetre n fact – was incomparably small in comparison to that of the Canadian National Grid, so that I was probably worrying unnecessarily, as post-operative patients occasionally tend to do.
So there you go: Cyborgate, fully functioning, and completely out of danger. And better still, should I have the strange geological fortune to get fossilised, my stents will be good for another thirty five million years!
Best regards Willis. And here’s to the moon-wind..
LK

Lou says:
November 10, 2013 at 5:30 pm
Absolutely correct. Wheat belly is why humans are the only chronically ill animals on Earth.
It’s been drilled into our heads that whole grains are heart-healthy and essential to a diet that keeps us slim and satisfied. But the wheat toast you opt for over a muffin or bagel in the a.m. may not be as smart of a dietary decision as once thought. In his new book “Wheat Belly,” preventative cardiologist William Davis, MD, argues that the world’s most popular grain, found in everything from lager to licorice to lunch meat, is destructive to weight loss – and overall health.
According to Davis, the compounds found in wheat are responsible for appetite stimulation, exaggerated rises in blood sugar, and the release of endorphin-like chemicals that get the brain hooked on breads, pastas and crackers, while increased wheat consumption can also be linked to higher incidences of celiac disease, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and schizophrenia.
If you think this talk about wheat sounds like a new spin on the gluten-free fad, it’s not so simple. While wheat is the dominant source of gluten in the human diet – gluten is what gives dough the ability to be stretched, rolled and shaped into bagels, pretzels and pizza crusts and is the culprit underlying inflammatory damage to the intestinal tract in those with celiac disease – it also contains a unique carbohydrate called amylopectin-A, which sends blood sugar soaring higher than table sugar or a candy bar ever could.
This isn’t your great grandmother’s wheat – or waistline – we’re talking about. Amounts of wheat’s destructive compounds have increased over the past 50 years as the grain has been hybridized and crossbred to be resistant to drought and fungi, produce higher yields per acre, result in better baking consistency, and cost less to produce. Not surprisingly, the increase in wheat in the American diet parallels obesity rates that have nearly tripled since 1960.
We took a close look at “Wheat Belly,” chatted with Davis, and discovered eight ways that wheat could be wrecking havoc on your weight loss efforts and how going wheat-free can help you slim down.
Whole wheat is marketed as healthy
Studies performed during the 1980s show that when processed white flour foods are replaced with whole grain flour products, there is a reduction in colon cancer, heart disease and diabetes. While the science here can’t be disputed, the logic is faulty, says Davis: “If something bad for you (white flour) is replaced by something less bad (wheat flour), and there is an apparent improvement, then plenty of the less bad thing is (considered) good for you. What was not asked: What about the effects of total removal? That’s when far greater health benefits are witnessed.” Davis compares this misguided nutritional advice surrounding whole grains to substituting hydrogenated fats for saturated fats, margarine for butter, and high-fructose corn syrup for table sugar.
Many of Davis’s overweight patients report eating plenty of fruits, vegetables and whole grains and avoiding junk food, fast food, and sugary soft drinks, some adhering strictly to dietary guidelines and many exercising for an hour every day. Still, they continue to gain weight.
Until they cut out wheat, that is. Davis says he’s witnessed the wheat belly weight loss effect thousands of times, watching patients replace processed, wheat-based foods with vegetables, nuts, meat, eggs, avocados, olives and cheese, and drop 50 to 100 pounds in one year. Among 30 patients he recently placed on wheat-free diets, the average weight loss was 27 pounds over the course of 6 months.
Whether patients on wheat-free diets consume non-wheat carbohydrates, like quinoa and millet as well as non-grain carbs such as fruit depends on the individual’s carbohydrate tolerance, says Davis. “For an established diabetic looking to become a non-diabetic, for instance, I would advise complete avoidance of these blood sugar-increasing foods since diabetes, by definition, is a disease of high blood sugars,” he says. “On the other hand, a young, slender, athletic female usually can include these carbohydrate sources and do just fine.” Still, most people fall somewhere in between, doing well with portion sizes of non-wheat carbohydrates of a half-cup or less, says Davis.
Bread breeds belly fat
Where there’s glucose, there’s always insulin, the hormone that allows entry of glucose into the cells of the body, where it’s converted to fat. It works like this: When you eat wheat, your body gets a huge helping of a blood sugar-spiking carbohydrate called amylopectin-A. To move the sugars from the wheat into your cells where they can be used for energy – or stored as fat, the pancreas responds by releasing insulin. The higher your blood sugar is after eating, the more insulin that is released – and the more fat that is deposited in the abdominal area. When belly fat builds up, it floods the body with inflammatory signals that cause energy-requiring tissues, like muscle, to stop responding to a proportional amount of insulin. As a result, your pancreas churns out more and more insulin to help metabolize the carbohydrates you eat. Years of running your body through this high-blood sugar, high-insulin cycle result in the growth of visceral fat, or what Davis has deemed a wheat belly.
