Bill Clinton - Heart Disorders Message Board

zip2play · 09-05-2004, 07:35 AM

I guess we'll all be hearing lots about his heart problem. Might as well be localized here.

My gut feeling, absent a whole lot of information, is that they might have jumped the gun here. Noboby seems interested in any more conservative measures for him. I'd like to know exactly why they ruled out stenting of some of the blockages and medicationg those that can't be stented for whatever reason.

For myself, I never would allow bypass after only angina pain ONCE! In fact I ordered the doctors not to do surgery after my angiogram without consulting with a fully awake ME or my legal representative in the waiting room. I would only permit stenting, which I got very successfully (angina gone), and that was after 5 YEARS of angina discomfort.

Angina was the reason that beta-blockers and calcium channel blockers were DEVELOPED...now are they to be relegated to treating everybody's blood pressure? If they really don't work for angina, they should all be dumped into the sea, not used for another function (that they perform poorly.)

I wish the last elected president of the U.S.A. very well and I hope he has a speedy recovery.

zuzu8 · 09-05-2004, 12:02 PM

Zip and Word,

I have a sneaking suspicion that Clinton has been symptomatic for quite a while.

My guess is that post-op, we'll be hearing about a much longer history of angina and that this wasn't a first "episode" for him. Whatd'ya think?

zuzu xxx

ARIZONA73 · 09-05-2004, 12:25 PM

Well, maybe he had prior symptoms and maybe he didn't. Either way, if the doctors feel that the extent of his blockages is significant, they're still likely to advise having surgery. When my father had triple-bypass surgery 10 years ago, he had never experienced any chest pains. But doctors have a way of scaring people half to death. Sure, he could have opted not to have surgery. But once they put that thought in your head, it's pretty difficult to get rid of it.

NineLives · 09-05-2004, 05:33 PM

I really didn't need the doctors to scare me half to death. My first episode of angina did that for me.

alptraum · 09-05-2004, 11:27 PM

It says in the CNN article that he was reported as having high cholesterol and borderline hypertension in 2001, nothing about any previous chest pain other than the recent occurance that had him rushing to the hospital. Maybe it was the first time, he got scared (wouldn't we all?) and docs kicked in with their Pavlovian response: OPERATE!!!!

Granted, his docs know a lot more about his condition than we can speculate.