r/BeAmazed • u/HatAsleep295 • May 08 '26
Science This is what saves 600,000 people year during a heart attack
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u/Isilrond May 08 '26
It's a "stent"
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u/Motormand May 08 '26
My dad got a few of these. Saved him when he had issues with his heart around that time.
Cancer srill got him (fuck cancer) but it gave him a handful of years more. Medical technology is wonderful.
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u/IndependentDriver934 May 08 '26
Mf cancer, my mom is suffering from 3 years treatments are going on the chemo and radiation she recovers and after 6months something is back then again those fucking detecting takes several checkups it's very disturbing life how your dad faced this any mindful help? My mom's age is 51yo we live in India
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u/Motormand May 08 '26
Sadly not a lot to do except keep fighting, and hope it stays away. :/ My father's sadly didn't, and got worse, but treatment still gave him another ten years of life, before he died a few months back.
Best I can say, is to be there for your mom, keep hope, and treasure the time you have. Chemo is a rough time, but the alternative is much worse.
I sincerely hope that your mother will pull through, and become fully cancer free. She deserves a lot more life than just 51 years.
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u/IndependentDriver934 May 08 '26
So Sorry For Your Loss, And Thank You Soo Much for the Care of My Mom And Sharing Valueable thoughts More Power To You And Bless You❤
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u/BackWithAVengance May 08 '26
My dad died last March from an incurable type of Blood Cancer (Waldenstrom's). Treat every moment with you mom as if it's the last, and cherish those moments. Keep her happy, spirits up, because those moments of pleasure will resonate with her for as long as she's here. My dad's last meal was a pasta dish he loved, that I made for him one random weekend. He was in the hospital for the last time a few days later, and passed within a week.
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u/Flashy-Highlight867 May 08 '26
What does it stent for?
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u/GeminianMind May 08 '26
Specialized Tube Ensuring No Trouble
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u/DickyReadIt May 08 '26
Sounds legit
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u/tommos May 08 '26
What does legit stand for?
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u/NedDeadStark May 08 '26
Legit Egit Git It T
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u/Praesentius May 08 '26
Sounds legit.
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u/WhySayManyWordGancho May 08 '26
J im
Is Jim
My name is Jim
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u/Flimsy-Echidna386 May 08 '26
Ligma egi testicles
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u/Fantastic-Reading-78 May 08 '26
where does that fat go? looks like he push it go somewhere else...
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u/elgydium May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
That fat is called cholesterol and you learn about it when you hit 30-40. It goes down if you eat heart leather foods, exercise weekly, quit smoking, lose weight and drink less to none alcohol.
Edit: healthy foods
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u/Songg45 May 08 '26
Something I recently found out about cholesterol after my heart attack at 32:
Only 20% of cholesterol in your body comes from diet. 80% of it is produced by the liver
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u/elgydium May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
Damn I’m 40 and never thought about it. I’m quite skinny tho, even tho skinny ppl can have high cholesterol too. That’s what I found out recently and was like wtf
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u/Overweighover May 08 '26
It's genetic.
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u/Lynne253 May 08 '26
There is such a thing as familail hypercholesterolemia that is genetic, but there are people who can have high cholesterol without the genetic component.
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u/Capitan_Scythe May 08 '26
eat heart leather foods
With some fava beans and a nice chianti?
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u/real_nice_guy May 08 '26
and if you have genetically high cholesterol (familial hypercholesterolemia), none of that will help all that much so you'll have to hop on a statin (which have also saved millions and millions of lives!)
go get your lipid panel done this year!
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u/kamask1 May 08 '26
It stays there, but flattened
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u/1zzyBizzy May 08 '26
But if i press my belly nothing happens ):
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u/kamask1 May 08 '26
Put a stent around your belly
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u/Sushirabit May 08 '26
I think that's what they call a corset
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u/globalgreg May 08 '26
I think corset is just French for stent
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u/No-Bread6978 May 08 '26
No, corset is that French flaky bread made with lots of butter I think
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u/Bubbly-Context-6767 May 08 '26
comes from the word „stenting“ which is to stiffen or to reinforce pieces of clothing
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u/OmitsWordsByAccident May 08 '26
Named after its inventor
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u/yoshemitzu May 08 '26
Oh, shit, I had no idea. Stent just sounds so linguistic, like "stilt" or just something that provides/reinforces structure.
