Click Here To See The Accompanying Widowmaker YouTube Video What Is The Widowmaker Artery And The Widowmaker Heart Attack? The Widowmaker artery is typically the main artery that runs down the front of the heart and supplies most of the heart with blood. The Widowmaker heart attack happens when there is a critical blockage in…
Coronary Artery Disease
Coronary artery disease is the most common type of heart disease and is the leading cause of death in the United States. It is caused by a buildup of plaque inside the coronary arteries.
Troponin Levels – The Heart Attack Blood Test
Often people are hospitalized and they go home with a copy of their blood tests, one of which is a troponin level. Recently, someone asked me whether they should be worried about a heart attack after they noticed an elevated troponin level on the blood tests listed on their discharge paperwork. Diagnosing a heart attack…
Earlobe Crease And Heart Disease – Fact Or Myth?
A Brief History: Frank's Sign In 1973, a physician called Sanders T. Frank had a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine describing 20 of his patients with an earlobe crease, who were under 60 years old, with angina (chest pain) and proven coronary artery blockages. This study was the first to describe…
Plavix Side Effects – What To Expect
Plavix is the trade name of the drug clopidogrel and is basically an anti-blood clotting agent. One of the ways blood clots form is by lots of little cells called platelets sticking together. Plavix acts on platelets to stop them sticking together so easily, therefore helping to prevent the formation of clots. Common reasons to…
Heart Blockage – Explained With Pictures!
Heart blockage is a term commonly used by patients referring to coronary artery disease, a build up of plaque causing narrowing of the arteries that supply the heart muscle with blood. This heart blockage, if severe enough can prevent the muscle getting the blood it needs to function, especially at times when more blood flow…
Can You Exercise After A Heart Attack?
Times have changed vastly over the last 30-40 years. Until the 1950’s we had one treatment for a heart attack and that was basically bed rest! Nobody even thought that you should move, never mind exercise after a heart attack. Then in 1952 there was a paper published in a leading medical journal that showed…
How To Survive A Heart Attack
To survive a heart attack you first must understand what is actually happening to the body when a heart attack occurs. What happens in a heart attack? A sudden rupture in an unstable area of a wall in an artery leads to buildup of clot with often-total blockage of the artery. This cuts off the blood…
Depression and Heart Disease – A Killer Combination
In 1937, during the thick of the Great Depression, a doctor from the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene made a curious observation: patients with depression died more often than their healthy peers. What was the main cause of death in these patients with so-called “involutional melancholia”? Heart disease. As investigators have pulled back…
Did That Stent Save My Life?
Pretty much everyone knows someone who has had a stent placed in his or her heart. The story told by the patient with the stents is classic. The chest pains had been coming and going for a while, but they had been passed off as indigestion or muscle pain. Tests were done, and showed that…
Exercise With Heart Disease – Is it Safe and Should I Be Doing It?
Time after time I come across patients who are suffering from stable coronary artery disease (heart disease) who, through no fault of their own, are under the impression that they can’t partake in any form of ‘strenuous’ activity, as it would be detrimental to their health. It is astonishing that they think they cannot or…
