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The first sign of trouble was chest pains while playing tennis. The pain subsided after a couple of minutes and I was fine. EKG showed no sign of heart attack o

The first sign of trouble was chest pains while playing tennis. The pain subsided after a couple of minutes and I was fine. EKG showed no sign of heart attack or major blockage. Prior to that I had no symptoms whatsoever, exercised regularly, never smoked, 57yo male, 6 ft, 175lbs. A CAC scan revealed a calcium score of 411 and a stress test indicated a major lack blood flow to the front of the heart. A cardiac catheterization revealed 95% blockage of the Left Anterior Descending artery, the widowmaker. After placing two stents in the LAD I’m back to normal. It’s a small miracle I didn’t die that day on the tennis court. The CAC definitively diagnosed the life threatening blockage when I had absolutely no symptoms. I recommend everyone get this simple scan to find out if you have this killer inside of you.

djoldman 1y ago
What were your lipids? Was a stress test not conducted?
ars 1y ago
> EKG showed no sign of heart attack What about troponin? I was told by a Dr that it's more accurate than an EKG. Edit: I had the word tryptophan before.
- pugworthy 1y ago
  Did you mean Troponin? Troponin shows up in the blood when there's been damage to heart muscle.
  - ars 1y ago
    Yes I meant that! I spelled it wrong on Google, then copy/pasted the wrong word from the suggested replacement.
    - andy_ppp 1y ago
      It’s only if heart muscle dies does that show up, you can have an important artery narrow without symptoms until suddenly a bit of plaque breaks off completely blocking a path causing bits of muscle to actually die.
- pugworthy 1y ago
  What I was told in the ER is that troponin basically only shows up when there's been heart muscle damage so is a pretty clear sign. It doesn't show up immediately though - typically a rise within a few hours of the heart attack. RE: EKGs. There are clear signs in the more detailed 12 lead EKG that can show irregularities in the electrical patterns and specifically help pinpoint the location of the active problem.
pugworthy 1y ago
63, no history of heart disease, all my numbers in the "normal" range, fit, don't smoke, not overweight, good diet, etc. I was building a greenhouse in the back yard and went from feeling kind of "shitty" to classic left chest and back of arm pain. It's amazing how fast you get into the ER when you come in like that. I got an angiogram within 45 minutes and also had 2 stents in the LAD with 90-95% blockage.
- j_bum 1y ago
  Glad you’re ok. Stories like this are good to rebase myself and remember how important it is to enjoy life now while I can. No matter how healthy I try to keep myself, luck can change things in an instant.
dreamcompiler 1y ago
I'm sure your doc already told you this but chest pain while playing tennis that goes away quickly sounds more like angina than a heart attack. IOW your episode was not a heart attack but rather a strong indicator that a future heart attack was likely and that further tests were warranted. A real heart attack (MI) -- the kind that can kill you quickly -- is usually not exercise related and the pain continues for many tens of minutes without going away. PSA: If you experience either type of symptom above, call 911. Don't wait around and don't drive yourself to the hospital. Take an aspirin if you have one handy and you're not allergic to it. Real aspirin, not ibuprofen or tylenol.
- srameshc 1y ago
  Since you mentioned take asprin, just curious , how does that help ?
  - egberts1 1y ago
    Blood thining characteristics
    - dreamcompiler 1y ago
      Aspirin is not a blood thinner per se. It interferes with platelet action so it reduces the likelihood of clots forming.
  - magicalhippo 1y ago
    It prevents platelets from clotting further[1]. [1]: https://www.fda.gov/drugs/safe-use-aspirin/aspirin-questions-and-answers#stroke https://www.fda.gov/drugs/safe-use-aspirin/aspirin-questions...
agumonkey 1y ago
I wish cardiovascular monitoring was better. It's not uncommon for cardiologist to discharge you saying 'all fine, EKG ok' even though reality says otherwise. Happy you got stents at the right time.
- andy_ppp 1y ago
  EKGs should be extremely easy for AI to identify every disease with a range of probabilities and even some humans can’t identify from EKGs. Do we have the labelled dataset for this?
  - justlikereddit 1y ago
    "It should be very easy for an AI to look at an x-ray, CT, ultrasound or MRI image and tell what disease a human got, even some that humans don't know of. Are there any labeled datasets " -Some Software dude, every month since 1971
    - andy_ppp 1y ago
      No the examples you give are extremely difficult compared to the 2D graphs of an EKG. The Apple Watch is clearly doing some fairly accurate inference with a single lead around arrhythmias, for example. I’m really sorry for being enthusiastic about machine learning, I just finished doing an intensive ML bootcamp and it was fun getting results. I also actually have some heart issues so I’d love to see if I could get a result. Thanks for your constructive comment though, I’ve never seen ones like this here before!
      - meindnoch 1y ago
        >I just finished doing an intensive ML bootcamp Then maybe learn a bit more about the domain before posting silly things.
        andy_ppp 1y ago
        I'm not talking about me successfully building an AI that can do better than humans or identify all the worlds heart diseases I'm more looking to have fun and play around with some data (and yes learn more about the domain by doing!). I was maybe a bit too excited about seeing what would happen with a real dataset like this, but it's a hacker news comment not a PhD defence, no need to be so negative. Thanks.
potamic 1y ago
When did you previously have a stress test before this? Would you also mind sharing what your blood pressure levels were at?
justlikereddit 1y ago
>when I had absolutely no symptoms Chest pain during excretion is a symptom in my book. >Recommend everyone to get it A calcium scan is a ECG gated CT scan(a heart CT). It takes time from the CT machine schedule and it requires radiologists to describe it, meaning it's not infinitely accessible.
- anonymars 1y ago
  > excretion Heh, I think you mean exertion
AnimalMuppet 1y ago
For me, it was different. A cardiologist told me (after a calcium test showed 95th percentile for calcium) that what I was looking for was a rapid drop in ability. Not over a decade, but over a couple weeks or a month. Well, I play ultimate, and one day I realized "I didn't get this winded a month ago". So I got a stress test, and it showed "abnormal motion of the heart wall under stress" (that is, not enough oxygen getting to all the heart muscles). They did a catheterization, and I wound up with two stents. I mean, look, if you get the chest pains, don't ignore that. But it doesn't have to be that way. If you lose athletic ability, or wind, or endurance, in a short amount of time, get a stress test.

