please help regarding this test calcium scoring

Hi thank you for your help i am a 41 yr old female not over weight non smoker i do have a bad family history of heart disease my father and brother were both in their 30's when they died of heart attacks and another brother had triple bypass surgery when he was in his 20's i have a racing heart and have been on k-dur, pravachol and atenolol and an aspirin for 3 yrs my lab work last week was good i think my total cholesterol was 152 hdl 44 ldl 88 my trig was 101 my doctor had me take a calcium scoring test it was called heart scan well i did terrible it showed i was loaded with calcium my score was almost 400 it said i was in the 99 percentile and only 1 percent scored higher then me where do i go from here can i do anything to get rid of the calcium or i just doomed to have a heart attack please help me.

[CCF-M.D.-RCJ]

timok,

Thank you for the question.

This test, EBCT, has good sensitivity but just okay specificity -- basically meaning that in someone without symptoms, a positive test does not necessarily imply disease.  So now you are in a bit of a pickle, as my grandmother used to say.

What I do with patients who come to my clinic without symptoms, but with a high calcium score is treat them with medicines as if they have known coronary artery disease.  The medicine therapies of choice are tailored based on the person's age, other medical history, etc, but could include aspirin, hypertension therapy, diabetes therapy, and cholesterol-lowering drugs.  I also search out symptoms.  If a person is having symptoms that they had not previously linked to their heart, then we often proceed with cardiac catheterization.

Talk to your doctor and good luck.

[karie]

At what age did you start using K-Dur ? I have been on K-Dur in the efferecent form for 4 months. My potassium runs low , How low was and is yours ? What other tests did you have ?

[stellatj]

I have been on k-dur for 4 yrs now i dont know how low my potassium was but now its in the normal range.