cardiac stenting and restenting time frame

[mweiss]

what is anyone's professional experience with the time frame between needing a cardiac cath and re-stenting?
Is 3 months between procedures considered acceptible? versus the cardiologist is seeking to schedule an unnecessary procedure?

[ed34]

It all depends on whether you can stop the progression of the disease in your coronary arteries. Cholesterol is the biggest blame and they seem to just throw the medication at patients and expect the disease to stop and go away. When I was first diagnosed with CHD, my total cholesterol was 334.61 mg/dl. After agressive statin regimes, it now sits at 115.38 mg/dl which I'm told is very low. However, my disease still kept coming with a vengeance. I tried all kinds of diet changes, to no avail. After a few classes with a relaxation expert, my disease slowed down and stopped. I didn't even realise how stressed I was, I thought I was normal and relaxed all the time. My first angiograms kept showing worsening of the disease and the last two, a year apart, show no progression.
Maybe it was a combination of everything that stopped it, all I know is learning relaxation techniques and being aware of when I'm tense to prevent it, made a huge difference.
So, back to your question. Stenting is usually done to blockages seen as a high risk, which are blockages 70% and above. If a blockage is not ideal for stenting then a bypass is given. It is very rare for a stent to actually collapse. In cardiac rehab I met a man who recieved 6 stents over the period of a year. So that's obviously 1 every 2 months, due to his disease progressing so quickly. Strange how his cholesterol was very low and even after 6 stents he still didn't feel very healthy.
I think due to everyone being different, you cannot put a time between each stent.
What can also occur is restenosis which is when scar tissue forms over the stent as the artery attempts to grow a new lining. This can cause major restrictions and give rise to the risk of a clot. Drug eluting stents minimise the scar tissue because of a chemical coating that inhibits it, allowing only healthy lumen tissue to grow.

[cblmn7]

That all depends are you still having symptons ie chest pain.and what is the cath exactly for is it for another location because i had 4 done one time and he did the 5th 1 month later because of the stress to my artieries doing the 4. Also you may have had one of the stents collapse what does your cardio dr say its for.If everything goes well some people will go years before another cath