Echocardiogram before and after Rapa

So late last year my Dad had a stroke, before passing at the start of 2022. Anyways, I was getting a little bit of, not pain, but a ‘lightless’ / funny feeling in my chest. My GP put it down to stress. They recommended an Echo.

It came back clear but with a mildly reduced systolic function in the left ventricle. In Peter Attia’s Drive episode 10 with Matt K, they mention a dog (n of 1) that showed improved heart function after a course of Rapa.

I’ve been on Rapa now for a few months, intend on staying on too, and then going for another Echo mid to late 2023 (GP mentioned to get one every couple of years).

It will be interesting to see if the Rapa has had any positive effect.

Has anyone out there already done this or has a similar story? I would love to hear about your before and after experience.

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FWIW

Review{yes you have to read through his site] Dr. Alan Greens web site{ https://rapamycintherapy.com ] , he started taking rapamycin to treat his heart issue.

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I had this condition before I started Rapa. It was detected immediately after my kidney transplant. I had my last echo done last year and it did not show it. Have been taking Rapa for 12+ years: started taking intermittently 7 years ago approx.

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I wasn’t aware that it was only one dog that showed an improvement in cardiac output in Matt’s study. Is that true?

Dude, you have some crazy ideas. Heparin? Yikes

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Medium intensity continuous training (aerobic exercise) can improve ejection fraction.

Footnote 8 defines “moderate intensity” as 70% of highest measured heart rate.

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Wow - that is so interesting! I will def post my results after the next echo. Thanks for sharing!

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This was a small number of dogs and, from memory, this dog had a pre-existing heart issue(was it a Doberman?) and the owner had done scans. I think they were able to compare these with scans after Rapa to show improvement.

Having read that first article, I think I might be pushing myself a bit too hard……

I might suggest “stress” does not cause chest pain other than perhaps esophageal spasm.

An echo shows reduced function. That can have so many causes. If it were me I wound demand an exercise stress test.

Thankyou! Will have a chat about that next time I visit the GP.

His Cardiologist might be qualified to figure that out.

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I’m heading for another Echo soon. It will be interesting to see if there are any differences given that I will have been on Rapa for a touch over 6 months. Will post both the before and after reports here.

In preparation for it (as I’m not medically trained), I’ve been doing some research and came across a couple of really good (in my opinion) YouTube videos.

In these clips, the cardiologist unpacks the echo report and the vocabulary associated with it.
I’ve shared them below for others that might have an echo report of their own that they want to review while they watch these clips:

Hi everyone

I finally got round to doing my second echo. The first report is the one before Rapa:

This one is after taking Rapa for 1 year (6mg once a week):

Qualifier - different machines.

My main observation is that there appears to be a very slight, not clinically significant, improvement in ejection fraction and GLS.

I’m sharing this information with you all as I’m hoping it can contribute to our collective knowledge and understanding.

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