Carbs create cravings
If you’ve ever noticed that eating a grain-heavy breakfast at 7 a.m. leaves you scrounging for a snack by the time you reach your desk, you’ve experienced the effects of amylopectin-A. The surge in glucose and insulin and subsequent drop in blood sugar that follow wheat consumption set you up to be hungry approximately every 2 hours, regardless of whether or not your body really needs to eat, says Davis. Davis suggests snacking on hearty portions of very low or no-carb foods, even those that are high in fat or calorically dense such as nuts and cheeses.
Wheat eaters eat more
Thanks to an appetite-revving wheat component called gliadin – and that all-day cycle of cravings for wheat and non-wheat-containing foods alike – it’s no surprise that, on average, those who consume wheat eat more overall. According to Davis, wheat eaters generally consume an extra 400 calories per day. Over the course of a year, the equivalent of 42 pounds of weight gain.
“On the other hand, (people who follow wheat-free diets) naturally consume 350 to 400 fewer calories per day because they aren’t craving food every 1.5 to 2 hours,” says Davis, adding that by picking wheat-free foods you’ll also reduce your exposure to sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup, artificial food colorings and flavorings, cornstarch and so on.
Wheat messes with estrogen
Grow yourself a wheat belly and you won’t just need a bigger belt; you may also need a man bra. In males, visceral fat spurs the production of estrogen, which results in the growth of breast tissue and leads to what scientists call gynecomastia, or what your friends probably call “man boobs.” For women, a surplus of estrogen caused by excess belly fat raises the risk for breast cancer. In a Journal of the National Cancer Institute analysis of nine breast cancer studies that included a total of more than 2,400 women, breast cancer risk in postmenopausal women with excess visceral fat was double that of slender premenopausal women who did not have excess belly fat. Other studies suggest that excess belly fat can increase a women’s risk for breast cancer as much as four-fold.
Your brain becomes addicted
When you grab a coffee or pour a glass or two of wine, you’re looking for a certain fix. But when you eat wheat, you consume it for its nutritional value – or so you think. What makes wheat the real bad guy is its addictive property, which it doesn’t share with other grains, like millet and flax, says Davis. Wheat stimulates your appetite so you want more and more of it and when you stop eating it, your body goes through withdrawal symptoms. In fact, wheat’s effect on the brain is the shared with that of opiate drugs.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health found that polypeptides in gluten have the ability to penetrate blood-brain barriers. Once they gain entry into the brain, wheat compounds bind to the brain’s morphine receptors, the same receptors to which opiate drugs bind, producing a sense of reward or mild euphoria.
Eating wheat zaps energy
“When you take wheat out of the diet, you see incredible turnaround in health far more than you’d ever predict,” says Davis. “When someone gives up wheat, there’s a very frequent and marked increase in energy and sleep quality,” he says. While there’s not a lot of research on the topic, Davis speculates that the connection can be explained by the absence of sharp swings in blood sugar and resulting energy slumps.
Swapping processed, wheat-based foods for veggies, fruit, nuts and dairy may also be precursors to better sleep, more energy and more stable moods.
“Gluten-free” foods are not the answer
Even if you don’t have a wheat allergy, perhaps you’ve picked up gluten-free cookies, pasta or cereal because they just sound healthier. Truth is, many gluten-free foods are made by replacing wheat flour with corn starch, rice starch, potato starch, or tapioca starch, which hike up blood sugar even more than the amylopectin-A in wheat. This is especially hazardous to weight loss, since gluten-free foods, although they don’t trigger a neurological response like gluten does or stimulate your appetite like gliadin does, still trigger the glucose-insulin response that packs on pounds.
Davis suggests removing wheat from your diet and enjoying larger portions of other healthy foods, like baked chicken, green beans, scrambled eggs or salad. If you’re worried about not getting enough fiber, increase your consumption of vegetables and raw nuts and fiber intake will actually go up, says Davis. In fact, two slices of whole grain bread containing 138 calories contains about the same amount of fiber as 138 calories of nuts (about 24 almonds).
If you’re itching to try a wheat-free diet, try a gradual withdrawal from grains, suggests Davis. First, eliminate wheat from your dinner for 1 to 2 weeks, then get rid of it at lunch for a week or two. Finally, try going wheat-free at breakfast, when it’s often hardest to let go of cereal and other grain-based breakfast foods. “Or go ‘cold noodle,’ advises Davis. “You’ll be confronted with pain upfront, but you’ll emerge feeling much better.”
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/1623150388/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new
The wheat of today is not the wheat of 50 years ago. Give it & live long & prosper.
Perry

or lifing anything heavy
A freaudian slip ? Willis. You were lucky. An aquaintance HAD here did the same as you, I think. No pills, no checkups, dropped dead in the garden 3 weeks ago. The one thing you did that he didn’t was to go see a doctor when the first signs appeared.

