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100% blocked coronary artery- treatment? dangers? what happens next?

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I am a 52 year old male.  My family has a history of heart diease.  I have tried to limit all risk factors except for herdity.  I was in good shape until last month when I started to feel a burning sensation.  I went to gastro doctor and had a endoscopy and colonscopy done.  Both were negative.  I then went to a heart doctor.  He did a nuclear stree test and found something abnormal.  He scheduled a heart cath and found one of my 6 arties had a 50% blockage. This 50% blocked artery was off the main artery.  The only thing he recommended was to increase my liptor from once a day to twice a day since my LDL was higher than my HDL even though my overall Chro was 144.  I continue to have a burning sensation in my stomack and get very fatigued easly just by walking  He said to only come back if I have chest pains.  Why didn't he recommend a stent ?  This is like walking around with a time-bomb ....
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Avatar universal
Luzon,

Thanks for the post.

It's a complex issue and not an easy one to answer without having all of your information available. The main reason to place a stent is to relieve anginal symptoms. Other potential benefits of placing a stent or performing bypass would be to alleviate what is called silent ischemia. This means areas of the heart that are not receiving blood due to blockages. In the first situation, there is clear benefit of placing stents, in the last it's more of a gray area and would depend on the location and the difficulty of performing the procedure.  In the case of a 100%  blocked artery, or total occlusion the procedure is by definition more difficult.

Either way, since you have significant coronary disease, the most important thing is very aggressive control of all of your cardiac risk factors.

good luck
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I also have a large inguinal hernia that needs to be repaired within 6 months or so.  Can I have the surgery if they can't stent my 100% blocked artery, or do I risk a heart attack on the operating table?
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Call Robert Wood Johnson Hospital (NJ) and get the name of a good interventional cardiologist. That is a very good and well-known hospital in NJ.  You need an MD that will manage yourcare and not let so much time go by.  Weren't you feeling symptoms?  Why did your cardiologist wait so long to recheck the 50-60% blocked artery?  Plaque can build up very quickly.  
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