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Anyone have the scan of heart where they can tell you how much calcium is in your arteries , I can have a free one next week, but to scared to hear what they find,

Had stress test and echo they were fine, this test will show as little as 15 percent block

What ya think
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Avatar universal
His angiogram show RCA -Chronic 100% total occlusion and a 95% stenosis on Proximal LAD. He is very lucky to be alive!
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212161 tn?1599427282
Wow so young to go threw that, glad he's much better

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Avatar universal
When my husband had his MI at age 36 his total was 402 and LDL was 350. His current readings are a total of 226 and LDL of 170. He also takes 4,000mh of fish Oil and 2,000mg of Niacin daily.
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Avatar universal
My Husband takes 60mg of Crestor daily along with Zetia 10mg daily. It has worked well to bring down his total and LDL.
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976897 tn?1379167602
In your measurements, my total cholesterol serum levels are above 370 without statins. I always used to wonder why I healed so quickly in my younger days, now I know why.
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212161 tn?1599427282
mine is only 20mg a day
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976897 tn?1379167602
80mg of lipitor daily because I have hypercholesterolemia
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212161 tn?1599427282
do you take a station, i take liptor, but i forget it so i need to start taking everyday.

worries me because i have heard it can cause alztimers my mom passed from that and i have 50/50 of getting it without helping it alone lol
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212161 tn?1599427282
lol well glad you read all of that , let me know what you do, i might follow lol. i have flax seed and its in a grain form i put it in drinks, glad you told me how good it is for my heart
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976897 tn?1379167602
After so much reading, I've only just pieced it all together. I will be talking with my pharmacist next week to discuss Vitamins B12 and D supplements. I will also be discussing Omega-3 and if there is no supplement without omega-6 incorporated then I will be looking at flax seeds.
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212161 tn?1599427282
Wow you really know your stuff ,lol thanks again for all info,


So what if any vit do you take to help with heart
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976897 tn?1379167602
What is important to realise is that all the dietary alterations can make the body much more efficient but it will not remove existing disease. Well, it certainly hasn't been seen in any research. All the changes will certainly make heart disease a much more difficult thing to occur though. When an artery is damaged and inflames, blood cells of many types get trapped in the artery wall, including cholesterol. This is where the immune system kicks in and white cells are sent to the area for investigation. Their job is to basically keep the site clean for repair to take place. Some white cells turn into macrophages which gobble up the cells stuck in there and then when they are full, they die. Normally they will have digested broken body cells or infection, breaking them down but in this case they also consume cholesterol lipids. When the macrophages die, pure fat remains and because blood is mostly water, the fat has nowhere to go. Fat will not dissolve in water, so it stays in the area. Eventually calcification takes place, forming a cap over the damage. Nothing in the body will come and remove that fat, there is no process to do this. So when I see reports or claims about statins actually reversing disease, I wonder what they base this on. Perhaps the inflammation has decreased, giving better blood flow and the appearance of regression. It's all very well claims being made, but the chemistry needs to be explained with it, which of course they never do.
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976897 tn?1379167602
I think Homocysteine levels are much more important. For inflammation in arteries to occur you require them to be damaged, and Homocysteine causes this. You need a level of less than 10 umol/Litre and research ten years ago discovered meat diet people had an average of 12. But get this, Vegetarians had 17 and Vegans had 27. This research was started when a baby died with chronic artery disease, Homocysteine levels were very high. This amino acid also causes neuro degeneration including brain disease and many other problems. Problems such as hearing loss with age, depression, birth defects, miscarriages. The list is actually huge. This amino acid is a byproduct of natural processes in the body and it needs to get rid of it. There are only 3 ways this can happen. First is its breakdown using vitamin B6. Second is Choline which is from diet and the third is vitamin B12 with folic acid. The low levels of B12 in non meat eaters is what's causing the elevated levels of Homocysteine. However, even though meat eaters get more B12, they still aren't getting enough. Blood tests for B12 were faulty for many years, picking up the non active type, and these actually destroy the active type used by the body. It was also believed many plants contained lots of B12, false again. The good thing is you cannot OD on B12, the body only absorbs a certain amount and the extra is emitted as waste. In research, a group of vegetarians were given B12 supplements and almost immediately, Homocysteine levels dropped from 17 to 8. Meat eaters need to eat a lot more fruit and veg, then they would drop below 10, or of course take supplements also. A pill of 2000 micrograms a week of B12 is all that's required. I've not seen any research that show Vitamin K removes calcium from arteries but I do know it is used for bone metabolism with calcium. In actual fact would you want all the calcium in arteries suddenly removed? This forms caps over softer fatty deposits in the artery wall, the stuff which causes clots if allowed to break free. If you take a heart disease patient and remove all calcium from their arteries, I'm sure they would be dead in minutes with blockages in the heart and brain. Iodine deficiency causes thyroid problems, and was very rare in the UK because the dairy industry used Iodine in the sterilization process of milk churns. The Iodine kind of bonded to the metal and then absorbed into the milk, unknowingly giving a supplement to everyone. Now we get our mile from the EU in plastic containers and thyroid problems are growing in numbers. You can get iodised table salt to supplement your diet. Iron is also very important, especially for red blood cells. We want them in high numbers and healthy to get oxygen around the body. Many people are iron deficient but this is not anemia, the two are different. You have to be very low in the deficiency range to be anemic. Vitamin C is important to absorb Iron into the body, and so both levels need to be normal. Of course, most people are vitamin C deficient.
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212161 tn?1599427282
wow thanks for all the info, i do flax seeds in my smoothes  so i get that for sure lol