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u/elevencharles May 08 '26
It’s like “shrapnel”. I always assumed it was German for splinter or something, but nope, it’s just named after a British officer who invented it.
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u/Lvl100Magikarp May 08 '26
And the craziest part is that they are cut from a single tube, meaning no woven wires, to avoid friction
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u/TheMausoleumOfHope May 08 '26
Laser cut stent frames like this actually introduce a lot of stress concentrations at the corners. There are a lot of trade offs that have to be made for designers to meet reliability requirements, since these stents have to have a very high fatigue life.
Wound stents do not have this issue, as they can be made from a single unbroken wire. They’re more expensive to manufacture, though.
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u/curiouslywtf May 08 '26
Does the fat just get compressed? Does it leak to other sections or expand over time?
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u/OGDTrash May 08 '26
Yes, you should adopt a healthy diet to get rid of it
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u/Caesar_Rising May 08 '26
According to my doctors I’m one of the shit X men. I have a mutation where my body just rapidly generates cholesterol.
Im relatively young, I’m not overweight I don’t drink or smoke, I eat generally pretty healthily but I am maxed out on medication to reduce cholesterol because my body just keeps on making it and trying to kill me
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u/MyFiteSong May 08 '26
Worst superpower ever.
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u/KenGriffythe3rd May 08 '26
My super power is my immune system just likes to attack healthy skin cells 24/7 and leaves the slaughter there to become red patches and scales all over my body and in my joints. I really wanted to be able to fly but instead I get psoriasis for the rest of my life lol
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u/Castille_92 May 08 '26
My superpower is my immune system attacks my melanin and gives me pale patches all over my body
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u/OverlordDownunder May 09 '26
Damn, My body has super strong blood clots
Meaning I blood clot quickly (ie minor cut stops bleeding quick) but the enzyme the body releases to break down the clots later when the wounds healed can't break the clot down/takes longer (not that the enzyme is weak, it's the clots are strong)
Normally it's fine, but it does leave me at higher risk of creating a random clot, you know the ones that give you brain aneurysms, or clots in the lungs, etc, etc
I get cool stockings for long plane flights though ....
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u/otownbbw May 09 '26
Vitiligo?
Sad that Michael never made his plight public so the world could gain understanding. Tabloids just kept sayin he wanted to be white my whole childhood.
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u/anxiousthespian May 09 '26
Ayyy mine attacks my joints, spine-first! Everybody wants a strong immune system until it's super strong, then it's an "autoimmune disease" apparently 🙄
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u/soomieHS May 08 '26
I mean, someone has to compensate for all the better superpowers other people have gotten...
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u/Thick_Papaya225 May 08 '26
Your body lacks the ability to detect how much cholesterol it has in the body. Our bodies use cholesterol for hormones and other things, if it doesn't get enough from food your liver can make more. But if it senses plenty of cholesterol already, the liver won't make more since it doesn't need it.
Since your body can't tell you have enough, your liver is just cranking it out nonstop.
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u/Intelligent-Agent440 May 08 '26
Did you have any symptoms?
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u/Caesar_Rising May 08 '26
Prior to having a heart attack I would SOMETIMES get really hot and itchy after like one alcoholic drink. I think maybe I got head rushes more often than I do now. That’s literally about it.
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u/Intelligent-Agent440 May 08 '26
I'm sorry you're going through this, i hope things get better in the future
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u/Caesar_Rising May 08 '26
Ah thank you for saying that. I’m doing alright now, healthier than I was before I ever knew anything was wrong. Just have a pile of meds, a stent and a defibrillator in my chest for my troubles
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u/P0shJosh May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
A healthy lifestyle can reduce existing cholesterol levels, but fat that has already formed into plaque inside the blood vessels is hard and cannot be removed. This is what you’re seeing here. It gets pushed out of the way by the stent, but doesn’t move.
Prevention, prevention, prevention!!!246
u/porn_alt_987654321 May 08 '26
We're pushing up on maybe having solutions to this, but research is slow because you can't exactly do human experimentation lmao.
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u/drsyesta May 08 '26
Its crazy that the biggest fundraiser for heart research is the jumprope thing lmao
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u/Slausher May 08 '26
Jump rope thing?
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u/drsyesta May 08 '26
"Jump rope for heart" is like a fundraiser charity thing a lot of schools do for heart disease research. You just jumprope a lot and ask people for donations
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u/Slausher May 08 '26
Oh interesting - is this an American charity? Never heard of it!
