Extremely high calcium score at 42 - is there any positive here??

Actually, trigs below 150 are considered "Normal" ... 141 is close to the break point in the scale, and prior to that particular blood test, my trigs, working backwards were: 118, 108, 136, 96, 140, 122 ... BUT, 15 years ago they were usually 135-155. Borderline high is 151-199, and High is over 200 ... so, 141 would not be considered a "problem." As you note, a LOT of folks report with extremely high triglycerides.

And, yep, statins helped in significant reduction ...

My HDL has always been lower than one would expect - even when I was working out and running, they were usually 40-50s.

I wish there were an arbitrage market for health stuff. I'd be happy to trade you total cholesterol, but I'd keep my HDL and my triglycerides are fine. (I can't take statins.)

I got out of shape during lockdown and am having a problem getting motivated to get back on treadmill, which is the unboring option as I take small DVD player and movies to watch.

Ah, didn’t realize that was the range for triglycerides. So it sounds like in terms of bloodwork your main “problem” areas were high A1c, glucose and blood pressure (controlled with medicine though)?

In my case, I do have hereditary hypertension. Was first told I had it in college, didn’t treat regularly with medicine until later in my 20s, so there were a few years there when I could have done some damage. Also even as I’ve taken lisinopril for 15 years, it does seem that in the last couple years my BP has started to climb. It’s generally about 130/80 these days. Looking back at records from doctor visits a few years earlier, it was well under 120. I even remember more than 10 years ago one doctor saying it was too well controlled and that maybe I could cut back or even eliminate taking it. Long way of saying, maybe there has been something happening the last few years metabolically that has raised my BP and contributed to this calcification. But still, it’s not like my BP is *that* high.

I am spending a lot of time searching online for research about CAC and any data that might point to mitigating factors. I do see some research that shows regular physical activity in people with CAC does seem to reduce cardiac risk about 10-20%. I find myself wondering if there’s a statistically meaningful difference in outcomes for people who have high CAC but good lipid numbers vs. those who don’t.

And I even heard a suggestion that there may be people whose bodies are just prone to wanting to promote calcification. The hopeful implication being that a higher CAC score could in some cases mean that a person has simply converted much more of their soft plaque to dense calcified plaque — resulting in a much more stable plaque situation but also a high CAC score. Fwiw, I broke two fingers a few years back and when I had the pins taken out after a few weeks of immobilization, one of them absolutely refused to bend. It was pointed straight and rigid and no amount of physical therapy could get it to budge. The therapist said it was highly unusual and the doctor said that in the short time my fingers were immobilized there had been calcification of the tendon. So trying to move my finger was like trying to break through cement. Ended up needing a second surgery just to free up the tendon and allow my finger to move today. Anyway, thought of that today. Is there some chance I’m somehow prone to calcification in a good way?

Good keep the trigs low

Abnormally increased tendency of body to calcify. I nteresting point, but haven't found anything substantive, thus far.

My story, like yours, could simply be a random point ...

Tough life with damage to right foot and both hips:
- right foot has been worked on several times over the past 25 years to remove significant calcification around big toe joint (hallux rigidus)
- both hips damaged (slid off a couple of wings and down aircraft ladders in high winds) and as normal, the damaged areas increased calcification as bones do; then first hip replaced in 2000, with second in 2019

So, maybe something there, there ... 🙂

My body seems to like calcifying- having calcium deposits in the LAD artery plus a calcified aortic valve- getting worse as it usually happens. Will need a new valve in the future. Because of that my doctor keeps the blood pressure low enough, so the heart doesn’t have to work too hard.

The idea was told to me by a (non-cardiologist) doctor who knows one of the top cardiologists in NYC. His description to me was fuzzy and non-specific and like you I haven't been able to really find anything online that would fit with it. So who knows. This doctor also got me an appointment with this cardiologist later this week to consult on the situation. Given his credentials and particular expertise in imaging and risk stratification, I'm hopeful it will be a valuable session.

Also tomorrow morning I am going in to have a CT Angiogram.

