Fate works in mysterious ways: Getting ready for a Tuesday departure on a month long business trip to Madagascar, when crushing chest pain, etc. hits this past Sunday. Chew some aspirin and off to ER. I thought I would at least hit 50 before my first MI.

If this happened a few days later in that part of the world, I might not have made it back to enjoy life with family and friends. Perhaps someone was looking over my shoulder this time.

Well, I quit smoking and I am going to figure out how to slow down some.

Looking forward to speeding up when the Targa 4S arrives in Sept/Oct. (After a proper break in of course.)

There may be a lesson in here for other workaholics.

 

Glad you are okay and that it worked out (somewhat). Stay off the tobacco. It always takes wake-up calls like this for us to realize how thin the line is that we're walking on.

BTW, we've had close calls among Rennlisters before:

https://rennlist.com/forums/997-forum/247209-sold-997-and-almost-died-serious.html
https://rennlist.com/forums/997-forum/259951-ot-beware.html

And, sadly, sometimes there's nothing we can do:
https://rennlist.com/forums/showpost...5&postcount=15

 

If you had a drug eluting stent placed, don't forget your Plavix. Not even for a day. Sub-Acute stent thrombosis has a ~30% mortality rate

Todd

 

Thanks for the info. Had one vessel with really bad disease that led to the area of infarct. All the others didn't need stents, yet. I am now on multiple meds, including Plavix and ASA.

Soulteacher-

Thanks for the comments and links.

Allan

 

Keep an eye out for depression, too, as it is associated with cardiovascular disease.

J

 

After seeing several family members afflicted by serious medical problems at relatively early ages, when peiople ask why i have 2 porsches my response is" Can't take it with you !"

Use the 911 to go out with the family most every nice weekend since i bought it

Alk - thanks for the reminder to enjoy life when you have your health

 

Focus on your health. It's the one thing that'll get you through the game.

 

That is great advice. There sure is a lot for us all to focus on: diet, exercise, stress, etc. But of course it is clearly worth it.

J - What is the relationship between depression and CV disease?

 

I'm not a doc, Alk - but I'd think that reduced oxygenation would be related directly to depression... low energy, feeling tired, et al...

I know there's are MDs out there that can give you the real reason. :-)


-d

 

Hi Alk,

There was a recent editorial by John Rumsfeld in Circulation. The link is http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/250.

"In this issue of Circulation, Mallik et al add to our understanding of the relationship between depression and outcome in cardiac patients. Prospectively evaluating 963 coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery patients, they found that 25% had substantial perioperative depressive symptoms. A graded, inverse relationship was noted between the severity of perioperative depressive symptoms and improvement in physical functional status 1 year after surgery. Patients with moderate to severe depressive symptoms were one third less likely to experience improvement in physical function after the operation, even after adjustment for >20 clinical variables. In other words, perioperative depressive symptoms appear to diminish the functional benefits of CABG surgery."

"Patients with depression have high sympathetic tone, hypercortisolemia, elevated catecholamine levels, abnormal platelet activation, increased inflammatory markers, and endothelial dysfunction. Importantly, these physiological derangements are present in depressed patients who do not have cardiac disease (ie, these mechanisms are linked to depression itself), and even when not actively depressed, patients with a history of depression have at least some of these abnormalities (eg, platelet activation) as compared with patients who are not depressed."

"Another possibility is that depression is a secondary development in cardiac patients, whereby patients with more severe cardiac disease or a heavier burden of comorbid conditions may become depressed in reaction to their illnesses. In this case, adverse outcome is the result of the greater disease burden but not of depression itself. Several factors mitigate against this explanation, at least as a sole mechanism for the association between depression and cardiovascular outcomes. Multiple studies, including that by Mallik et al, have used robust risk adjustment for cardiac and noncardiac disease burden in their analyses. Accounting for these variables does not appear to eliminate the relationship, supporting the conclusion that depression is an independent predictor of outcome. Furthermore, depression precedes cardiovascular disease in multiple studies. In healthy cohorts, depression is predictive of first MI and cardiac death."

Jakeman

 

Jakeman-

Thanks. I sent you a PM.

Allan

 

Thank you for posting that. Rennlist is a great place of learning.

 

Also bears mentioning that for men over 40, taking one baby aspirin a day as a preventive can reduce your risk of having that first MI or CHD by 25 to 50 percent. (ref)

(I'm not a physician, consult your doctor first)

 

Good point. I was advised to start that regimen prophylactically a number of years ago, but it was too much of a PITA to take one pill a day. Now I'm taking a lovely variety.

Also, it is advised to chew and swallow one adult aspirin ASAP (as long as there are no contraindications for a particular patient to take aspirin) if an MI is suspected. It could be of benefit in limiting the progression. Chewing the aspirin aids rapid absorption.

I also ditto that it is best to consult your MD for advice.

 

You never know. I had two "incidents" in 2005. Last month at the ripe old age of 46 I had a triple bypass. Bad genes and bad lifetsyle is not a good combo. Congrats on coming out OK.