heart attack

[worldcontact]

Hi,
74 yr old, male, with smoking and sleeping apnea history, high blood pressure.
Recent heart attack due to 3 blocked coronary arteries, one of them has a blockage of about 2 inches long.

Question: considering the above, which is a better approach, a 3 by-pass open heart surgery OR avoid major surgery and apply stents instead ?

[ed34]

Due to your age, I would go for stenting to start with. The key is to stop smoking because that will block the stents. I have a triple bypass at the age of 47 and it only lasted 3 months before collapsing. When being readmitted to hospital, I was shocked how many patients had experienced the very same thing, some only lasting a couple of weeks. Even if only one of your arteries stays open after stenting, it could be that you open collateral vessels (natural bypasses) on your heart to feed into the others. Also, due to your age there is recovery time. It took a whole year for mine to heal and I was told 3 months. Stents only take a couple of hours before you are mobile again and there is very little discomfort.