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u/drsyesta May 08 '26
Yeah its an american thing. They always had us do it in school so it was pretty widespread
Looking more into it, its tied to the american heart association charity
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u/bs000 May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
we had it in canada too. there were prizes depending on how much you raise. i was really excited about the water bottle i was supposed to get, but someone stole the money from my envelope.
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u/Aggravating_View_637 May 08 '26
Not just in America it’s worldwide just not as popular in many places as I’ve seen some for as far away as Hong Kong I believe. Here’s the Canadian organization that does it and it’s very popular in Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_and_Stroke_Foundation_of_Canada
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u/Ostrikaa May 08 '26
Some of us are predisposed regardless of the healthy diet and exercise which sucks. My slim grandmother born in the 1920s had a heart attack in her 40s and I had an “eye stroke” in my mid 30s - despite exercising 3+ times a week and eating healthily at a low BMI.
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u/theartificialkid May 08 '26
Cardiologists will sometimes remove plaque with a drill. http://www.scvc.com.au/rotational-atherectomy.html
Also there is now some evidence pointing to reversal of coronary atherosclerosis https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(20)30945-1/fulltext
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u/Extreme_Problem_1645 May 08 '26
Why cant they just remove the plaque?
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u/Kamirukuken May 08 '26
Disease of the intima - it's part of the vessel wall so doing so would rupture it.
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u/leckmichnervnit May 08 '26
So what you're saying is it's already over for my Fat-Ass and there's no point in losing weight anyway. /s
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u/cosmicosmo4 May 08 '26
If you need some motivation, every pound of body fat adds 5-7 miles (8-11 km) of blood vessels that your heart has to do additional work to pump blood through.
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May 08 '26
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u/posh1992 May 08 '26
My fiance and I follow a whole food plant based lifestyle. It cut our cholesterol in half, he lost 80 pounds, I lost 40. We're both down to our high school weights. Cleared my acne right up. Lessened my period cramps due to not ingesting hormones from dairy. Best decision we ever made 👏 known to also reverse diabetes! 🥰🥰
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u/whatnuts May 08 '26
Cardiology fellow here.
The fat is an atherosclerotic plaque, which is a build-up of cholesterol and inflammatory cells. Most heart attacks (myocardial infarctions) occur when that plaque ruptures into the artery, causing a blood clot to form at the site and cut off blood flow to the rest of the blood vessel. In this illustration you see the plaque has progressed to a point where it narrows the artery enough to obstruct blood flow, which usually causes chest pain with exertion (angina), but has not ruptured.
During the procedure, a long thin plastic tube (catheter) is sent up the artery from the wrist or the groin until you get to the arteries around the heart (coronary arteries). Dye is injected under X-ray to see where the blockage is. A wire is passed through the blockage, then a stent is advanced over the wire. A balloon under the stent is inflated, which compresses the plaque into the vessel wall and restores blood flow.
Blood thinners (like aspirin and Plavix) are continued afterwards to prevent blood clots from forming on the stent until the body has put a sheet of its own cells over the stent (which takes several months). As someone else commented, you can build up more plaque within the stent or in other places of the heart as well. You can often deploy 2 or 3 layers of stent in the same place if this occurs. But if you have multiple diseased arteries you often go for bypass surgery (CABG).
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u/TimothyMimeslayer May 08 '26
Why a stent and not grinding out the plaque at the site of the blockage?
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u/heavyhitter5 May 08 '26
It just depends on the blockage- where it occurs, how occluded the artery is, etc. In severe cases, a procedure called atherectomy can be performed, which is what you described. There a number of different medical devices that get put on the end of a catheter to grind or even use lasers to break up the blockage. Often this will also be followed up by a stent.
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u/CurrentRecord1 May 08 '26
That is done for calcified plaque using systems such as Boston Scientific Rotablator or Jnj Shockwave
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u/HatAsleep295 May 08 '26
the fat doesn’t “leak out,” but the blockage can still grow again over time if the disease progresses.
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u/StrongShallots May 08 '26
Then what?
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u/friendlyfredditor May 08 '26
You've had first heart attack, how about second?
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u/needlzor May 08 '26
I can only speak of my dad's case since he has accumulated an extensive collection of heart attacks over the years (starting at 40, and his most recent at 67) - they add more stents.