Definitely check out chelation. Also, pomegranate juice has been shown to do wonders, at least for carotid arteries. From http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2007/feb2007_report_pomegranate_01.htm
” Despite the patients’ advanced atherosclerosis, ingesting pomegranate juice produced statistically significant reductions in the thickness of their carotid artery walls, which is correlated with decreased risk for heart attack and stroke. After only three months, the average thickness declined by 13%, and after 12 months, the thickness dropped 35% compared to baseline. During this same 12-month period, the average carotid artery thickness of the placebo group increased by 9%. ”
Also, don’t have a link handy, but taking short (about 15 min) walks after eating has been show to dramatically temper rises in blood sugar.

Oh well, that kinda shucks. Thankfully surgeons sure know their trade!
(About the rest of the medical profession, I would not come to the same conclusion. People who want to “save” something – like say “the planet”, or fellow human beings – don’t all know what they are doing. Shocking, I know. But enough of that. Hope this will be the last such run-in with doctors for you, until you reach an very very very old age, and leave your – any mine – planet like we all were meant to go.)

Too bad your problems wasn’t spotted earlier when you did the treadmill test:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/23/catching-my-breath/
Have a good recovery.

All the best Willis on your recovery and rehab.
I had a similar experience as you had, went in had a stress test, no heart attack but some irregularity. Sent off for a heart cath with the idea the worst was going to be a stent.. when I woke up I was told surgery was scheduled for the next morning as I had a major blockage, something called the “widow maker”.. so I had some major plumbing done CABG X4 ..
The lessons I learned are: 1) there has been and continues to be great advances in the treatment of heart disease 2) there are a lot of opinions and theories out there.. do the research and work with a cardiologist you trust.. 3) you have entered a whole new world where your penchant for research and discovery will keep you engaged and busy..
Carpe Diem..

Back when everyone was healthy because the sustainable agriculture of the day was growing only organic food, you would be soon dead.

Glad you’re OK, Willis.

I was born in 1940 and am bitching about arthritis is my knees!!! Guess I’m a lucky one.
Good luck, Willis.

Welcome to da club Willis.
Please do get religious about the statins and a good Plavix-like med for a year. Even coated stents can plug up pretty quick, but I’m sure they have gone over that with you.
Mine was referred pain in the throat. But then my wiring has never been quite right. I went through 4 docs and two months of living hell before I got a proper diagnosis.

Take all the spare parts offered to you Willis. I have 2 replacement hips, two replacement knees, plus a pacemaker and at 90 years of age I am very glad to have them all.
Wishing you we’ll. we need yor good humour.

Have a good recovery. If you have some downs after this untimely reminder of your mortality just remember that getting older isn’t all fun but a lot better than the alternative. 🙂
Looking forward to see you back on WUWT!

Plumbing in the nether regions is now having the usual and customary issues, hoping that’s all in that department and not anything worse. Other typical issues, touch wood, have not yet started up. But based on DNA I’m a walking time bomb. Every day is a gift and I am only around the half century point, hoping to reach 60. Everything after that would be a double bonus.

You take care now, Willis !
Best wishes

Glucose spikes in the arteries are deadly. The resulting inflammation being the cause of plaque.
Must see:
Sugar, the Bitter Truth

http://www.thincs.org
98 Year Old Lipid Researcher Reports that Cholesterol is Good for your Heart
http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/98-year-old-lipid-researcher-reports-that-cholesterol-is-good-for-your-heart/
See also:
http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/the-great-cholesterol-con/

Seriously skeptical treatment of the statin craze:
http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/why_statins_dont_really_work.html

Willis,
I’m sorry to hear about your heart and wish you the best.
Now then, how many different cardiologists does anybody know and how would they go about picking the best? If you personally know somebody who works for a hospital or clinic you can ask them which doctor they would see if they were sick. If you don’t know them personally, you’ll get an answer such as “all of our doctors are the best.” But if you know them and trust them, you’ll often good a candid answer.

And please read this book:
The Great Cholesterol Con: The Truth About What Really Causes Heart Disease and How to Avoid It, My Malcomb Kendrick, M.D.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Cholesterol-Con-Disease/dp/1844546101

stay healthy and keep writing.
regards

Glad to hear everything has gone well. I am a recently retired medical specialist (Thoracic Medicine) in the UK. I agree with the above bloggers about the cholesterol scam. The parallels with AGW scam are interesting. The epidemiology of ischaemic heart disease suggests that an infectious origin might be relevant or at least a co-factor. Also,in the UK there is a clear risk with diminished sun exposure, the disease being more prevalent with increasing latitude. This north-south variation is not seen in the US but is seen E-W with diminished risk at altitude over the Rockies.
The origin of the word ‘stent’ is from a 19th century English dentist called Charles Stent who used a variety of materials to support tissues in the mouth. See:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stent
Keep moving Willis!!

