I have never come accross this word before. However, I have just looked it up and it is indeed a real word. You learn someting every day. 
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Haha. Yeah, I was trying to use a proper word to substitute for the improper word that I actually wanted to say.
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So my lipids have been high since my mid 20âsâŚI am now 59âŚnot crazy high but in the 200âs usuallyâŚeventuallys ometime in my 30âs I got on a low dose of Lipitor and it got it down below 200âŚ
I got a CAC score in my 30âs sometime and my calcium score was zero. I never really tested again and to be honest never really tracked my lipids super close. I started getting more serious about my health about 10 years ago and my doctor tried to get my lipids lower so increased my Lipitor dose. Two years ago I went to the Cooper Clinic in Dallas for a full physical. My CAC score was 145 and they changed my statin to Crestor plus added Ezetemibe and my lipids got much lowerâŚLDL around 65 to 75âŚbut my primary doctor was worried about the CAC score and ordered a coronary angiogram with dyeâŚshe said she wanted to see exactly where the calcium was located and exactly what we were dealing withâŚshe had other patients where the calcium was a little bit spread all over and others where it was all in one area and creating a more significant block to blood flowâŚ
I did the coronary angiogram and they found most of the arteries in my heart were quite clear but i had what they thought was a 50-70% blockage of the LAD artery. My primary doctor sent the results off to a company called Cleerly that uses AI to look more closely at the results of an angiogram. https://cleerlyhealth.com/ They said it looked like I did have a blockage that was a combination of both soft and calcified plaque. I ended up getting a stent and when they went in and actually measured the blood flow, the blood flow was reduced by 80%. I just tell you this to tell you my personal journey after the calcium score I received.
I had no symptoms and my doctor at Cooper Clinic did not suggest the CT Angiogram because I was in shape and had no symptoms and scored so well on the EKG. My primary doctor was more conservative as she had seen some asymptomatic patients with blockage.
Now the question is how do i keep my arteries from getting clogged againâŚthat is the questionâŚI am on 10 mg of Rapa each week. I take a few other supplementsâŚI am now besides the Crestor and Ezetemibe I am also on Repatha and will have my first blood work in a few weeks to see how much lower that has knocked my LDL and ApoBâŚ
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I pretty much joined this group and have been working on this problem for maybe 3 years. My numbers are much like yours except didnât get as concerned about the blockage to seek a medical solution. I did manage to lower my CAC from 323 to 303 this year⌠I will go through my stack and give you the reason I think it may help.
Glucosamine,chondroitin,MSM+Hyalurionic acid⌠I use Doctorâs Best and itâs about 1000 of each of those things plus some collagen. Malcolm Kendrick wrote a book " The Clot Thickens" where he questions the conventional thinking about heart disease. He spends a lot of time on the glycocalyx and he thinks these supplements help. They are longevity supps. Also many of them bind to lectins in your food, which is another possible reason they are longevity supps. That brand that I take says to take 5 pills/day so I take with every meal. It just seems to me you should take a lectin binder with your food.
Vitamin K2 and K!..I now take this from Life Extension with vitamin D and Iodine. Itâs important to take both k1 and k2. Itâs also important if you take one fat soluble vitamin to take them all. Chris Masterjohn points out that large doses of a fat soluble vitamin causes your body to send out the biochemical clean up crew to get rid of the extra and they canât discriminate, thus you can get a relative deficiency in A, E. I take 1000k1,1000k2mk4,100k2mk7,125mcgD3,10000IU A,150mg Annatto-E from Dr Tan. Thatâs a tocotrienol. K2 helps put the calcium in your bones where it goes instead of into your arteries. A big deal, so take a lot, but you donât want to be short of the other fat solubles either.