I really do appreciate the back and forth on here. This has been very difficult for me to deal with, as I'm sure it is for many here.

CTA is good ... some indicate issues with it in cases of really high calcium levels ... calcium interfering with the scan, supposedly. Gotta be done, though.

Has there been discussion about the more invasive, but hold standard, angiogram?

No discussion of the cath lab at all, at least not yet. The cardiologist who set this up (and who initially recommended the CT scan) has been emphatic this entire situation is nothing for me to be worrying about -- that "you don't have a problem right now. You have the potential to have a problem. And we know what to do to stop it from becoming a problem, and that's what we're doing." He has told me that he doesn't think the CT-angiogram is necessary "but I would like to have it anyway, so that we have something to compare to in the years ahead." And he's told me that he expects the results from tomorrow's CT-A will be reassuring to me.

I've mentioned this in other posts, but I have found his seemingly casual and not-too-worried response to my 397 score to be very confusing. I want to be reassured by it -- he's very well-credentialed, it was *his* idea to even have the CAC scan in the first place, and he's talking about this is an entirely and easily manageable situation that I shouldn't be losing sleep over. But I am having enormous difficult squaring that with all of the available literature on CAC scores and their meaning -- especially at levels this high in people as young as me. I did see a second cardiologist for a second opinion. He looked at the scan, confirmed its accuracy, and advised the same approach -- statin and diet/lifestyle modification -- and he also didn't communicate alarm/urgency in how he talked about the situation.

I would really like to believe that there is more nuance and complexity to these CAC scores -- room for them to be benign and only truly alarming under specific conditions. The way my cardiologist has handled this gives the impression that that's how he views them. But again, the data just seems so overwhelming here. There have been major studies with very large sample sizes, and they uniformly point to my situation being...very bad. I don't know if I am permitted to post links on this forum yet, but I just keep staring at this particular study in shear terror: Among my age group -- 32 to 46 years old -- those with CAC scores over 100 had an incidence of death of 22.4 per 100 people over a 12.5 year follow-up period. Almost 1 in 4. And then I remind myself that my score isn't just "over 100" -- it's basically 400.

STUDY:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5397328/

Steven, I think when a doctor has a patient with a not so good prognosis, they try to ease them into the right direction. I’m in the same type of situation but caused by a 1 in a million heart birth defect. If you think about it, if they told you the dire position you’re in, you just might drop dead right in their office. That’s what happened to me, except I didn’t drop dead but he scared the he!! out of me.

I went for a stress test and they found a problem. The doctor said I needed a CT Scan immediately because he saw something wrong with my heart. He walked me over to the CT room and explained to the technician exactly what he wanted and then told me he’d be back as soon as he read the results.

I was sitting on a chair in a small room when he came in. He looked real serious as he came over to me and sat next to me. I have some bad news for you, “you’re going to die in your sleep!” OMG, I cried out. I thought he meant that very night but he proceeded to explain that I have this birth defect in my heart. That’s when he explained that about an hour after I fall asleep, the defect would cause me to go into tachycardia(beating real fast). If I didn’t wake up to get help, I’d go into A-fib(out of sync) triggering a fatal heart attack. Gee doc, thanks, now every night I close my eyes, I don’t know if I’ll ever open them again. I was told that in 1997, it’s 2022 and as you can see, I’m still here, birth defect and all. Only problem, I woke up 3 times to get help, plus the defect has triggered 3 heart attack but I’m still here Steven.

Do you get what I’m trying to say? Even if your prognosis is poor, stressing yourself out won’t help, in fact “Stress Kills”. Your doctor has you on the right medication, a statin. It may be to late to reverse the damage but you’re still alive aren’t you! Make the best choices you can and learn to live. In 1997 I made this motto for myself. “ If it’s my time to die, I shall go. But if it’s my time to live, I shall live my life to its fullest.” I was 53, I’m 78 now, my heart is so damaged and fragile, my doctors say I could die at any second. In fact, I’ll die between the first half of a heartbeat and the second half. So what am I doing right now, listening to oldies of the 50’s & 60’s and passing along my knowledge to the younger generation, YOU!!!