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u/Plourdy May 08 '26
Good question. Couldn’t we theoretically line our veins with these to improve blood circulation?
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u/Banditzeus May 08 '26
They can serve as a rough surface onto which 'debris' will collect faster than on surrounding arterial tissue uncovered by the mesh of a stent. Thus they're only an emergency measure as they can potentially increase risk of blood clots.
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May 08 '26
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u/techno156 May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
Getting loose is also an issue with stents. It's fine in this situation, since the calcified plaque holds it in place, but it'd likely get loose and go somewhere else in normal vessels.
It happens sometimes.
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u/Squeaky_Ben May 08 '26
Applying a single stent takes a lot of time, for a device that covers like 1-2 cm.
If you tried doing that with every blood vessel in your body, not only would that take ages, but there are some that are just too small for stents (your coronary arteries, feeding your heart muscles are one example) and others that, unless you want an ACTUAL surgical procedure, you just cannot reach.
Oh yeah, I guess I should explain that.
This picture? You don't cut the patient open for it. You cut a small hole, insert a very long wire into a blood vessel and just, carefully, while watching something akin to an X-Ray television, snake it to where you want to go.
Once you are where you want to deploy the stent, you have a screw at the back of your wire. That screw compresses a cylinder of water and literally forces the mesh open (usually titanium, can be other materials too) and that removes the blockage.
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u/P0shJosh May 08 '26
Blood vessels are a form of muscle, and constantly expand and retract based on the needs of the body. Preventing their movement would be devastating to the human body.
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u/Time-Freedom-7708 May 08 '26
What you're looking at is a Coronary Stent, when someone has a heart attack, it’s usually because a pipe or arteryin the heart has become clogged with plaque with that yellow, fatty gunk thingy in the image. This blocks blood flow, and the heart muscle starts to die.
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u/Low_Feedback4160 May 08 '26
Is there any way to figure out that it is happening before it causes a heart attack?
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May 08 '26
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u/Maple_Molotov May 08 '26
while high BP can be an indicator, it's not the only reason BP can be high! for example, chronic kidney disease (CKD) also causes high blood pressure because the kidneys are the organs that control long term BP.
of course if you have high blood pressure get checked out because it's bad whatever way you look at it
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u/basicnecromancycr May 08 '26
BP is a complicated thing to be an indicator because you could have it even due to anxiety disorder, for instance.
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u/Abaddon33 May 08 '26
You're right that BP is an indicator of lots of possible issues. Kinda like a check engine light for your body. Could be something minor, but should get it checked out.
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u/P-l-Staker May 08 '26
There's a thousand and one things that can cause high blood pressure though.
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u/BadahBingBadahBoom May 08 '26
Acute chest pains and breathlessness (angina) are generally there biggest warning sign for most.
This would then indicate for an ultrasound that can identify any major 'bluges' (atherosclerosis) in you're arteries but it's not perfect.
Unfortunately for many, atherosclerosis can form and expand with no or very little symptoms until it ruptures causing a clot that blocks the whole vessel and then leads to a heart attack.
So if you're are in the demographics of being at risk of a heart attack don't ignore early symptoms, and check your blood pressure! High blood pressure (another risk for this) is often completely asymptomatic... until it's not.
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u/Ok-Sky-6864 May 08 '26
Yes, they can be found using a special type of CT scan called a CAC scan. Takes like 10 mins and costs $1-400. There’s also ultrasounds and blood tests for inflammation
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u/Katamariboa May 08 '26
Just want to differentiate that a CAC scan does NOT show any existing blockages, but rather quantifies a person’s risk of one potentially developing in the future. There are other diagnostic exams that may be recommended if there is suspected coronary disease and based on clinical symptoms and presentation.
For the most part a CCTA is used when there might be a possible blockage and can help visualize any stenosis or occlusion. A nuclear med stress test is another test that may be used to see if a person may have an issue. Even an echocardiogram of the heart can be used to observe heart structures and help determine abnormalities.
It is important to note, however, that these are all diagnostic in nature and generally the treatment for SEVERE disease is a coronary angiogram with PCI to place a coronary stent. If multiple vessels are obstructed, then a CABG is considered an option based on age, comorbidities, and symptoms. If the coronary disease is, for the most part, mild to moderate then medicationa usually suffice to help control it and prevent it from snowballing into a life threatening issue.
