Skiing After a Heart Attack

FYI: I had a complete blockage of my Right Coronary Artery that is now held open by 3 stents. During the angiogram the doctor noted that all other arteries were "clean" and showed "minimal plaquing" (though I am not sure plaque is detectable on an angio). Bloodflow was restored within 45 minutes. I was in the hospital 2 nights and one month post op I had a stress test that showed that the scar on my heart is small, about the size of a nickel, my left ventricle is a little sluggish and I have an abnormal EKG (I think it shows ST segment depression/smoothing) but my pumping capacity and fitness level is normal even for someone who hadn't had a heart attack. Ejection fraction of 65%.

Sounds like you're lucky to be alive!

These ARE interesting concerns:

Doctors don't know anything. There are ways to remove plaque from arteries but they won't do it. They don't want cures they want treatment plans that are expensive and leave the patient psychologically and physically addicted to them.

You COULD hire a natriopath to get you some "CHELATION THERAPY" .  Prolly not addicting, though I never heard of addiction to betablockers and plavix either.  We'll be interested in your references and prices...

I'd personally listen to the cardiologist...

Maybe I should stick to Snoqualmie this season to be as close as possible to the hospital?

For as long as you're concerned about it, this might be a wise way to start easing yourself back into the game. Note that you'd have to avoid the really deep days too - as pass closures could bollocks up any ALS response.

My dad earned himself a pair of stents when he was about 45 (no heart attack, but 97% blockage in two+ arteries). Eleven years later, he's still hiking ~100,000 v.f/yr, biking ~1000 mi/yr, and making our annual trip to tick fourteeners in Colorado. He's got his nitro pills, and as his hiking partner, I've got CPR/PR/AED training. The CPR probably won't do any appreciable good in the backcountry, but for him, not getting into the mountains is worse than the alternative.

Heal well!

Hopefully it will be el Nino and suck...

And you want friendly advice? .

Scotsman - great story & admirable that you were inspired to see yourself on the other side, working to get strength back, etc.

Wow you have rec'd a fair amount of good advice already.  A close male relative 5 yrs younger than me just had an MI and it has gotten me thinking about "pushing" on the uphill etc. whilst hours from anywhere.  I am not a cardiologist but have some background and I think to try to find some bright sides: you know where the blockages were/are and where they are not.  You have a "baseline".  Your "squeeze" or ejection fraction is good.  Some of these things (the ejection fraction) can be followed non-invasively and other non-invasive tests can monitor for ischemia (heart outpacing it's O2 supply during exercise) although the best way to look for % blockages is still I think invasive angiography.  One possible lifestyle intervention that some people say can reverse blockages is the radical low fat diet popularized by cardiologist Dean Ornish.  Likely you have heard of this.  For a while, Swedish Hospital in Seattle had a franchise from DO's operation and advertised you could go on a DO heart program through their medical center.  I don't know the in's and out's but I think that program is no longer officially sanctioned there.  It was a VERY low fat diet and would require attention to getting essential fatty acids etc.   Supposedly they had peer reviewed data that plaques could regress on this diet.  I have personally thought about "what would I do" and I think I might go down that road if faced with the situation.  May you have many happy runs in the future.

There's a site called "trackyourplaque.com" that has a program they say reduces plaque. It's not low fat since dietary fat intake is only 15% of your blood lipid profile. Statins do a lot to improve the blood lipid profile, but for plaque regression what you really need is reverse cholesterol transport. This is the process whereby a form of HDL scavenges the arteries for fatty plaques and transports them back to the liver. This doesn't really do anything for other types of plaques that don't contain fat, of which I think there are a few. All plaques contain calcium and the way you can "track your plaque" is with an EBT or CAT scan of the arteries which can give you a "calcium score". Most adults have calcified plaque in their arteries and the calcium score increases by an astounding average of 30% per year in the average person. Reducing your calcium score is very difficult and mainly revolves around doing things that boost HDL levels: Niacin/Niaspan, good fats, chocolate, exercise, losing weight, reservatrol, alcohol, vitamin c, lysine, etc...

My cardiologist won't give me a calcium score because he says it wouldn't affect how he's treating me. Basically he's treating me with the assumption that I have a high calcium score (which is safe to assume based on my having a vulnerable plaque rupture MI at a young age).

There are synthetic HDL particles that act like liquid drano on the arteries, based on certain HDL particles that occur in heart healthy families in Italy, There are also techniques in which plaques are physically removed from arteries via either laser or drill tipped catheters. None of these drugs or techniques are approved for the general public yet.