djoldman 1y ago

What were your lipids? Was a stress test not conducted?

ars 1y ago

> EKG showed no sign of heart attack What about troponin? I was told by a Dr that it's more accurate than an EKG. Edit: I had the word tryptophan before.

pugworthy 1y ago
Did you mean Troponin? Troponin shows up in the blood when there's been damage to heart muscle.
- ars 1y ago
  Yes I meant that! I spelled it wrong on Google, then copy/pasted the wrong word from the suggested replacement.
  - andy_ppp 1y ago
    It’s only if heart muscle dies does that show up, you can have an important artery narrow without symptoms until suddenly a bit of plaque breaks off completely blocking a path causing bits of muscle to actually die.
pugworthy 1y ago
What I was told in the ER is that troponin basically only shows up when there's been heart muscle damage so is a pretty clear sign. It doesn't show up immediately though - typically a rise within a few hours of the heart attack. RE: EKGs. There are clear signs in the more detailed 12 lead EKG that can show irregularities in the electrical patterns and specifically help pinpoint the location of the active problem.

pugworthy 1y ago

63, no history of heart disease, all my numbers in the "normal" range, fit, don't smoke, not overweight, good diet, etc. I was building a greenhouse in the back yard and went from feeling kind of "shitty" to classic left chest and back of arm pain. It's amazing how fast you get into the ER when you come in like that. I got an angiogram within 45 minutes and also had 2 stents in the LAD with 90-95% blockage.

