I will get my doctor’s opinion when I see him in a few weeks. The screening is only a few hundred dollars at most, so I don’t think that’s an issue.
What I found: A heart attack is when blood flow to the heart is blocked, and sudden cardiac arrest is when the heart malfunctions and suddenly stops beating unexpectedly. A heart attack is a “circulation” problem and sudden cardiac arrest is an “electrical” problem.
I never knew that!
Cardiac arrest can also have a non-electrical cause if it is the result of pulmonary arrest. When you quit breathing for any reason (choking, overdose, fluid in lungs, etc.), cardiac arrest will follow within minutes.
Many women have undiagnosed microvascular disease; that means that there are no large visible clogs in the major arteries or veins, but rather inflammation in the smaller blood vessels. This cannot be diagnosed by CAT scans or even seen during cardiac catheterization. It is assumed to be the cause of heart attacks in women who do not have any obvious risk factors but have had heart attacks. That’s the case for me - I’ve had two minor heart attacks, the first when I was 48 and the second ten years later. There is no one test or treatment that guarantees you will never have a heart attack, I’m sorry to say.
My husband has a calcium scan every few years because he has radiation-induced coronary artery damage. His cholesterol is kept artificially low (it has never been above 150) to prevent further damage to his arteries. He is a runner and is very fit, but I know that there is a very real risk of a heart attack. Still, if he hadn’t had radiation treatment, he’d be dead, so there is that!
This bears repeating - a heart attack and cardiac arrest are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS! I see them used interchangeably and even as a lay person I know there is a big difference.
I had a wake-up call when my 50 year old brother died in July from a heart attack. He had 95% blockage in 3 and 85% in the 4th. He was a home inspector and had done 2 homes the day before. This was just in 110 heat in Palm Springs. No previous symptoms, and he was climbing roofs and crawl spaces the day before. Dr.s don’t know how he did that with his blockages.
“Heart attacks” (myocardial infarction) often lead to cardiac arrest due to subsequent lethal arrhythmias or pump failure. But cardiac arrest is not always due to myocardial infarction, as has been stated numerous times already in this thread.
btw- if my mom had been at work where someone knew CPR instead of at a resort for my dad’s meeting (he found her down resting while getting ready for dinner and it took him time to react and get help) she likely would have survived the event. I was an OOS resident at the time and requested an autopsy to be sure of the cause of death- single vessel blockage that led to an electrical problem so her heart attack caused cardiac arrest. With today’s cardiology tools she could have had a stent and avoided the heart attack as my father did years later (and surgery years after that).
Agree totally with post #19’s listing of problems. So many variables. One size does not fit all. Sometimes one test leads to another to unneeded interventions to… Several years ago we advised my father to not get evaluated as, of course, they would find something. Then they would want to do something which would require something which potentially would cause complications (eg stent, then blood thinners then bleeding with a fall…). He was in his late 80’s and now 91 and still alive but memory ever decreasing. Another test one ages out of is a colonoscopy (reminded of this because my confused father said he got a phone call reminding him he was due). Not worth it for no symptoms at his age.
Have to think of risk/benefit ratios. One reason we don’t screen for everything all of the time for everyone. Need to figure out what one would do with results. No reason to test if it won’t change anything. And- no test is perfect.
I had the Widowmaker five years ago. 100% blockage. Survival rate for a widowmaker is in the single digit %; survival rate of full cardiac arrest outside of a hospital is similar. I’ve shared the details many times here. The video of my stenting procedure was terrifying (you can see how little blood was flowing through the artery).
I had an echo six weeks prior after jaw pain, climbed Masada in Israel in the heat three weeks prior, and had a normal EKG ten days prior. Cholesterol: 130.
Can’t tell you how many docs have dropped their jaws when they hear my experience. Many people who survive the widowmaker have brain damage. I was #!$@ lucky.
My cardiac rehab team thinks that many women’s heart attacks stem from the microvascular plaques that break off and travel. Would explain the different symptoms, too.
I just had a cardiac stress test today and all was well. Could these blockages still be a problem that is not seen by this method?
@greenwitch I believe a normal result means your coronary arteries are less than 70% blocked. How much less, if any, the test is not that precise. If your result was abnormal, you would probably had been sent for further testing to cardiac cath (catherization) lab to have dye injected. I believe this is consider gold standard for determining where and how much coronary blockage there is. This test is not without risk. I say above as a patient who had several normal stress tests (2 years apart) before getting an abnormal result, was sent to cath lab, found to have a 90-95% blockage in left anterior descending artery (aka widowmaker), was asymptomatic, never had a heart attack. So the answer to your question is yes, maybe you have very little or no blockages (yeah), or maybe you are close to 70% threshold, but havent crossed it which would result in an abnormal result.
@countingdown & @Jugulator20 So an echo can miss it? What does that say about the calcium scan? Watched the video with DH last night, he could not go to sleep without watching something less scary 
To my knowledge an echo can show things like structural abnormalities (eg damaged heart valves), or how effectively your heart is pumping (eg ejection fraction), etc. It may show blockages but I don’t think that’s an echo primary value. I’ve never had a calcium scan. After it was determined I had severe blockage in LAD, I had triple bypass, staph infection, second surgery to treat infection, later discovery that all bypasses failed. I subsequently chose to retire and eliminate stress from my life. That was over a decade ago. My LAD is still 90-95% blocked. I am asymptomatic, never had a heart attack. A calcium scan wouldn’t tell me anything I don’t know. @somemom.don’t tell your husband about my history, if the video caused him to not go to sleep, my history may send him into therapy (ha ha).
It’s funny, he has a couple of close friends, one had an MI & stent in their 50s and one has a CHF Dx, both in the last few weeks. Makes one think when you see it up close.
Doesn’t seem fair that you had your chest cracked open, all that rehab, and then it failed! Let alone the staph 
Infection is a risk of surgery, outcomes are not guaranteed.
All right, I’m sucking it up and going tomorrow. My doctor offered it last year and I was too chicken to go. I’m making my husband do it too. The biggest bummer is no coffee tomorrow morning. Do they give you the results right away? It looks like they send it to your doctor, but if you don’t need a script and pay cash I don’t see why I can’t get the results myself.
To me, it looks like the risks of the test are negligible, well worth the risk. I am going to ask for the CAT scan.
Women’s risk of dying from heart attacks are five fives times the risk of dying from breast cancer. Seems like a no brainer to me.
The echo would point out a LAD problem in vague terms (lower EF in my case). Had they done a nuclear stress test, I’m told they would have seen the block. Considering that when they stented, they drilled down and found 85-95% blockages after the 100%, they would have had a clue. I wound up with 64 mm of stents on the LAD – I’m bionic now. By the end of our trip to Eastern Europe and Israel, I was totally exhausted and couldn’t walk far at all. Attributed it to my daily chemo.
An abnormal echo would merit add’l testing. Since mine was normal, I was cleared.