Skiing After a Heart Attack

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...

Avocados, chocolate, exercise and alcohol?  Sounds like a party to me.  Actually, it sounds like things I'm most likely to spend all weekend pursuing.   

Sorry about your heart problem, but congratulations on coming through it pretty well!  Wish you the best with it in the future.

I don't know much about heart attacks and skiing, but I discovered I had a heart defect that resulted in repeated cardiac arrests. Will not happy about it, my cardiologist allowed me to continue skiing while waiting for surgery, and I went back out on the slopes twenty days after having a pacemaker implanted.

It hasn't slowed me down one bit -- rather, I ski much more than I used to, because I've become more aware of my own mortality, and I'd rather die having spent my life doing the things I enjoy.

Not being a doctor, I wouldn't give advice for your situation, but I will say the majority of backcountry skiers have at least some basic medical training. I'd wager at least half the posters here are CPR qualified.

- yaa, I told you about Mammoth. I live in Reno, NV and in todays paper: there is an article, "Reno man reaches new heights after heart attack". This is found at - RGJ.com It looks like you have a lot of support !

Great conversations but edging on some misconceptions……I start by saying trust your medical team, ask questions (as you are doing!!) and do not take medical advice off the Internet!!! , LOL.
That being said… AED’s in public spaces are great, but as you inferred if you have a clot rupture and losing your left main you need a cath lab, electricity is not going to help…for the most part, nor will CPR. Both are great and I am glad they are there but…………
Good places door to wire in the heart times try to keep under an hour, not all do. Transport times as you can imagine depend on weather, roads, transport…time is heart muscle. Two - four hours from ski slope to cath lab is a lot of heart muscle as you mention. I have seen a RARE CPR cases survive, some numbers say 1-3% , sort of depends on what you call quality of life and definitions of survival. Nursing home vs. independent living and quality of life is a large ethical issue. (lordhedgie cardiac arrests not withstanding!!) Which I have a question, has it ever popped you skiing??

Yes “adrenaline, high altitude, cold weather and exertion involved in skiing” can contribute to plaque rupture but often just as much can cause myocardial ischemia..then...electrical conduction disturbances, etetetet
Have your team do a stress test and echo study which it sounds like you have had done, and I presume you would have anyhow.
I think if you crank your heart rate up to the top of the Bruce protocol, you have no chest pain and your echo is good (which you indicated by saying you have a EF of 65%) then your team and you would have some answers.

You actually I think know a lot and in a sense already know the answer…..there is no answer. Its all in risk stratification and management. I like trumpetsailers Dad! Deal with it and live. It scares me a little with talking about extreme low fat diets and such….. but then I like the talk about HDL issues Niacin, losing weight, exercise and the proper statins.
I like evidence based research, peer reviewed. Alot of research is poorly set up and not clearly defined.

Your last words
“Should I stay off the slopes and stay near the hospital for the next 18 years while I start and raise a family and then start skiing again once I've I have lived a full life and wouldn't mind dying so much?”
Good question!!


cordially
CW
I know little and talk to much!!

i concur with CW

My cholesterol tends to run high and it seems like every procedure I go in for they find something. (e.g. just as the MD was starting my first colonoscopy at 65 he said, "You know you have a heart murmer, right?" NO, I did NOT know that and it didn't help keep my mind off the procedure at hand either.) Anyway, my Primary has mentioned an EBT scan which is something relatively new and not covered by insurance as a diagnostic. but it's 3-D scan of the heart and arteries for plaque build-up. If you've had this, then you know. if not, here's the link to Swedish. I think it's down to around $200 - $300 from over $400. i haven't done it.

www.swedish.org/body.cfm?id=414#shows

BTW the heart murmer stood up to the stress ECG and whatever it was they sprang on me at the hernia repair in April I haven't followed up on yet. I am pushing 67 and that's very differernt from 30.

It does bring to mind the arguments that start every time a "high-risk" athlete dies "doing what he loved." How much of your life and what you do will be shaped by the fact that you have kids, a wife, responsibilities, etc.

How does the stress of skiing compare to the stress of sex? Enough!!

bill