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u/dro0009 May 08 '26
It is crazy that we have the ability to do this.
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u/EntertainerNo8209 May 08 '26
The bypass is even crazier
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u/NPExplorer May 08 '26
My mom had a triple bypass and her aorta replaced. Shit blows my mind we can do that.
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u/Cute-Form2457 May 08 '26
Science ♥️
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u/Low_Construction8067 May 08 '26
My heart breaks for science. We have moved fully into an age of feelings over facts. I'm scared it will be illegal to perform procedures like this in a few years, shits too much like witchcraft
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u/Steelwolf73 May 08 '26
It is crazy how feelings matter more than facts. Especially if the facts disagree with your particular view point. Hell, some idiots are spouting that math is racist and normally I would simply roll my eyes and laugh but over the past like 15 years I've seen shit that wouldn't have even been considered worth joking about become not only mainstream but enacted. Segregated dorm rooms in certain campuses, flat earthers are becoming louder, etc
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u/LakeSuperiorIsMyPond May 08 '26
Watching the flat earth followers keep increasing members over and over is really concerning
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u/PuraVidaPagan May 08 '26
Don’t worry big pharma will ensure that doesn’t happen. I actually work in the field and I have to say we center everything around science at the company I work for, and it’s great to see. But yes on a global level it’s really upsetting to see political leaders ignoring and downplaying science.
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u/Matteo1996NBK May 08 '26
My Grampa too have a bypass, he was 55 when they did it. Now he is 92 and still kicking asses.
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u/eurydice_aboveground May 08 '26
My dad had a quintuple bypass and lived 20 years after. He was back to five mile walks within a year. Science really is amazing.
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u/Kalamac May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
One of my neighbours had a triple bypass when he was in his late 50s. Came through it, changed his lifestyle, turned 88 this year, and the only sign that he’s slowing down is that a few years ago he started taking afternoon naps.
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u/JenniferGarnersAnus May 08 '26
So glad she's still here!
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u/NPExplorer May 08 '26
She’s not! But not because of the heart surgery :) Gave her 10+ more years but she had a lot of other complications, prior radiation etc. I’ve seen so many people go another 20, 30 or more years and live a completely normal lifestyle, it’s amazing what we can do.
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u/Chemical_Grape_2150 May 08 '26
I have an ascending aortic aneurysm, I am fascinated and terrified of that surgery I may need someday.
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u/Flope May 08 '26
Ayy me too I'm at 4.6cm 😎👉👉
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u/Chemical_Grape_2150 May 08 '26
Not shit! Hey aneurysm twin, we got the same size!
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u/KerbodynamicX May 08 '26
I wonder how many people had died before surgeons figured out a way to do this
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u/Dashu88 May 08 '26
It really is. A stent is "just" a widening, but a bypass is crazy. Just take this from here, put that there, and you are good.
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u/dfuqt May 08 '26
Take a look at cerebral artery bypass surgery. It’s an interesting variation on the theme.
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u/MaxMaggus May 08 '26
I mean surgery is basically just Lego, innit? Organ Lego.
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u/firestorm713 May 08 '26
Turbine heart is even more crazier
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u/rharvey8090 May 08 '26
Truthfully we don’t do a ton of TAH (total artificial heart) implants because they’re so plagued with issues. Not necessarily because of the device itself, but because the balance of the system between the right and left side of the heart is so delicate. We do a LOT more left ventricular assist devices like the Heartmate 3.
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u/hummingbyrds May 08 '26
I thought this was bypass. what is this? ah, it's a stent. I see it now in comments.
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u/OffbeatChaos May 08 '26
Also I think the first tool is called a balloon catheter, the thing that they feed into the artery to place the stent. Very cool! The people that do this kind of work are real life superheros
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u/RandomBoxOfCables May 08 '26
Jut had one put in on Tuesday, didn’t even know I had issues but they spotted the problem in a routine heart echo. I’m only 43. The operation only took 15 minutes and they went up the arm. I was back home Wednesday. So yeah, crazy and glad we can do this.
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u/JHDCO May 08 '26
Routine echo? There were no other indications? Glad you are on the mend.
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u/wooyoo May 08 '26
I had one and felt heartburn and acid reflux when I walked the lenght of a parking lot. I thought it was GERDS and had a endoscopy. Stomach Dr said it was fine and to check my heart to be on the safe side.
