Heart blockage is the plaque deposition inside the walls of blood vessels. These blood vessels work in supplying to the heart. In medical terms, coronary artery disease is another name for heart blockage. This sort of sickness happens a little by little over numerous years. The side effects are not noticeable until a massive blockage occurs in the heart. A sedentary lifestyle is the leading cause of a heart blockage.
Symptoms and signs of heart blockage:
- Chest torment: This is the most common symptom of a heart blockage. It demonstrates pressure or tightness in the chest. It can get active because of physical or mental stress. The pain may likewise emanate to the arm, neck, or back.
- Shortness of breath: When the heart does not receive enough blood to function correctly, it causes tiredness and shortness of breath.
- Heart failure: This occurs at the terminal stages when there is a complete coronary artery blockage. There is an outrageous weight in the chest transmitting to the shoulder and the arm.
- Abnormal perspiration
Removal of heart blockage without surgery:
Now with the latest technology, it is possible to treat numerous heart blockage cases without any surgical procedure. Following are some of the non-surgical methods for heart blockage:
Chelation Therapy:
It is quite a new procedure that uses chemical processes for the evacuation of toxic minerals and metals. This therapy uses a substance known as EDTA (Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid) to detoxify the body. The doctor infuses the solution of EDTA into the patient’s body. It then binds with the calcium plaque, which causes the coronary arteries blockage. Thus improving the flow of blood.
Additional advantages of chelation treatment:
- It can treat metal poisoning, including uranium, mercury, arsenic, lead iron, etc.
- It can also help in treating diseases like thalassemia and sickle-cell disease.
- Also, it is used as an antioxidant by decreasing the free radicals production and dropping down their negative impact.
- Chelation therapy is also known to be useful for Alzheimer’s disease.
Dietary and lifestyle changes:
Some dietary and lifestyle changes can help in treating heart blockage without a surgical procedure.
A couple of fundamental changes in your way of life can help you in forestalling a cardiovascular failure, which may occur because of heart blockage.
1. Regular exercise:
It is necessary to stay physically active and exercise regularly. You can also ask your physiotherapist or doctor to learn safe approaches to do work out.
2. Emotional stress:
It is noteworthy to meditate every day if you are an excessively enthusiastic individual or take strangely high stress. Excessive stress can cause tightening of blood vessels and may likewise increase the blood pressure.
3. Smoking:
Smoking is a significant impediment to recover from any disease. It ought to be the initial step to be taken concerning making lifestyle changes.
4. Dietary changes:
Eat foods that are low in cholesterol, Trans fat, saturated fats, and sodium.
Increase the intake of vegetables, whole grains, and fruits. You may likewise incorporate fish or fish oil capsules in your everyday diet.
5. Weight management:
It is crucial to maintain a healthy weight. One must work on losing weight if he/she is obese to avoid any future health problems.
Operate the heart without opening the chest:
With the evolution of surgical techniques and percutaneous interventions, the operations of the heart become less cumbersome.
It is no longer compulsory to undergo substantial interventions followed by long convalescences when one has an operation on the heart. New surgical techniques are used more and more, provided that the general condition of the patient allows it.
What are the best treatments for heart blockage?
1. Percutaneous Coronary Intervention:
The techniques which make it possible to operate without opening the thorax have experienced a spectacular development in the last twenty years. Coronary diseases, rhythm disturbances, malformations, cardiomyopathies, all pathologies are concerned. Certain gestures, such as coronary revascularization by angioplasty and the placement of stents, are even performed primarily by the percutaneous route. The majority of surgical procedures concerning the coronaries (45% of operated patients) and the valves (also 45%) benefited from these new approaches.
It all started in 2007 with the first percutaneous Transcatheter aortic valve replacement. It was the degeneration of the aortic valve hitherto operated exclusively with an open heart. But now, to reach it, all it takes is a small incision in the femoral artery, and a catheter passes through the patient’s vessels.
Exact images of the thorax are displaying on large screens during the procedure. It allows the cardiologist to navigate through the maze of vessels to position the valve prosthesis on the damaged valve. The advantages of this procedure are manifold. The hospitalization is shorter. The patient can go out after two or three days of observation. The intervention is less painful and recovery almost immediate.
It, therefore, makes it possible to take care of patients who are too fragile to undergo conventional surgical intervention. The average age of people treated in this way is 83 years. About half of the 3,700 procedures that took place in 2013 were patients who could not receive open heart surgery because of the risks.
Apart from these cases, doctors still offer traditional surgery as a first-line for young patients. But studies have yet to determine whether Percutaneous Coronary Intervention is as effective as surgery.
Another intervention for which conventional surgery remains appropriate: bypass surgery. It consists of bypassing a narrowed or obstructed artery by creating a “bridge,” made with a segment of a vessel taken elsewhere on the patient. Doctors still do a lot of it despite the success of the stents. The results of the surgery are better in terms of survival at three and five years when the lesions affect at least two or three vessels of the heart.