j_bum 1y ago
Glad you’re ok. Stories like this are good to rebase myself and remember how important it is to enjoy life now while I can. No matter how healthy I try to keep myself, luck can change things in an instant.

dreamcompiler 1y ago

I'm sure your doc already told you this but chest pain while playing tennis that goes away quickly sounds more like angina than a heart attack. IOW your episode was not a heart attack but rather a strong indicator that a future heart attack was likely and that further tests were warranted. A real heart attack (MI) -- the kind that can kill you quickly -- is usually not exercise related and the pain continues for many tens of minutes without going away. PSA: If you experience either type of symptom above, call 911. Don't wait around and don't drive yourself to the hospital. Take an aspirin if you have one handy and you're not allergic to it. Real aspirin, not ibuprofen or tylenol.

srameshc 1y ago
Since you mentioned take asprin, just curious , how does that help ?
- egberts1 1y ago
  Blood thining characteristics
  - dreamcompiler 1y ago
    Aspirin is not a blood thinner per se. It interferes with platelet action so it reduces the likelihood of clots forming.
- magicalhippo 1y ago
  It prevents platelets from clotting further[1]. [1]: https://www.fda.gov/drugs/safe-use-aspirin/aspirin-questions-and-answers#stroke https://www.fda.gov/drugs/safe-use-aspirin/aspirin-questions...

agumonkey 1y ago

I wish cardiovascular monitoring was better. It's not uncommon for cardiologist to discharge you saying 'all fine, EKG ok' even though reality says otherwise. Happy you got stents at the right time.

andy_ppp 1y ago
EKGs should be extremely easy for AI to identify every disease with a range of probabilities and even some humans can’t identify from EKGs. Do we have the labelled dataset for this?
- justlikereddit 1y ago
  "It should be very easy for an AI to look at an x-ray, CT, ultrasound or MRI image and tell what disease a human got, even some that humans don't know of. Are there any labeled datasets " -Some Software dude, every month since 1971
  - andy_ppp 1y ago
    No the examples you give are extremely difficult compared to the 2D graphs of an EKG. The Apple Watch is clearly doing some fairly accurate inference with a single lead around arrhythmias, for example. I’m really sorry for being enthusiastic about machine learning, I just finished doing an intensive ML bootcamp and it was fun getting results. I also actually have some heart issues so I’d love to see if I could get a result. Thanks for your constructive comment though, I’ve never seen ones like this here before!
    - meindnoch 1y ago
      >I just finished doing an intensive ML bootcamp Then maybe learn a bit more about the domain before posting silly things.
      - andy_ppp 1y ago
        I'm not talking about me successfully building an AI that can do better than humans or identify all the worlds heart diseases I'm more looking to have fun and play around with some data (and yes learn more about the domain by doing!). I was maybe a bit too excited about seeing what would happen with a real dataset like this, but it's a hacker news comment not a PhD defence, no need to be so negative. Thanks.

potamic 1y ago

When did you previously have a stress test before this? Would you also mind sharing what your blood pressure levels were at?

justlikereddit 1y ago

>when I had absolutely no symptoms Chest pain during excretion is a symptom in my book. >Recommend everyone to get it A calcium scan is a ECG gated CT scan(a heart CT). It takes time from the CT machine schedule and it requires radiologists to describe it, meaning it's not infinitely accessible.

anonymars 1y ago
> excretion Heh, I think you mean exertion

AnimalMuppet 1y ago

For me, it was different. A cardiologist told me (after a calcium test showed 95th percentile for calcium) that what I was looking for was a rapid drop in ability. Not over a decade, but over a couple weeks or a month. Well, I play ultimate, and one day I realized "I didn't get this winded a month ago". So I got a stress test, and it showed "abnormal motion of the heart wall under stress" (that is, not enough oxygen getting to all the heart muscles). They did a catheterization, and I wound up with two stents. I mean, look, if you get the chest pains, don't ignore that. But it doesn't have to be that way. If you lose athletic ability, or wind, or endurance, in a short amount of time, get a stress test.