If you have chest pains..

[Dennis]

"Now I got book reading, DVDs, and bad knees. C[font=Roboto, arial, sans-serif]'est la vie."[/font]

[font=Roboto, arial, sans-serif] How much better can life be?   :s     Still have the memories.....  [/font]

[font=Roboto, arial, sans-serif] Maybe no more 14ers but there are still Grizzlies in Montana to wrestle  [/font]

 

[travelaround]

Dennis - thanks for the suggestion . . . I occasionally have chest pains and react by drinking water mixed with cayenne, sometimes with apple cider vinegar. I read once that cayenne will stop heart attacks, and know that cayenne is often used as a food supplement for heart issues.

I dread having to go to a hospital about something like that so right now, I'm using food supplements including CoQ10 with Hawthorne. Anyhow, reading your posting is helpful - because now I know how easy it is to get a stent in case one is ever needed.

The Guadalupe Mountain picture inspires me - I've never been there. How long is that trail?

 

[RoamerRV428]

So happy reading your story that you are ok and your procedures worked out well and you are on the mend.
Super scary, med troubles can be just horrifying. Happy you are doing so well now!

 

[Dennis]

travelaround.... I use so much cayenne pepper in the pepper sauce form I should look like a pepper. lol Maybe it has helped but mostly because I like the taste.
I had started taking Tumeric in supplement form hoping to get the cholesterol levels down and not use a statin. Can't take it now though while taking the blood thinners. Had even consistently used ACV for that but cholesterol kept creeping up, so double up on statin and got it back down. Not that I thought it was all that high but keep from arguing with the Dr.
I understand the CoQ10 is recommended.

The main reason I posted about my recent issue is because I thought a number of members here might find it useful and get them thinking. If you or anyone else have medicare or especially medicare plus medicaid and have some feelings in the chest and upper back that doesn't seem right it might be a good time to get an angiogram to find out if there is narrowing of the arteries. Or if going in with some chest pain and say that's your complaint and get checked. You may be like me and get the whole works if needed before they let you go. Caught early it is a day or maybe two in the hospital. Sure beats having chest split open and the aftermath of that. I am fortunate (mostly) to be eligible for VA medical care.

About the Guadalupe Peak Trail. That is 8.4 miles round trip. 3,000' elevation gain and peak is 8,751' Just a shorty compared to most peaks. It is strenuous though for a lot of average hikers. Beautiful views all along the trail.

 

[Dennis]

So happy reading your story that you are ok and your procedures worked out well and you are on the mend.
Super scary, med troubles can be just horrifying. Happy you are doing so well now!

Thank you for the well wishes, Roamer! I am going to do my best to go back to my usual self. Not sure if that's all that good.... lol

 

[QinReno]

@travelaround, did you get your van already? You might get an EKG, as that is a pretty inexpensive test. An angiogram is rather more complex and certainly very expensive in today's market.

- https://mayfieldclinic.com/pe-angio.htm

Every time you see your doctor, they should be doing a quick carotid artery check with a stethoscope, it will help tell if there are deposits built up at the carotid "bifurcation". Carotid endarterectomies are one of the most common operations. You can see the carotid bifurcation in the video.

- https://my.clevelandclinic.org/heal...e-carotid-artery-stenosis/diagnosis-and-tests
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endarterectomy

Yeah, you have to be careful hiking in Glacier NP, as it's full of griz. But there are zillions of tourists up there, so stay with the pack. And the hike up to Bench Lakes above Redfish Lake is not too bad. And if you go to Boise, the hike up to Table Rock starting from the old penitentiary is pretty easy.

 

[travelaround]

I'll ask my NP about the EKG . . . I think I had one a couple years ago. I'm not sure why I occasionally have heart pain but it doesn't happen very often - like maybe once every year or two.

 

[QinReno]

Chest pains are not necessarily a heart thing. There are probably "many" reasons if you do some research.

When the idiot allergist overdosed me on Theophylline, my major symptoms were chest pains and heart palpitations, due to overstimulation of the sympathetic nervous system, and not some sort of artery blockage. Theophylline is a methylxanthine similar to caffeine, so think about the effects of drinking say 20 cups of coffee.

The internist put me on Xanax for about 6 months, and afterwards for several years, I would get similar chest symptoms after drinking black tea. Anymore I drink only green tea, which has less Theophylline in it.

 

[travelaround]

@travelaround, did you get your van already?

No ... I'm working up to it. LOL...

 

[Headache]

Good to know you got treatment. What Clinton did was go completely vegan to heal himself. Once he did it he cured the issues causing him to need stents. He was treated by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn Jr. and what he did was follow his book Prevent and Cure Heart Disease. Good reading while your healing.

I did it with my dad and within 5 months his heart valve healed, his kidney disease was all but gone, his anemia disappeared, etc.

Remember Jim Fixx died of a heart attack. It was what he ate.

 

[travelaround]

I have the Esselstyn book on my desk. I was already vegetarian and can easily go vegan - the hard part for me is giving up all oils. I have a friend on this diet and she looks a lot healthier than I do. Same age.

 

[Dennis]

Thanks, Headache. Also for the book recommendation.

I gave up a number of tasty foods over the last few years for the most part. Dropped my carb consumption down along with lower salt amounts. Seldom ever use salt shaker. I hated giving up fried chicken, mashed potatoes with butter and milk, greasy hamburgers, and similar foods. You are probably right, what we eat....
Now it has been even less carbs at 25/30 carbs daily. Mostly baked chicken, green beans, rutabagas, Jicama, bean sprouts, did go back to eating a few scrambled eggs with olive oil and other delicious foods like that.... Closing in on a year eating like that now.

Of course the really low carb was due to the fact of being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes back in January.

 

[Headache]

You might be able to do something about that diabetes as well. Many people have. Both my dad and I were pre-diabetic.

The gist is eating the most nutritionally dense foods. When you do that your body has what it needs to heal. Chronic disease is what happens when we don't fulfill our nutritional needs. I hate the way I'm living right now because I can't do it and I feel myself getting sicker every day.

 

[rvwandering]

I moved all of the posts dealing with traveling in Montana to another thread - https://vanlivingforum.com/showthread.php?tid=34163&pid=422576#pid422576

 

[Dennis]

I got my A1c from 7.4 down to 6.3 Was working to get it back below 6.0 by early Feb. Maybe I can. It is hard to eat the way we should without a way to prepare food the way that's needed. Main reason my trips have been shorter for the present.