I take homocystex plus, which supplies riboflavin 5 phosphate,pyridoxal 5 phosphate, methylfolate and methlycobalamin, alsoTMG. This is because of MTHFR, but honestly I think most would benefit from it. It makes me feel more chill, which I think comes from the folate, but I also recently had a homocysteine of 5. A big deal if you want to avoid heart disease. I wish I could quicky elaborate more on the MTHFR stuff, but it has been a few years since I did my 23 and me and figured out what to do about it. Chris Masterjohn again would be a great guide for this.
I take Gotu Kola 500 and French Maritime bark extract 350, known to be good at keeping plaque from breaking off and killing you.
Arginine 750 and Citrulline 250 these are really good at keeping your NO in good supply. Kendrick says to say YES to NO. NO is nitric oxide and I used to take beet extract, but it takes a lot and this is better for a few reasons. This is getting too long though.
Vitamin C is a hugely unappreciated vitamin. Linus Pauliing said in the 1990âs that if you run short then that is when lp(a) needs to be used to help fix the mess. People say you canât change lp(a) because itâs genetic, but mine moves around quite a bit and when I take a lot of C it goes down. Currently it is unmeasurably small. I take 1 gram 3 times a day.
Coq10, 3 grams of Niacin IR, and garlic extract need no explanation.
I use berberine, acarbose and a mostly KETO diet. I eat veggies and some fruit and beans and take acarbose with them. I would say low carb in any form, but especially low grain and fructose.
I really like the BB12 + LA-5 trubiotic for my yogurt. That stuff is solid gold. Add a little flax oil and the linoleic acid will be turned into CLA in the proper isomer instead of the crap they sell. I donât understand how they can even call it CLA. Also add arginine to this yogurt and it will turn into spermadine. Magic!! and it helps protect your gut barrier function.
Iâve seen several places and it is generally acknowleged that most plaque starts with damage from oral bacteria. Read Michael Lustgartenâs free ebook âmicrobial burden and what you can do about itâ. Some microbes are fantastic and we canât live without them, others are killing us. Kinda like people.
I run 2 miles with my heartbeat around 130. 3 days a week now,used to do it more. I lift weights some, but not more than 20 minutes 3 days a week.
Thatâs about all Iâve got, hope it helps and hope I didnât wear you out reading all this, good luck.
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What does Michael Lustgarten recommended?
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Microbes enter through skin, oral, and gut. He recommends low ph soap such as dove liquid to improve barrier in the skin. For oral barrier he has done 3 videos now trying different things, brush, floss and gargle. We still need a little work done here as there is no proven answer yet. For intestinal barrier, spermadine helps, also post biotics such as jerusalem artichoke,inulin, other fiber that is turned into SCFA. Also avoid emulsifiers such as the ones in heavy cream. Also Jet Dry and such for the dishwasher that makes your glassware shine is very bad. Better to eat the mineral.
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OOps I left off Rutin in the long post above about my stack. Rutin is a flavinoid that is very good for the heart. Like Ivor says, an oldie but goodie:
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jts/43/5/43_329/_pdf
Anyway if you go to Elicit or google scholar you will find pages of great studies on Rutin. Also very cheap, which counts because it means you can afford to try something else.
I take 350mg/day but am thinking of increasing that.
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excellent that you lowered your CAC scoreâŚmost folks say it only goes up so you are taking it the right directionâŚdo you get curious where your calcium is located, does your score tell you that?
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It does tell you that. Mine relocated back to my LAD which is called the widowmaker. The CAC before that, it relocated away from the LAD and into a couple neighboring arteries. Also last time my score increased nearly 15% (bad, but still ok).
It seems like it drifts around like snow deep in the Iowa winter. I donât really understand how calcification can move. If it can move, why canât it disappear? To move it must disappear from one place and reform in another.
I havenât seen my doc since the scan, he may decide to order a better test.
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wow. i agree hard to get your head around calcification moving around like the snow in the winterâŚmy doc had me do a CT angiogram to try to get a better sense of the calcification but also felt it would give a sense if there was other non calcified blockage thereâŚ
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