read where vit k2 helps to take calcium out of blood and can help reserve it in the veins what you think about that one
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976897 tn?1379167602
We have all heard of Omega fatty acids, particularly 3 and 6. Well we get omega-6 from oils, and we are told how important this oil is. However, Omega-3 is the most important because it stops inflammation of arteries to allow fast healing. If you have an imbalance, ie. much more omega-6 than omega-3 then the 6 basically destroys the effectiveness of the 3. We end up with inflamed arteries. We need a ratio of 1:1 or a max of 4:1 (6 to 3) before the benefits are obvious. Vegetarians and Vegans use lots of oils and they have a ratio on average of 11:1. Meat eaters have an average of 7:1. If you get flax seeds and crush them (you cant digest the seeds unless crushed), then just 1 table spoon of these every week will drastically alter the repair system of your arteries because the ratio will be affected greatly. I know a table spoon doesnt sound much, but it is and the Liver stores it. Nearly everyone also lacks vitamins B12, C and D. Again these are very important for repairs and anti inflammatory behaviour. Also folic acid is very low in many people. All these things are kind of arm in arm to combat heart disease. So, I think we will see a whole new range of books hitting the shelves very soon. Vegans who had their blood tested, were given supplements of the above mentioned and their Omega-3 and artery health improved greatly. So it turn out to be diet after all, but it wasn't the meat. We just need to get the oils in balance with the Omega-3 because when there is an abundance of Omega-6 over Omega-3, there is nothing to fight inflamation which is the very first stage of heart disease.
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976897 tn?1379167602
"would a blockage of 70% show on regular stress test?"
Great question, but I'm afraid the answer is just 'possibly'. This heart disease stuff really isn't cut and dry is it lol. Some people fly through stress tests with 70% blockages because the arteries are different in different patients. Some have pretty big arteries, some have quite small ones. Those with the larger arteries have been known to have no issues until 90%. There is also another problem. Imagine you have a 90-99% blockage and feel rough for about an hour. You feel your throat tight, your jaw aching and occasional chest discomfort. Most people think "hmm damn heartburn" and it disappears a while later as quickly as it came. Collateral vessels have opened up to bypass the blockage and they feel fine again. So, unless they have an Angiogram, this is not going to be seen. Getting inside the arteries and looking around is the only sure way to know. Of course, many patients feel symptoms and Cardiologists pick up on them and take action. Those are really the lucky ones. It's the thousands of people walking around with really bad disease but are unaware of it that I sympathize with. This is why they tried to make a system to catch the disease early, the dreaded calcium scanner which failed big time.
I am currently digging very deep into the problems of heart disease and looking at latest research. For over 30 years, diet was felt to be the issue and yet lowering cholesterol seemed to have little effect. Did you know for example a vegetarian or Vegan is 5 times more likely to have a heart attack than a meat eater? Latest research is finding that diet is the problem, but it's not fat and it certainly isn't meat. So far, certain enzymes which prevent inflammation in arteries have been found very low in all heart disease patients. We have had books sold by the millions claiming diets that cure or prevent heart disease, and they are ALL wrong. It's just until recently there was no proving them wrong.
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212161 tn?1599427282
hey both of ya are righ, talk to my hubby cardio dr and my cardio they both said they do not recommend  that test to many false negs, thank ya for putting light to it so i would call our cardio drs,  

we are not having it done
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212161 tn?1599427282
hey guys can you tell me if you had a blockage of 70  would it show on a keg, stress test
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212161 tn?1599427282
thanks for info , not sure now i want to have it done lol.    i have read about it and it can give a false neg  and i am already anxiety about the test and if i got that it would make me crazy.if its not going help me than i don't want take the chance of it being false neg and going threw test i don't need lol
  going call my cardio dr see if she thinks i have risk factors and should do it.

i know the test runs 699.00 they doing free to get you in and than offer other scans,

my sister had it she has lots problems most she has diabetes , hers was 800, my dads dad died of harding of the arteries, guess thats why i was thinking of doing it, but if its not going show anything that helps me out or if its not a important test i rather not, i thought it showed if your heart was blocked or id i had to much build up, thanks guys it really helps
   i did have stress test and echo end of last year they said all was good, i do have lots papations and they make me scared
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Avatar universal
Just to add to what ed34 said: if your neighbor had a CT-A Scan rather than just a CT-Scan it would show more, but even then the soft plaque might be missed. Also, the last thing I read was that a CT-A Scan would set you back ~$1,300 - no way would they do that for free.
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976897 tn?1379167602
Well it's EBCT (electron beam computed tomography) and works on x-rays. A typical scan runs at 30 frames a second and lasts 30 seconds. Its aim is to pick out higher density elements such as calcium.
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212161 tn?1599427282
its called a ECBT C300
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976897 tn?1379167602
Just to add that there are various types of CT scans for arteries. A calcium scan may not be the type that your neighbour had. In usual CT scans of arteries they inject a radioactive dye which is at much higher dosages than an Angiogram. This shows up all blockages but still not in the details shown by a standard Angiogram. Many hospitals still have older scanners which produce images which are very difficult to analyse.
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976897 tn?1379167602
Yes it does show up calcium, but as I said, this is the last stage. Did you know they had many problems with the procedure because certain ethnic groups were being passed as clear but then having severe heart attacks soon after. Certain ethnic groups were being found to have large fat deposits but not calcified, meaning that they looked clear but were not. So in effect you could have a 90% soft blockage (not calcified) and it will register as 0 calcium. What they have done is produce a chart with ethnic groups and they use this. So for example, if an African American has a score of 5, then the chart could say to state the result as 30. They claim it is fairly close but I prefer more accuracy.
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