2. Minimally invasive surgery:
The development of the endoscopic pathway, however, makes it possible to streamline procedures. It is how a so-called minimally invasive surgery is used in interventions on the heart valves (repair and replacement of the mitral valve or replacement of the aortic valve) or for certain malformations. An endoscope, a tube fitted with optical fibers and a lighting system, is introduced into the body through a minimal incision.
Small in diameter, it lets through the miniaturized surgical instruments necessary for the intervention. The video system allows the surgeon to guide them on screen.
Benefit for the patient: The procedure is also less painful than conventional surgery. There is no large opening in the chest, damaging the muscles and nerves and at a higher risk of infection.
The scars are less important, and the body recovers more quickly. But here again, if this technique is promising, it is far from being the rule and is only offered in certain hospital centers. In particular for the replacement of mitral valves.
3. Beating heart operation (open heart surgery):
Classic open-heart surgery also seeks to be less traumatic for the body. For the past ten years, some teams have been bypassing “heart beating” coronaries. During conventional operation, the heart stops. And during the intervention, the blood passes into extracorporeal circulation by a heart-lung machine that takes over from these organs.
There is no extracorporeal circulation in a beating heart bypass. The heart, although immobilized by stabilizers, continues to ensure its function, and therein lies the difficulty of the operation. This technique is still not widely used, and its benefits remain debated in the scientific community. However, surgical procedures are evolving, and the methods are becoming more and more reliable.
Surgeries and other procedures:
Your healthcare professional may recommend surgery or other processes to treat your heart problem. Here is some helpful information.
- Ablation
- Atherectomy
- Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) (biventricular pacemaker):
- Cardioversion
- Cardiac bypass surgery
- Heart transplant
- Heart valve surgery: repair and replacement
- Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD)
- Implantable pacemaker
- Mechanical assistance device
- Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI, or guardian angioplasty)
- Ventricular resection
1. Ablation:
Ablation helps restore a normal heart rhythm. It is useful in treating fast rhythms (tachycardia) or fast, uncoordinated rhythms (fibrillation). Ablation is mainly used when a problem cannot be treated with medication.
2. Atherectomy:
The purpose of this minimally invasive procedure is to remove the build-up of plaque in your arteries. It is similar to angioplasty. For the removal of plaque, sometimes a stake is inserted (a small tube of wire mesh) to keep the artery open.
3. Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) (biventricular pacemaker):
CRT involves the implantation of a small electronic device in your chest or abdomen. A device that sends an electrical signal to the heart to synchronize the heart rate.
The device used for CRT is sometimes called a biventricular pacemaker. This procedure is particularly common in people with severe heart failure.
4. Cardioversion:
Cardioversion helps to treat atrial fibrillation. It helps restore the heart’s normal rhythm. It works in the same way as defibrillation, but with much weaker electric currents. You can usually return home the same day after cardioversion.
5. Cardiac bypass surgery:
A cardiac bypass improves the flow of blood to the heart when the build-up of plaque in the coronary arteries starts hindering the blood flow. To do this, doctors create a kind of detour. Detour is a bridge that bypasses the part of the artery that is blocked, using a piece of a blood vessel taken elsewhere in the body. When angioplasty is not possible, bypass surgery is often the best option.
6. Heart transplant:
A heart transplant involves removing a failing heart and replacing it with a donor’s heart. Hospitals reserve it for patients who are in the later stages of severe heart failure.
7. Heart valve surgery: repair and replacement
The purpose of heart valve surgery is to repair or replace failed or damaged valves. Sometimes it is possible to proceed without even resorting to surgery. So, in some cases, it is enough to take medication to treat minor valve problems.
8. Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD):
The DCI is a device that monitors and regulates irregular heart rhythms. When it detects a dangerous rhythm, it produces an electric shock to encourage the heart to return to its normal frequency.
The ICD is very similar to a pacemaker and, like this one, must be implanted. Specialist prescribes ICDs for patients who have had ventricular tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation, or cardiac arrest, or in whom drug therapy is ineffective.
9. Implantable pacemaker:
The pacemaker is an implantable device used to regulate the frequency and rhythm of the heart. It uses electrical impulses to stimulate the heart to make it beat at an average frequency. Pacemakers can treat abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias) that could not be adjusted by medication.
10. Mechanical assistance device:
This small pump can temporarily help the heart maintain blood circulation. Several different devices are available depending on the type of disease that affects the patient.
11. Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI, or guardian angioplasty):
You are probably more familiar with the PCI under its old name, “angioplasty.” This non-surgical procedure involves sending a small flexible tube (a catheter) into the heart to place a stake, a small tube of wire mesh. The guardian opens the blood vessels that have been narrowed by the build-up of plaque or atherosclerosis.
12. Ventricular resection:
Ventricular resection treats heart failure in patients diagnosed with an enlarged heart. Its objective is to improve the pumping capacity of the heart by reshaping the left ventricle, the latter’s main pumping cavity. It is sometimes done at the same time as bypass surgery or valve repair. There are different types of ventricular resection procedures.