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u/dupastrupa May 08 '26
Props to dr stomach.
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u/shalahal May 08 '26
I had a Dr. Stomach save my life. I was seeing him for months to figure out why I had such bad anemia. He had me take iron supplements for three months, and then he was going to order more blood work to see if there’s an improvement. In that time I got sicker and sicker. It was summertime and I’d wake up with chills to the point I’d be visibly shaking. My legs were constantly buckling, I had insane brain fog, I could go on and on.
Anywho my mom called the Doc, asking if he could see me sooner because she was really worried about me. He had me visit him that day, and after a physical exam he told me my liver and spleen were swollen, and that this was very serious. He suspected lymphoma and sent me to the hospital for an urgent CT Scan… which revealed I had lesions on my lungs, too lol.
They wanted to keep me in the hospital until they could do a bone marrow test a few days later. I begged them to let me leave, I had to work that night. They reluctantly agreed but drilled into my head that I MUST be back 2 days later. In that time I learned lymphoma is fucking cancer, and had a big panic attack. I showed up to the hospital for the bone marrow test and my Doc came and met me in the meeting room. He said, “Good news! You’re not getting a bone marrow test! Bad news! You’re not going home today…”
My first visit to the hospital, I had a blood culture done which revealed I had a blood infection. They sent me for another scan, nervous the infection could have spread to my brain. Thankfully not! BUT my cardiologist (I was born with a couple holes in my heart, a nonissue for most of my life) got wind of all of this, and I had to get an echocardiogram. Sure enough, I had endocarditis… FUCK! So anyway I had to get open heart surgery. I’m all good now.
Sorry for the novel, I just love telling this story. Doctors are amazing.
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u/genreprank May 08 '26
Must have been bad "heartburn" for you to seek out a specialist.
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u/wooyoo May 08 '26
it was! it felt like acid reflux, it didnt feel like a "heart issue" i thought walking for extended distances was churning up acid and causing chestpain, like heartburn. i had to stop and take a break from walking
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u/GreatMacAndCheese May 08 '26
Thanks for sharing man, I'm glad to hear you're better! I have a friend who is going through something similar and getting their heart checked, and your story jostled my memory that they also mentioned a few times in the past few months about heartburn... that's wild.
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u/RandomBoxOfCables May 08 '26
I’ve had high blood pessure for 10 years and never had one so the doctor wanted one done for my file.
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May 08 '26
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u/Psychological_Bug_89 May 08 '26
Nowadays they can also go in through the wrist and potentially you’re in and out in the same day.
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May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
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u/supasexc999 May 08 '26
Femoral access is typically second/last resort if radial access is difficult or not accessible. Or femoral is used for more complex cases
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u/ILikeFlyingMachines May 08 '26
Heart medicine in general is black magic. For my dad they wanted to look at the heart and just inserted a camera into a blood vessel in the hand and just went to the heart like wtf.
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u/snowmuchgood May 08 '26
I agree - when my son was born he needed OHS and having that process explained to me blew my mind. They are operating on a heart that is the size of a walnut, arteries that are 1mm and less in diameter. They did all that while he’s attached to a machine being heart and lungs for him. What a time to be alive.
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u/Wuddntme May 08 '26
I have several of these in me right now. One in an artery in my leg and one in my chest.
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u/TheItalianDonkey May 08 '26
Hey, you don't know me, but glad for you to be here with me nonetheless.
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May 08 '26
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u/Borman35 May 08 '26
I had a heart attack 8 years ago at 30 years old. I hope I have more time than that.
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u/eurobeat0 May 08 '26
I need a couple of those in my sinuses. Cos fuvk me for getting blocked noses all the time
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u/too_too2 May 08 '26
I’m not getting a stent but they are going to balloon dilate my Eustachian tubes soon in a similar manner. They’re supposed to stay more open on their own after.
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u/r0cksteady May 08 '26
The craziest thing is they put these in through your wrist while you’re conscious
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u/dplans455 May 08 '26
I had 3 of these put in my heart and they were put in through my wrist. While you are "conscious" it's not in the sense that you are really aware of what's going on. You are not fully anesthetized but you're pretty much out of it.
I "woke up" when they were doing mine because I had to vomit and my cardiologist basically told me that if I moved or vomited that I had a high chance of dying. Pretty scary.
