Within 6 years after a recognized heart attack (MI), 18% of men
will have another heart attack ,about 22% will be disabled
with heart failure, 8% will have a stroke and 7%
will experience sudden death.1

On July 13, 2001 I had experienced a Myocardial Infarction (MI), more commonly known as a heart attack. My critical LAD artery (also known as the widow maker artery) contained a blockage of over 90%. A blood clot was unable to navigate its way through it. The dedicated Cardiology Department at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem did a fantastic job on me; an angiogram, angioplasty (ballooning) and PCI (stent insertion) were performed. On July 20, 2001 I was released from the hospital with my new stent in place and a long list of prescription medications to take, including a cholesterol lowering statin.

At the time, 'statin' was not a part of my vocabulary. Despite the excellent care at Hadassah, little did I know then that I was about to experience the

Double Whammy

Whammy #1: Statins, because of their cholesterol lowering properties, have been the favorite medicines of cardiologists to battle the heart disease epidemic. The scorecard: Two decades of statins to lower LDL and fats in the blood to prevent heart disease did indeed lower LDL levels, but have not curbed the heart disease epidemic. To make matters worse, in many cases there is a large personal and professional price to pay for those lower LDL levels as I later found out first hand. Statins do cause cognitive problems, memory loss, personality changes, and irritability among other problems -- which this leads us to

Whammy #2: Traditionally, there has been an apathetic response to negative statin-induced side effects by those in particular who are entrusted with our medical well-being -- the doctors prescribing us the statin medications. Prof Beatrice Golomb, whose pioneering NIH study documented the negative side effects of statins concluded:


"Patients perceived that physicians failed to appreciate the impact of the statin adverse effects on their quality of life. Statements attributed to physicians by many patients included: denial of existence of any statin adverse effects, denial of specific statin adverse effects (muscle, memory, neuropathy), attribution of symptoms to age, attribution of symptoms to "imagination", and dismissal of the importance of symptoms. ….. Subjects' responses suggest that many physicians may be unfamiliar with the spectrum of adverse events even for widely used preventive agents; and that physicians may be perceived to convey a lack of appreciation of the impact of symptoms on patients."2

 

By the middle of 2003, I had learned that the medical world is not at all unanimous in blaming cholesterol levels in the blood as the major cause of heart disease (known as the lipid hypothesis). I became aware of a growing movement of doctors and research scientists led by Dr. Uffe Ravnskov, who have unequivocally substantiated that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease. His classic book "The Cholesterol Myths" to me was truly revolutionary.

I discontinued the Statins in mid 2003 after suffering from statin induced side effects for 2 years . Worrying about cholesterol levels was no longer a part of my agenda. I also made life style changes accordingly. It was on this background that I wrote "Surviving a Successful Heart Attack", first released in 2004.

And now, the Stent Whammy

The implantation of the stent in a blocked artery is known medically as PCI (Percutaneous Coronary Intervention). The development of this process was an incredible achievement of technology. Just think about it. Someone arrives to the emergency room in the midst of a heart attack. A blockage is identified in an angiogram, angioplasty (ballooning) is performed, and a stent is implanted (PCI) in the problem area to keep the artery open. Next morning, the patient is on his feet; and within another day or 2 he/she starts the return to a normal routine. Stenting is a tremendous short term fix - but for how long?

For all of its wonder, the stent remains a foreign entity implanted into a critically delicate part of the body. The body's defensive mechanisms are not equipped to realize that the foreign stent is implanted as a life saving endeavor.
The nightmare of cardiologists performing PCI is the eventual blockage of the stent, a process known as restenosis. Restenosis literally means the reoccurrence of stenosis, which is an abnormal narrowing in a blood vessel. Stenting, as it turns out, is not a long term trouble free solution. In many cases, stenting needs to be redone/reopened every 1-4 years3. If you missed that the first time, I'll say it again. Every 1 - 4 years!

What are the consequences when total restenosis occurs suddenly? If you are lucky and happen to be at a hospital, an emergency bypass operation may be in order. Many other scenarios, unfortunately resulted in sudden death.

December 2006-Jan 2007 -- 5½ years after my heart attack, which corresponds to
•   3½ years since abandoning the statins and
•   adapting a life style change often contradicting mainstream cardiology doctrine,
an angiogram following annual routine testing determined that the stent in my critical LAD artery was blocked up 100% - 100% restenosis!

    No, I was not experiencing chest discomfort.  
    No, I did not have another heart attack.  
    No, I was not disabled with heart failure.  
    No, I did not have a stroke.  
    No, I did not experience sudden death.  


