Changes you have made.

[Zzr93]

Well today is exactly one year that I had my heart attack, then a triple bypass the following week. It’s gone so so quick. It was a complete shock at the time, I always felt I was ok health wise.

I’m feeling fairly good, sometimes I feel like it’s never happened until I see my scar!! I’m sometimes feeling like I’m slipping into how I used to be before my op. My eating has changed but not drastically, I still do quite a lot of walking but I feel my energy levels are going backwards slowly.Im finding it very difficult to judge how I should be.

Im curious what major life style changes everyone’s made after having a bypass and what benefits they have got from them? Have you drastically changed what you eat? Are you exercising more or less?

Do you feel you have so much more energy? Have your energy levels changed at all? Or do you feel a little bit like you used to before op?

Do you have any tips that you could share?

Thanks for reading and I hope that everything is going well for you all.

[Chappychap]

Like you I suffer from atherosclerosis, which blocked my arteries and required a triple bypass.

Like you, and like everyone else in our position, our atherosclerosis is incurable. We'll never be able to remove the plaque that's already in all our arteries, and we'll never be free from the disease. What we can do however is try and slow the future progress of our disease to an absolute crawl, so that we can hopefully enjoy twenty years or even more of healthy, active life from our pristine new heart arteries.

The only two weapons in our armoury are medication and life style changes. Personally I'm trying to use both to their maximum effect.

We all have followed our own route to atherosclerosis. In my case my HbA1c blood test scores were slowly ratcheting up due to growing insulin resistance and I was close to becoming official graded as pre-diabetic. A combination of weight loss and a better diet has completely reversed this. The second major factor was stress, I used to have a job that involved a lot of long haul travel, which resulted in permanent, low level jet lag. Private medical tests showed this was cranking up my Cortisol levels, which is the clearest evidence of heart damaging stress. I've now retired and practise mindfulness and meditation, tests now show my Cortisol levels are well back in the safe zone.

I've also made some other changes in my life. I now exercise at least to the NHS guidelines of 150 minutes per week. I'll be honest, it's not always easy. When you add on top the warm up and cool down time it's a big commitment. For someone with a young family or a busy job it would be tough finding the time, let alone the motivation. I quit smoking many years ago, but immediately switched to munching nicotine lozenges! I've now discovered that from a heart perspective nicotine is a problem, even if it comes from patches or vaping or other non-cigarette sources, so I've quit that as well.

A bypass operation is a precious second chance. But there's no third chance. Surgeon's are very reluctant to perform additional bypass operations if the first one fails. And the hard truth is that quite a few do fail, some people on this forum have been brave enough to share their experiences of how that happened and it makes for tough reading.

So please grasp this amazing second chance with both hands. I know it's not always easy, but every second of healthy life is such a precious gift that it's worth fighting tooth and nail for.

Good luck!

[Hidden in reply to Chappychap]

There are people who have reduced the plaque in their arteries and seen their CAC scores decrease. Whether this is possible for everyone I could not say. The first step in achieving this is acknowledging that cholesterol is not the problem, very few people are willing to accept this - but the numbers are changing.

[Chappychap in reply to Hidden]

Both the NHS and the British Heart Foundation (who sponsor this forum) are in agreement that atherosclerosis is incurable and plaque is permanent, here's what they say,

"The disease is progressive, and, unfortunately, current treatments can’t melt it away. However, there are things that can be done to slow its development and dramatically reduce the chances of a heart attack or stroke. For example, medication can slow down how quickly the fatty material accumulates. Drugs can also stabilise the plaque and reduce the chance of it rupturing, so you’re much less likely to have a stroke or heart attack. Leading a healthy lifestyle and managing your risk factors is vital to slow the disease’s progression."

Having said that I have heard accounts from one or two credible sources that they've had at least some success reducing calcium buildup in their carotid arteries. However, reducing calcium build up in the neck is very different from reducing plaque in the heart, and a few isolated accounts, no matter how credible, is very different from a peer reviewed testing programme.

I believe that the BHF is sponsoring research into developing a plaque reducing drug, but as I understand it this is still in the very early development stages and even if it's successful it would be many years away from actual medication.

[Hidden in reply to Chappychap]

No doubt some will look towards medication to solve this- and that is where the big money is. But there is a simple 3 step solution which will help.

1/ First your diet. Avoid foods that cause arterial endothelial inflammation - the root cause of plaque build up. I'll let people research this themselves. Mediterranean is a good start, but this term is quite vague and I believe it is possible to do better. Definitely avoid processed foods and vegetable seed oils (highly inflammatory - some now believe they are more harmful than smoking).

2/ Supplement the diet with a rich range of K2 food sources. Historically our gut microbiome would convert K1 to K2, but virtually all westerners have a damaged gut microbiome due to medications and poor diet which mean we have lost the ability to do this. K2 works in combination with D3 to ensure calcium gets laid down in the bones and not the arteries. A broken gut microbiome *could* be contributing massively to the epidemic levels of coronary artery disease in the west.

3/ Get plenty of sun. Find other sources of D3 through the winter months.

These 3 measures will definitely slow plaque production. There is limited evidence that it can reverse it. This comes with a warning. K1 is used for proper clotting function and it is believed there is an overlap with K2. It is not clear whether high doses of these supplements could risk clotting, which is one reason I would always recommend natural food sources.

I suspect any future drug will be based upon these principles, but altered slightly so it can be patented.

Let's all hope more studies are done into this. It would also be nice to be able to fix the gut microbiome. Unfortunately, studies are rarely interested in finding natural solutions because there is no money in it.

[Thongchuay in reply to Hidden]

Unfortunately alternatives to lots of pills and drugs are rare in this forum, except for diet and fitness. That way the information given IMHO is a little bit onesided in favour of pharma.