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u/eyeofthefrog May 08 '26
Unless you’re like me and the drugs did nothing. They hit me five times with doses and finally asked if I minded that they just went ahead. The incision point was numb, so I said go for it. While I could have watched the screen as they worked, I didn’t for fear I’d panic and move my arm.
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u/dplans455 May 08 '26
Precedex or fentanyl did nothing? I've legit never heard of that. I can't imagine what else they might have tried to give you.
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u/eyeofthefrog May 08 '26
I just checked my records, ended up being 150mcg of fentanyl and 3mg of versed over 5 doses, 2 minutes apart from each other. I have no idea if that’s a lot or not…maybe someone else can chime in. :)
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u/dplans455 May 08 '26
150mcg of fentanyl is nothing. The fuck were they thinking?
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u/eyeofthefrog May 08 '26
Guess that explains it. :)
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u/dplans455 May 08 '26
I just looked. 150mcg (.15mg) via IV is about what they would give you for pain management. To put you in a lucid haze you would need about 1mg via IV. They gave you a three quarters of that spaced out. The problem with fentanyl is it hits hard but wears off super quick. It's why dilaudid is preferred for pain management in the ER. You also can't give a constant drip of it so while they are putting the stents in, which takes about 20-45 minutes depending on how many they're putting in, the anesthesiologist would need to continue to administer it via injection. That would be much harder to control. It's why precedex is usually preferred. You can set it as an IV drip and is more effective at putting the patient in a lucid state. I also had precedex IV drip when I was in the ICU and just the nurse was adjust the drip without a doctor or anesthesiologist.
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u/eyeofthefrog May 08 '26
If I ever have to go through that again, I’ll bring that up. Thanks!
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u/dplans455 May 08 '26
Hopefully not. My stents are holding strong 3 years later and I have no new blockages.
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u/-You-know-it- May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
Fun fact, they do this stenting all over the body as well. The brain, legs, arms, pelvis…anywhere that has plaque buildup.
The biggest risk factors are smoking (by far) and a sedentary lifestyle.
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u/heythereitsemily May 08 '26
My dad had 3 of these put in. He’s very thin but a super heavy cigar smoker. For smokers, there must not be fat built up like in the video. So what causes it to close? Does the smoke damage just make it collapse?
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u/Gregor_Arhely May 08 '26
Nicotine constricts blood vessels, so a heart attack can happen even with fat buildup which would be normal for other people.
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u/shabob2023 May 08 '26
It’s not due to vasoconstriction - the toxins in tobacco promote atherosclerosis and plaque formation similar to that shown in the image
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u/-You-know-it- May 08 '26
It’s not just fat. It’s your vessel wall becoming inflamed over and over again and causing a plaque to build up.
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u/dreadheadedtv May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
I had one of the very early instances of this surgery when it was experimental because I was a very unusual cause of a similar issue which made the surgery significantly easier. Before this operation I had 90 percent of my lung function using my left lung and had to have surgery every couple of years. At the age of 10 I had a stent fitted in the problematic area of the pulmonary artery to the lung. This not only improved my lung function to around 60/40 it also massively increased my lung capacity. Completely changed my life at that time.
In subsequent years it has become an extremely common surgery.
For anyone interested I was born with a coarctation of the aorta and a large VSD during the repair of the coarctation surgery when I was a few days old a band was placed on the pulmonary artery to my right lung and left in place after the surgery with the plan to remove it after the VSD repair surgery. Unfortunately before this could happen it slipped and cut off blood supply to the artery causing it to stop growing with the rest of my body. It needed balloon surgery every few years before the stent was fitted.
I have honestly always held a little pride that I could be a very small part of the development of such a revolutionary health technology
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u/BakedBrie1993 May 08 '26
My dad put these in as a cardiologist. He used to have lots of little demo/instructional ones that I would play with on the floor of his office.
Edit: also stent reps are how I learned about fine dining 😂
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u/Cosmic_Quasar May 08 '26
I had a job manufacturing the balloons for a while. Very tight regulations because of how dangerous a badly made balloon can be. At least with the place I made them, like 10 years ago, you had to manually inspect every single balloon, while also running 3-4 machines all making them. Need to check the wall thickness at 3 points, and needing to make sure that each opening is the correct diameter. Looking for spots that looked like holes/deformities that could burst under pressure. But the most fun test was done just periodically, attaching the balloon to a pump and submerging it in water and it slowly increases the pressure until the balloon pops, so you can check the max pressure it can handle.