“I was only a pawn in the game at that point.”
If you really want to use a chess metaphor, you are closer to being the chessboard than a pawn. 🙂

Willis the Bionic Man!
Let us hope he uses his power for good, not evil. 🙂

Two things, Willis. First, this new technology sure is great! Second, if what ails you can be cured simply by taking a couple of pills, then count yourself lucky. Oh, and third, I love reading everything you write, including your visit to the doctor.

Good luck on the recovery, Willis. You are very lucky. It could have been much worse.
I had my heart attack in 2005 when I was 58. My symptom was vomiting. It came on me as I was started a summer skiing trip up Ralston Peak, near Tahoe. I managed to drive myself home to the West Shore. The next day I still felt crappy and drove to the hospital in Truckee, when I got there I was surprised to find myself gasping for air in the ER. They wisked me off to Reno where the angioplasty was performed the following morning, followed by a stent. Then the next day something lodged in the wrong place in my brain triggering a mild stroke. I lost my ability to write, and speech was slurred, simple arithmetic was a challenge, The next day they told me I had Type 2 Diabetes, and did I know that ? Well no, but thanks.
My recovery has taken a long time but I was back to skiing a few months after the events of that summer and still climbing the back country peaks in the spring time and summers since. My ejection fraction remains extremely low about 20% I think but it only affects me when I am skinning up a peak or climbing stairs. I lost a huge amount of my left ventricle functionality. I continue to take a gob of pills every day, not much side effects perhaps a small balance issue. I do metformin now no longer the insulin injections for the type 2. Unrelated to the above I get terrible leg and hand cramps in the middle of the night. I take powdered cinchona bark in a tea for this. It works wonders. This was based on my first cardio prescribing quinine, then when the FDA started blocking that use I did the research to find the source of quinine.
I guess we don’t live forever. I try to enjoy every day to the fullest.

Willis,
You have received lots of good advice from folks who genuinely love and respect you. I join them in anticipating your full recovery to glowing health. One thing that I learned is important is this:
Every time you exhale, be sure to inhale.
Those who do not follow that advice quickly learn how important it could have been.
Blessings to you and your family.
Clay

Bruce Cobb says:
November 12, 2013 at 7:06 am
Glad to see a mention of K2, which is still somewhat unknown as an important co-factor for the cholecalciferol-calcidiol-calcitriol system. Vitamin K2 is not the same as the familiar vitamin K. It seems to be very important, and is the “Activator X” discovered by Weston Price in the 1930s. There is a good recent book on K2 by the Canadian naturopath Kate Rheaume-Bleue. Here is a link to the current 95 reader reviews, nearly all very positive —
http://www.amazon.com/Vitamin-K2-Calcium-Paradox-Little-Known-ebook/product-reviews/B00D5TSMAS/ref=sr_1_1_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
Dr. Cannell’s website for D3, vitamindcouncil, has been mentioned. There is also an extensive (4408 pages) website by the diligent Henry Lahore:
http://www.vitamindwiki.com/VitaminDWiki
As for an ‘ideal’ doctor that combines conventional medicine with nutrition, etc, one might mention books by Dan Purser, which are available on Amazon. Dr. Purser mentions that two free e-books by Jeff Dach, MD, are available on-line:
http://www.drdach.com/Dr_Dach_Books.html

I’ll add my voice to the people warning you about statins and the mainstream view of heart disease. Do not EVER take statins: http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/2013/11/04/statins-blasted-on-aussie-tv/
Want to avoid heart disease / artery plaque ? Replace plant oils with healthy saturated fats: the omega-6 in the former turns inflammatory in your veins and boosts plaque formation, while the latter has no such “feature”.
Another suggestion, from (my own favourite cardiologist) Dr William Davis, is to avoid eating modern wheat in any form: http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2013/11/a-grain-eaters-cholesterol-panel/

Best Wishes, Willis.
Thank God your required surgical process was completed before Obamacare squads were involved. You are set for another 20 years.

While it seems likely that American eating habits have a lot to do with their diseases of middle age and later, especially compared to other parts of the world, I am skeptical about many of the claims made above about the evils of ‘carbs’ and of wheat in particular. Most of humanity, since the Neolithic, have lived on cereal grains (wheat, millet, barley, maize, etc., and especially rice) and most still do. Most of humanity do not suffer from obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. So I suspect there is something lacking in the ‘evil carbs’ hypothesis, and maybe something present that is not science: fad-following.
/Mr Lynn