Ticker Problems

I suffer from coronary artery disease, otherwise known as CAD. They love acronyms when it comes to cardiology. For instance, I also have had a by pass operation, which is referred to as CABG. Anyway,  I recently started having chest pains and angina flareups. Angina is how your heart reacts when its suffers from a lack of blood, which is generally caused by narrowed or clogged arteries.This manifests itself as chest pain and cramping down your extremities. Mine got so bad that I could not function without nitroglycerin which dilates the arteries and eases the pain. DO NOT TRY THIS! I self medicated till we were released from our  last gate and headed to the hospital once we got situated. As it turns out, I was fortunate in that I never suffered a heart attack. The cardiologist's determine this by checking the enzyme level in your blood. Ischemia (scarring on the heart muscle) also serves as an indicator. I was also fortunate in that I was down to my very last nitroglycerin pill. The cure to relieving the angina was having the aforementioned cardiologists (s) perform an angioplasty. Basically, they punch a hole in your femoral artery and use a wire to place a stint in the narrowed blood vessel. Besides an expertise in all matters coronary, you also want a doc familiar with the procedure and knowledgeable of the femoral artery. People can and have died from exsanguination (loss of blood) after having their femoral artery punctured or damaged. I was released from the hospital after a two and a half day stay and am feeling much better. My strength and stamina have been sapped a bit, but they will return in time.