Heart and coronary artery issues
 

All this week I have been doing some painting on my house and garage exteriors, while I had a bit of warmer weather. I am 73 and pretty healthy, lean and fairly active but not a gym rat by any means. I don't smoke or drink, and eat pretty healthy. I have a slight congenital heart murmur that has never been a problem. I knew I would get some aches and pains from the painting, since I don't do this regularly. Normally I would take turmeric for inflammation, but I was out of it, so I used ibuprofen. One on Monday, one on Tuesday, and two on Wednesday.

So Wednesday afternoon I was just finishing up the garage, and I got what was very obviously a heart attack. Never had one in my life, but it was unmistakeable. I lay down and spent about 40 minutes recovering. After I recovered, I went on the internet and confirmed the symptoms, the worst and most obvious being the viselike hold on my heart. Plus sweating, shortness of breath, weakness. This would probably be considered a fairly mild attack. More like a shot across the bow.

The next morning (today) I did some quick research on ibuprofen side effects. Turns out it is known to increase the risk of both stroke and heart attack. I have used it in the past, but never three days in a row like this. I threw away what I had and went and got some turmeric capsules from the local health food store. This afternoon I finished the garage (just some touch-up brushwork), with no problems at all. I doubt the heart attack will ever recur now that I know to avoid ibuprofen, and in general stick to natural remedies and supplements.

Dude. Are you for real self-medicating a heart attack and not going to see a doctor?

Thanks for this Tom! I’m not an avid ibuprofen user either and like you fairly healthy and try to eat right, my wife is the same. Last year she out of nowhere with no other issues, and believe me she sees the doctor regularly, had a heart attack and had to have a stint put in. Prior to the heart attack she starting taking ibuprofen every night before bed because she was hurting all the time, probably age related. The doctor couldn’t find anything to cause it other than high cholesterol, her numbers have never been high. So now they have her on statins and want her LDL below 60. I’m flabbergasted at the whole thing, she was always eating right and took care of herself well and wasn’t overweight or anything. Could it have been the ibuprofen? I don’t know maybe but I think I’ll avoid it all the same. We use turmeric as well, I am not on any medication and feel pretty good except for the normal age related stuff.

Why do people place their faith in doctors? Doctors have been killing us since western medicine began. Look at the opioid crisis that is happening RIGHT NOW. Takes doctors to prescribe all that dope. No doctors, no crisis.

If you take one of those generic "one a day" vitamins, dump it in the trash if it has cyanocobalamin for vitamin B12. You see the beginning of that word...."cyan"? Yeah, that's for the freaking CYANIDE that this vitamin is based on.

Wake up, dude.

Doctors don't work for you or I, they work for the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies. You're just a cash cow.

I apologize if there are any doctors on here that help and treat people for their actual problems. I had one once, years ago, but he died of cancer and I haven't met another since.

The thought of calling 911 never entered my mind. I have no contact at all with the medical field. At some point I might need cataract surgery, but that would be it.

Tom, you total loontard (I hear you say), WTH?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!

The purpose of western medicine is to make money, pure and simple. The goal is not healing, or wellness maintenance, it is symptom management. Because that's where the money is. It's been this way since the US oligarchs promoted it about a hundred+ years ago, and suppressed other competing medical systems such as chiropractic, herbal medicine and naturopathy. The oligarchs founded medical schools for their preferred business model, and ever since then the pharmaceutical industry has had a choke hold on medicine and for that matter, the USA. They are the biggest lobbyist group in Congress, and buy Senators and Reps like you would buy a can of beans.

Anyone who really wants to be healthy has to get outside of their paradigm. In my entire adult life I have never seen a doctor except when the Army required me to (shots, physicals, etc.). I am in better overall health than some people 50 years younger.

The big key is what we shove into our faces, in terms of both quality and quantity. The paradigm that food is about health and life, not about pleasure and comfort, changes your eating habits dramatically. No smoking, very minimal alcohol, substitute higher quality tasty stuff for lower quality, take supplements as needed, especially as we age. It's not difficult--but who will actually do it?

I am not in the slightest concerned about a future heart attack. Very likely it ain't gonna happen, because now I know better.

Thanks for the heads up Tom.

Geez, excuse me for showing a little concern for fellow human being?
Millions of people take Advil every day and they aren't having heart attacks left and right, yes. If Advil does aggravate a heart condition and gives you an attack it simply means you have a serious health issue that needs looking at. Thousands and thousands of people die needlessly every year from very preventable heart issues. Last week it was one of my co-workers. He would hold his chest once in a while like someone with heartburn but blew it off. He was a never-doctor type. Paramedics said he was likely dead before he hit the floor. Dropped like he'd been shot. 58 years old.

My father have heart issues in his sixties. Went to the doctor pretty regularly and managed to get 94 years out of his creaky heart. Does that mean you will? No. Just citing two close and personal examples rather than statistics off the internet.

