Make the right choice

The latest news in terms of heart health is to avoid angioplasty and go for medicines and exercise unless the situation leads to a major heart attack. Angioplasty basically cleans and unclogs the arteries. The same results can be obtained by taking medicines and doing exercises that is suggested in such situations. The procedure takes care of just the blockage at the point where it is done where as medicine cleans the whole artery and makes sure the flow is smooth.

My friend’s dad went for angioplasty last year but at that point discovered of four other major blockages in the artery leading to bypass surgery. He is doing much better and is fine now. Situation like that need immediate attention and cannot be waited upon to be taken care of by medicines and exercises. But most chest pain cases end up in angioplasty even though it is not needed, simply because they think they are not receiving the proper care or attention, without which they would have a heart attack and eventually die.

Like I mentioned before, you have to weigh the option of what you want to get it done and why. Do you want the whole artery clean like a perfectly smooth flowing highway traffic where you are cruising along or do you want that one point of blockage cleaned like having a bypass to avoid a traffic signal, only to have the bottleneck in the next signal. Studies have shown that the severely blocked point that causes chest pain is not the source of heart attack as opposed to less severely blocked artery. This is all the more reason to get the whole artery cleaned up instead of just points here and points there, unless it is a case of emergency.


If you run the common analogy of sink pipelines to that of artery it is very understandable. (Well, what do you expect? After all, I have my bachelors in Civil Engineering). If the sink clogs up with all the leftovers and water in the sink, stinking the whole kitchen, then it is an emergency. You call the plumber, clear the blockage, doing whatever it takes to fix the problem. Well, this is angioplasty. But as a part of maintenance and minor clogs, you pour liquid plumber that cleans the whole drain pipe and makes sure clogs are dissolved. This is your medicine and regular exercises.

Whatever the case may be, make adequate research and make the right choice that will count. If you are able to solve the problem without surgery, nothing can beat that. When I had my accident and broke my left arm, I had to make the choice of opting for surgery (have a pin placed inside to hold the bones) or getting a plaster and waiting for the bones to align and set (took 3+ months), I opted for plaster. It took a long time but at least I know I don’t have any metal inside my arm.