spontaneous coronary dissection

My husband is 51 and was complaining of sudden heart burn and he was sweating profusely(i suspected  he was having a heart attack, made him take an aspirin and rushed him to the er, which is around the corner, literally) and they said he was having a heart attack, and rushed him up to the cath lab. after his angiogram they came out and told me he suffered a spontaneous dissection of his RCA. they inserted 4 stents to repair the artery (after calling university hospital to find out what they should do since this was the first time they had ever seen a spontaneous dissection).  then transferred him up to university hospital in icu and he was there for 2 days and then went home. we already eat a low-fat heart healthy diet ( his father had coronary artery disease) as a preventative measure, and we have tried to do every thing we could to prevent a heart-attack, he was also already taken 81mg aspirin daily.

Now they couldn't find any % of occlusion in any coronary artery, his cholesterol is only 165 and he is not overweight. They said they didn't know what would cause his dissection nor could they tell us what the outlook was after this. He has had further testing and luckily there was no damage to his heart and his stress tests are good. So my questions are this: how long to the stents last? What is the percentage of stents that occlude? And what is the possiblility of this happening again?  




This discussion is related to What causes spontaneous dissection.

[ChatterAlly]

Wow!  I know what yo mean about the hospital. I ended up in a hospital with my first heart attack that could do the cath but not intervention. I had to bemoved to another hospital that had the crash team on hand to do intervention. I have to ask though, has your husband been diagnosed or treated for hypertension? That was my first thought. High blood pressure. But that's all it was, a thought.   Ally

[celebrie]

His blood pressure has always been in the safe range on the lower scale. He is healthy, not overweight, doesn't smoke, or drink alcohol, walks 3-4 miles a day, eats a low-fat diet, all before the dissection. I'm just worried that the stents are going to have to be replaced sometime, because i don't know how long they usually last.The dissection is a freak thing and i'm not worried about him having another heart attack, just worried about the stents. cyndi

[ChatterAlly]

Well, Cyndi, I know in my case the stents have done great.  I have one stent in my RCA that clogged up and what they were able to do is put a stent inside that stent. I will do some internet searching for you and see what I can find out.  Take care, Ally