I don't dispute medicine in general being a money game. It sucks, but it's what we have. Like how you can't just go see a heart specialist because you know darn well you have a heart problem. You have to go to a regular doctor first and then be "referred" to one. The way it is and how it works.

I took ibuprofen for years. Thought about it one day and realized if it had EVER provided me any relief I couldn't tell it. Same with naproxen, nothing. I take neither. Tylenol and aspirin at least help a little, especially with headaches and mixed with caffeine.

A. Noted and appreciated. :)
B. My info on symptoms of a heart attack came from the American Heart Association website. Info on ibuprofen increasing risk for a heart attack came from the Mayo Clinic. I wasn't citing old wives' tales, back-fence chatter, urban legends, or any other silliness. Just because it is on the internet does not make it suspect. But it's an easy excuse to not hear what a person does not want to hear.
C. It is not all we have. You just have to think outside the box a little. And be your own health advocate; take responsibility for your health rather than farm it off to someone else. Most doctors don't know jack squat about nutrition or herbal supplements. And anyway they are tied into the pharmaceutical money game, especially if they still have their medical college student loans to pay off.

Western medicine is a very well-designed racket.

FYI: those are also the symptoms of a panic attack. If you had a heart attack you would know it lol it doesn’t just clear up. It needs intervention. A heart attack (myocardial infarction) is the physical blockage of blood from making it through the arteries to your heart. The blockage needs removing to recover.

Also, you need to go to the doctor even if it seemed to clear up. Why? It can’t clear up. If you had a blockage, it’s still there depriving your heart of oxygen and slowly killing it. (Read up on heart failure, the result of untreated heart attacks)

So it was either a panic attack or you need to go in

My point is that you may well have a treatable condition that can't diagnose yourself with all the internet info there is. Sometimes you need stuff like endoscopes, EKG machines, etc, and someone who is experienced at interpreting the data that kind of equipment can provide. You've been lucky enough to have warning attack you could walk away from. Expect at least one more in the future. How you choose to use that information is up to you.

I hadn't been to a dentist in 25 years. One Sunday I got a killer toothache. Very bad. Managed to suffer through it. Next day I felt better than fine, like nothing ever happened. I got my butt down to a dentist ASAP to find out what the heck that was about and how to not have it happen again. That's just how I roll though. I'm taking it that no matter what anyone says you ain't goin to no darn doctor so I'm letting it go.

In the end, don't doctors just prescribe blood thinners for heart attacks? Basically?

It's one thing to look at medicine and realize it's a racket. That's great. The food industry? Racket. Any kind of insurance? Racket. Legal system? Racket. Education? Racket. Everything is a freakin' racket.

This is the end result of capitalism. Hey, it was great....for a very few of us, put most of us in the poor house. Can we come to the conclusion that we gave capitalism a try, and it mostly sucked? I'm not advocating communism, just something other than capitalism.

I think the honking great scar my dad wore in the center of his chest for twenty years was the result of a bit more than blood thinners. You guys are kind of weirder than I thought. (Not that that is bad thing.)

Yep. Heart and cancer patient here and I'm alive because of my fine and talented medical staff. I have all the faith in the world in my medical team. They know far more then me.
Worried about you Tom. Clogged arteries, especially if it's genetic like my family tree, don't just go away. Be careful, my friend.

I guarantee you it was not a panic attack. I am not at all prone to them. It was a purely physical event that came out of nowhere (I am also not prone to chest pains). And in fact I stayed pretty calm throughout.

It is possible that it was just severe chest pains that went on for about 30 minutes, then cleared up since I was laying down and resting. A heart attack warning sign, or precursor. But it had all the symptoms of a heart attack. Maybe an EKG etc would say otherwise, IDK. I still think it was caused by the ibuprofen and a congenital weakness in my heart, which has never been an issue before, even with plenty of heavy workouts in my life. This was the first time I have ever taken ibuprofen three days in a row. All I was doing was painting, pretty mild activity.

But here's the bottom line: I will not take prescription meds, and that's all doctors are good for basically. I refuse to get on the AMA's healthcare merry-go-round. So it makes no difference whether it was a heart attack or just severe prolonged chest pains. I have a naturopath/herbal medicine specialist I trust far more than the official medical profession. And given that I eat pretty healthy, I seriously doubt I have any blocked arteries.

Most people looking at me for the first time think I am 55 - 60, and about 95% of the time I move like I'm 35. I'm up on ladders, roofs, whatever it takes to get stuff done.

The key is prevention so you don't ever have to go on the merry-go-round. Lots of otherwise smart people don't get this.

Side note to Bigdano:
What we want is a system that gives the maximum amount of personal freedom (and requires the maximum amount of personal responsibility). That is the Constitution. Any system that starts with central control, not de-centralized like we have, will become oppressive in short order. That's just human nature. It's always the people least deserving of power who crave it, so we have to keep an eye on all politicians. If you can figure out something that works better than capitalism and still preserves personal freedoms, great.
Not meaning to turn this into a political thread.