Stent lifespan

[Downhill]

Do stents wear out and need replacing ? If so what is the normal life span of a stent ?

[SpiritoftheFloyd]

Hello Downhill

Stents are made of stainless steel, platinum-chromium or cobalt-chromium, and do not wear out.

The area that has been stented can become compromised over time and re-narrow, the best way to avoid this happening is to make the suggested lifestyle changes :- stop smoking, limit alcohol consumption, eat a healthy diet, manage cholesterol, keep weight to a good BMI range, bring blood pressure down to good range exercise. Here's a link to the subject of stents on the BHF website

bhf.org.uk/informationsuppo...

[Downhill in reply to SpiritoftheFloyd]

Thankyou for the info and the link was very useful. 3 months post HA and making progress with low EF I just wanted to clear up gaps in my limited knowledge.

[Kristin1812 Heart Star]

I had 9 stents nearly 10 years ago. One furred up again, pretty soon, and was redone. One (an experimental branched one) failed and was redone more traditionally. I just had an angiogram to check, and though there’s a little more furring, it’s not much, and not enough to redo any. The stents were all fine.

Hope that’s reassuring?

[Chappychap]

Stents in themselves rarely fail, after all there's no moving parts so there's actually not much to go wrong! However, your underlying atherosclerosis, the disease that required the stents in the first place, will never go away, it's incurable so will just keep attacking your arteries.

Stents aren't actually a cure. Better to think of them as giving you a second chance, a respite to battle your atherosclerosis with medication and, probably even more significantly, lifestyle changes that hopefully will tip the balance against atherosclerosis and prevent it doing any serious damage.

"Spirit of the Floyd" listed the key lifestyle changes that are absolutely crucial to your future health. Good luck!

[tommywaits]

I would like to echo the advice on lifestyle changes.

I had a mild heart attack, aged 65, two months ago due to a completely blocked artery. The plaque was suctioned out and a stent fitted. I have always kept fit but have a naturally low HDL level (about 0.9), and this may well have contributed to the plaque build up.

I am on the usual meds including statins but also changed my diet to reduce ldl fats to a minimum and to increase fibre and I cut my alcohol consumption from 12 units per week to 4.

I followed my cardiologists advice, gentle walks first week, brisk walks second, then exercise normally. although there have been two or three days when I felt I had done too much and rested for a day, now I am back to swimming, cycling, stair climbing, isometrics, badminton and table tennis and I am feeling better than I have for a decade or so.

At my one month check up my ldl cholesterol and triglycerides had dropped by two thirds with my hdl cholesterol unchanged. My weight has also dropped by 3 kilos.

I think that the meds, the exercise and diet changes have all played a part. I hope you see similar improvements, good luck!

[Phil_London in reply to tommywaits]

My cardiologist says he has a paitent who has a very early stent when they were in the early trials that is almost 40 years old now, as such I think we are mostly save on saving they should survive us!! I also understand that the origin stent doctor who created the idea and performed the operation on himself is still alive after over 40 years now, the name escapes me without Google!! as so may jave stated, life span of us not the stent is down to how aell we listern and take action on our life styles, my only down fall is red wine, I am still pushing the 14 units it its a huge improvement from pre HA at about 60-70 units a week!! running is now possible, cycling walking for miles, swimming, its a whole new life!! I am down 14kg from pre HA!! I am interested Tommy in the comment on your post about saying the blockage was sucked out, I thought the stents always push to the outside of the stents and remain, I jave heard of the process of slight scrapping of the plaque.

[tommywaits in reply to Phil_London]

Ah now I am not quite sure. It may have been scraped away and then removed by suction. I was able to view most of the procedure on the screen and remember seeing the device being manipulated and little puffs of blood being released. I assume this was when the plaque was being removed. When the procedure was over the cardiologist showed me a little cup containing the plaque he had removed, several small pieces of chalk like substance partly coated in blood.

I shall ask him at my next consultation but that is not for three months.

[Hidden]

Don't know if they have a lifespan as such, but mine is 14 years old and no problems. It is however even more important to not smoke, watch the diet and exercise.

[Downhill]

A belated thankyou to all who responded to my post. A lot of good info and advice received. I have been signed off by the region's Heart Failure service (not sure if that's a good sign) and I am looking forward to an active future (without an ICD)