Not only that, a bypass operation to circumvent the blocked artery is not even in the works. My changing lifestyle over the last several years has promoted the generation and development of alternative blood vessels circumventing my blocked artery. A comparison of the May, 2001 (heart attack) angiogram with the angiogram done in January, 2007 showed that besides the blockage in the stent, there was no further deterioration in the condition of my cardiovascular system!

2001
Name and Segment No Degree of Blockage
4 - LAD mid >90% (angioplasty necessary)
12 - CIRC distal Light
14 - Second Margina 50-70%
18 - RCA mid Light



2007
Name and Segment No Degree of Blockage Location
4 - LAD mid 100% (angioplasty necessary) prox to sent
14 - Second Margina 50-70%  
18 - RCA mid Light  

Despite the restenosis, I am leading a very active life.

In "The Next 20,000: After the Heart Attack, the Statins and Restenosis" I explain the life style changes that I have adapted, and substantiate my reasons for doing so. If I can lead a full life with a blocked critical artery and without the statins, what about you?



• Who is this book for? • Table of Contents • Author's note • Save some $


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Also by this author


Still Controversial, but Still SURVIVING! Do the Cardiological Benefits of Statins Outweigh Their Negative Side Effects?

Recent medical studies are recommending lowering existing LDL cholesterol levels for post heart attack patients to levels significantly lower than the ceiling of 100 mg/dL that has been in effect until now. Many people taking statins to meet the existing goal of 100 already feel that the quality of their lives has reached zero. Mike Stone survived his heart attack with flying colors, but surviving the statins was a different matter altogether. This is his story; why he discontinued taking the statins, what convinced him that it was NOT the cholesterol that caused his heart attack, and where he is today, several years later.

In "Surviving a Successful Heart Attack", Mike Stone describes the massive disruptions in his professional and personal life, and his own futile attempts to climb out of the mental/emotional abyss that he had somehow stumbled into. Anyone who has had a heart attack or fears one in the future will want to read Mike Stone's harrowing experience in post heart attack life and his own conclusions (contradicting many of today's accepted cardiological doctrines) as to what really caused his own heart attack. Well referenced.

Second edition. Completely revised and expanded. Available thru the national outlets (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.) as well as directly from the publisher at lulu.com


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Living with Restenosis is a 2-in-1 book including
Surviving a Successful Heart Attack
-and-
The Next 20,000: After the Heart Attack, the Statins and Restenosis.

Why a 2-in-1 book? Wouldn't it make financial sense to sell two separate books rather than a single book at a relatively cheaper price? Aren't they both independent entities? On the one hand, they are. They can be purchased separately. On the other hand, each one is incomplete. They compliment each other; they convey the whole story.

Surviving a Successful Heart Attack (SASHA), first published in 2004, covers a more naive period of my life. Good health was something to be taken for granted, heart attacks were only for fat people or smokers, cholesterol was that bogey substance to be minimized at all costs, and terms such as 'stent' and 'statins' were not part of my vocabulary.

Heart attacks happen to other people, not to non-smoking normal weight people as myself, until reality strikes -- HEART ATTACK! And then the real reality; the physical recovery from the heart attack was nothing when compared to the recovery from the statins, which so disrupted my professional and personal life. SASHA also covers the period of my life when cholesterol transformed from foe to … not foe. It covers the period of discovering that my first 50 years of personal dietary guidelines were based on mass-media advertising, huge corporations, and worst of all, bad science. It ends with me standing on both feet, after recuperating from both the physical heart attack and the statin-induced side effects; however, what next - to what direction?

The Next 20,000, published in 2007, is that new direction. To the casual reader, the lifestyle changes I have made may be construed as radical, eccentric. That is what makes The Next 20,000 incomplete. Without experiencing the emotional scars described in SASHA that have remained following those two statin-induced side effect years, the reader of '20,000' will not be able to appreciate a lifestyle (exercise and troficide4 prevention) I now accept as totally normal.


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1 Fuster V et al, Hurst's The Heart, Mcgraw-Hill 2000, 7

2 Golomb B, McGraw J.,Lack of Physician Response Toward Perceived Statin Adverse Events" paper presented at the American Heart Association, 45th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention in association with the Council on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism April 29-May 2, 2005, Washington D.C

3 Kauffman J. Malignant Medical Myths: Why Medical Treatment Causes 200,000 Deaths in the USA each Year, and How to Protect Yourself, Infinity Publishing, 2006,166

4 Stone M. The Next 20,000, Chapter 19: Troficide is the systematic nutritional killing or maiming of humans regardless of national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and forcibly transferring children from their mothers’ breasts.

 


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© 2007/8 Mike Stone        Contact: info at heartrecovery.net



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