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Cac 2017

Heart & Blood Health | Last Active: 16 hours ago | Replies (10)

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@4aces4me

Last year I had to see a cardiologist for the first time about PVCs I was having during a surgical procedure. He ran all the test came back and said that I had a mild case of a fib and a 40% blockage where my LAD Artery connects to the D1 artery. He suggested a blood thinner and beta blocker, which I only took for a few days and stopped due to simply the way I was feeling. Probably not very smart! On my next visit to the cardiologist, he suggested a CAC test and my score was 2000. Of course I panicked and made a call to the Cardiologist and surprisingly he said not to worry that he had patients with score is the highest 5600 and simply left it at that. Fast forward to this year during an annual check up the 30 day monitor showed that I had at least a 20 minute segment of Afib apparently during the night while I was asleep, which I don’t remember. In my visit to him also, he pointed out that I had a left bundle branch block in my heart also called LBBB. So this precipitated another round of full testing I went through the stress test, EKG and echo cardiogram without any problems. But because of the 20 minute a fib episode, he’s putting me on a beta blocker and blood thinner. I’m dieting and losing weight. I’ve given up alcohol and I’ve limited my caffeine. Actually I feel pretty good and I’m exercising so looking for a long life - 72 now. It’s easy to stress yourself out over the calcium score Afib, blockages and other things but listen to your PCP and your cardiologist and live each day one at a time. Blessings to you.

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Replies to "Last year I had to see a cardiologist for the first time about PVCs I was..."

Thanks very much for posting this. I am by no means an expert on CAC (don't even know what my own is!!), but I try to allay the fears of those who come here and appear to be somewhat desperate for answers and who are quite obviously fearful. The CAC is just a snapshot of current deposition...it AIN'T a death sentence!!! It is like the Heisinger Uncertainty Principle where, in quantum mechanics, there are two important pieces of information about an atomic particle: its direction and what it looks like, or its features. You can measure one aspect, but you destroy all information about the other aspect in measuring the one. It's the same with CAC..you get a great picture of where it is and how much, but you lose any information about its directionality...which way it is moving, up or down. So, treat the CAC score as just one important piece of information, but it doesn't tell you everything you, or your cardiologist, needs to know.