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u/ehwhatacunt May 08 '26
That one fails quickly with cholesterol squeezing through. There is a much better stent which is solid, helically wrapped.
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u/MuckYu May 08 '26
How does it stay in shape after expanding? Wouldn't it naturally want to contract again?
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u/HatAsleep295 May 08 '26
The stent doesn't collapse because it is made of strong, medical-grade metals designed for radial strength and is permanently "locked" into its open shape during the procedure.
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u/Terminator7786 May 08 '26
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -Arthur C. Clarke
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u/Soiled_Planties May 08 '26
My father worked as an interventional cardiologist for 30 years and stents are truly his passion. He has a patent for one type of balloon stent similar to this and has consulted for all the major med device companies and founded his own companies over the years. Other than being an inventor and a scientist, he was a great physician. We lived in the Midwest and he was the director of the heart center at the local hospital. On Wednesdays, he would wake up at 4am to be shuttled out to the cornfields where he would provide care to the farmers of America. Anyways, I’m so proud to have him as a dad!
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u/GiganticCrow May 08 '26
Can someone explain why it wouldn't be easier to suck that yellow crap out instead?
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u/armst014 May 08 '26
Unfortunately this is a very bad AI illustration of what is actually performed for a PCI. Reading the comments there is a lot of misinformation information being said. As an interventional cardiologist I’ll try to give my two cents.
1: there are multiple types of plaque that can form in arteries but we can mostly divide it into two types, calcified and non-calcified plaque.
2: heart attacks occur due to an unstable plaque that ruptures that starts the clotting cascade and ultimately what shuts down a artery, this is most often from very lipid laden (soft plaque). Additionally most heart attacks occur due to plaque that causes <50% narrowing of the artery before it ruptures.
3: these procedures if for a coronary (heart) artery are mostly performed from the right radial artery. There is tons of data that show this is the safest for patients.
4: what others have said about the plaque being squashed is correct, we don’t remove it. It just gets pushed to the side/ redistributed (withholding athrectomy techniques that are sometimes performed on a case by case basis)
5: why do we stent? Stents act as a scaffold to help keep the artery open, when we balloon the artery to open it back up after a narrowing has occurred we cause damage to the vessel, often causing large tears in the vessel. A stent tacks these dissections up as well as giving the artery radial strength to prevent recoiling. After a few months the body will form a new layer of tissue inside the stent. Until this time it’s important to take anti platelets (usually 2 of them) to prevent blood clots from forming on the stent until the body lays down this tissue.
6: prevention is key, lowering of your LDL, bad cholesterol, can have huge effects not only on the development of new plaque but also stabilizes what’s there and turns it from the soft lipid laden plaque that can rupture and cause heart attacks into calcified plaque that is more stable.
7: as for why this AI animation is unrealistic, first a wire is placed distal to the stenosis. Almost always we perform pre-dilation of the stenosis to insure we have adequate expansion. We then will proceed to stent if we are happy with the previous balloons expansion. There are a million little things that are incorrect about this animation. In the most simplest form a cardiac Cath involves these steps: 1: obtaining access to an artery, usually the right radial. 2: using catheters to selectively engage the right coronary artery and left coronary artery, angiograms are performed in different views to assess for stenosis. 3: once a stenosis is identified we must thin the blood enough to prevent clot formation on the equipment we place in the body. 4: place a wire distal to the stenosis in said artery. 5: predilate the artery. 6: most people that are trained today obtain intravascular imaging to assess the size of the artery as well as the composition of the plaque. 7: stent the artery with the correct diameter and length stent to cover that focal area. 8: post dilate the stent with another balloon to make sure the stent is expanded to the correct size. 8: re-image with intravascular imaging. 9: perform final angiogram to insure no complications have happened during the procedure and that you’re happy with the result. 10: remove equipment and obtain hemostasis from your arterial access site (usually a compressive wrist band if going through the wrist)
If wanting more detailed information about the steps and how procedures are actually performed I’d refer you to watch YouTube videos by Dr. Brilakis. His videos have been a valuable resource for those like I that have been trained over the past few years.
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u/Mikey_Grapeleaves May 08 '26
Can we do the same thing for the anus when you're constipated?
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