For medical people on this thread, could you please explain why no hints of possible heart disease showed up in his physicals during his presidency?
I find it odd that suddenly, one could need quadruple bypass surgery. Wouldn't this have been coming on for some time?
Not odd......when ny dad had this done....he was only supposed to have a stent ....but it turned very serious when they looked at his veins..
My fil has had heart problems for years with blocked/clogged arteries .. he avoid bypass surgery for a long time .. changed his diet, medicine and all that
He had a heart attack and couldn't avoid surgery any longer
That's what I was wondering. Maybe he put it off. Some of our family members have. Clinton's also fairly young, so if they have to do this more than once, maybe they wanted to wait as long as they could.
Generally, folks notice this by a decrease in cardio vascular fitness if they are at all active. If not you suddenly find yourself gasping for air when walking up a flight of stairs or something like that.
In my case, I knew I had a blockage because I used to run religiously and I couldn't even run a mile without getting winded when I had a blockage.
Yes, it can come on suddenly. My brother had emergency quad bypass surgery two years ago when he was about the age Clinton is. He did have some symptoms but it wasn't until later that they were recognized as such.
I had an acquaintence who merely went in for a stress test, just part of a regular check up. He had a massive heart attack right there on the equipment, fortunately, because he was in a hospital, got the best care and is now, a number of years later, doing fine.
A friend of ours had two severe heart attacks and a quad by pass last summer, and he had no signs or problems.
In fact he had a full physical about 6 months before on his 55 th birthday. Nothing showed up enzyme wise and ekg wise. He was about 10% over weight, and he walked everyday and did a few other activities.
He is doing fine now. His second heart attack happened after they started the quad by pass, the perfect situation to have a heart attack.
Well, granted that my dad did not have the annual physicals that the CIC goes through, but when he had his heart attack and quad bypass 5 years ago, there had been absolutely no hint of it beforehand, and he had gotten a clean bill of health at his earlier dr. checkup. Now, he was 74 years old, but was still working 5 days a week as a baker, did his own yard work, golfing, etc. In fact, he was mowing the lawn the morning before it happened. He had just been having symptoms of a cold, small cough, and some trouble taking deep breaths. In fact, when he realized that something more was wrong, that he couldn't catch his breath, we called 911, and they didn't even think it was a heart attack, but transported him anyway. By the time he got to the hospital, he was in complete congestive heart failure, they had to intubate him immediately, and we almost lost him. (He's fine now, by the way) The doctors found that 4 of his 5 arteries were almost completely blocked, the only thing that kept him alive in that condition was that he was in great shape.
So, yes, completely blocked artieries can be asympomatic.
That's what I was thinking. A routine physical like the one he no doubt gets would disclose this pretty quickly.
I never heard of problems this extensive going from zero to Ludicrous Speed in 4 years. As far as I know it isn't possible.
How would we know? He never released his medical records.
Not necessarily, Miss Marple. They never really diagnosed my problem either. I had several tests but nothing showed until it happened.
Okay, I'm no doctor, but when I saw the term "lesions", that suggests to me that he has had prior heart attack activity. Lesions are scars and if he has scar tissue on his heart, he has had prior attacks. Now, they may not have been serious enough for him to have gotten medical attention, but on the other hand, he was the PRESIDENT of the United States, and should have been getting medical attention all along!
As of Sept. 1999, Physical finds Clinton health 'excellent,' White House says.
I find it odd that suddenly, one could need quadruple bypass surgery. Wouldn't this have been coming on for some time?
The body has a remarkable ability to compensate. The coronary arteries are able to dilate, widen, to maintain blood flow despite a building blockage. During this time, there are no symptoms since the blood flow and the all important oxygen delivery is maintained.
The problem comes when the artery can't get any bigger. It is stretched to the limit and the blockage continues to build, slowly starving the heart muscle cells it feeds. These are the "silent attacks". The heart cells are able to adapt for a long time to the lowered oxygen environment but they can can only adapt for so long - the oxygen levels fall to far for too long and the heart becomes damaged and cells die.
The sudden "heart attacks" are when the blockage breaks off (a blockage damages the artery beneath and there can be an eruption of material like a volcano inside the artery that throws a large amount of rubbish into the blood stream). This causes a logjam downstream, suddenly cutting off all flow. The sudden ischemia, lack of oxygen, results in the pain people associate with a heart attack.
Since the problem usually develops slowly and the body can compensate for it, there are no obvious symptoms so none of the more involved testing is done. A doctor doesn't order expensive, involved tests like angiogram, dopplers, imaging scans etc for a patient who just played a few games of tennis with no difficulty before coming in for a physical. Yet that patient may have 70-80% blockage of a major coronary vessel but the heart is able to handle it. It's when it hits the tipping point that the danger signs show up - chest pain or angina, difficulty in breathing, heavy sweating (diaphoresis).
If a patient doesn't mention a problem or present with signs and symptoms during the assessment, we don't run a more in depth check unless there is a reason to - like significant history....well, Joe, you're 55, and you're dad died at 56 from an MI, so did your mom, your brother, and your grandparents. So, it would be a good idea to hook you up to the ECG, do a stress test, get a sonogram, angiogram, etc.
Bear in mind too that Clinton had a lot to hide in his physicals. It is hard to help a patient that lies about their symptoms. So, Clinton's physicals were probably basic and perfunctory.
So no hints of heart disease wouldn't show up in a basic physical since the heart was still compensating and Clinton didn't say,' Doc, I've got this squeezing inside my chest that goes away if I sit and rest for a bit.' And yes, this would have been coming on for some time. Blockages are a slow process and arteries can handles being partially blocked up to a point. He just finally hit that point and all the silent symptoms became really loud and insistent.