You would normally expect that huge upheavals in life, come after significant warnings. But that was not  the case for me at the time of my Heart attack just a few years ago.  Well anyway given that I had no knowledge of what to look for, not that I noticed, or recognised. Up until the time of my heart attack, I had had an outstanding record of good health. I mean this in the sense that I rarely if ever visited a doctor in almost 50 years (Except for insurance purposes etc.), I  was generally very fit, mobile and active(according to me!).

WHITE COAT AVERSION Mind you, I should make the point that when I did have a medical examination for insurance purposes, my blood pressure was always high initially, going down on the second or third reading.

According to my doctor at the time, this is not unusual. People like me who have white coat aversion (that is an unconscious fear of medical processes and people) tend to record high blood pressure as a result of subconscious fear.

I never gave it a thought. However there’s been much research on the subject, and I have since found out that people who do evidence white coat aversion should not ignore high blood pressure readings.

I would go as far as to say that I would recommend that if the normal medical examinations you have a high blood pressure which drops down favourably on repeated readings, you should nevertheless request a more detailed heart and circulatory investigation.

Having said that, this was the only sign that anything was wrong.

Looking back now, of course, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see a number of tell-tale signs that something was not right:

I didn’t know anything  about this at the time, but a crease had appeared in my earlobe, quite a pronounced crease.  This, along with Vertical lines in the forehead appearing, are common indicators that something is wrong around the heart.

This has been substantiated by a number of research programmes. Having said that, having a 45° crease in your ear lobe does not specifically correlate with heart disease. Some people have these creases but no heart disease. If you have any concerns on this matter the best thing is to visit your doctor. But still, this may have correlation with chronic dehydration( a subtle but prevalent condition in the western world) and production of elastin, or rather lack of it.

As you can see from these comments, there certainly were plenty of indications ahead of time but it never occurred to me for a moment, that these slight yet persistent symptoms in fact added up to a significant warning. The main thing is: I, like so many heart-attack victims, didn’t have a clue about the subject.

Anyway, these are the symptoms to look out for as far as I’m concerned. I didn’t get the typical chest pains or other more common symptoms, and I certainly didn’t suffer shortness of breath.

Pain in the left arm, or shoulder; tingling in the extremeties; none of these affected me but they are also thought to be indicators.

MY LIFE UP IN SMOKE

It is fair to say that I was overweight, although not excessively I thought. I’m 5’9″ and I weighed 200lbs. Now , I would say that’s just short of obesity.

Perhaps the most significant contributor to my health condition at that time is the fact that  I smoked between 25 and 30 cigarettes per day. With 2 3 year breaks in 1988 and 1994. Otherwise, I had continually smoked for nearly 40 years.

Because of the propensity of the body to heal itself this is one thing that can instantly improve the situation of someone who is a smoker with latent or manifested heart difficulties.

We had also spent a number of years in Spain, and this was the first year, returning to the much colder and windier Ireland.  Could thickening of the blood in response have helped tip the balance?

However my diet was just as much a disaster zone: I loved pies and pastries, sausage rolls, not to mention hearty English breakfasts. I still enjoyed Coca-Cola and over-indulged whenever I had the opportunity. So you can see: I wasn’t very well-behaved in this area. And this, in spite of  Catherine’s repeated warnings.

I ate more red meat and more often than I should have, and certainly ate meat every day. And on this subject an interesting anecdote: two weeks prior to the heart-attack I had a quite gruesome dream: I was in the room with a number of friendly pigs.

Gradually, I realised that there was something wrong in each of the pigs. In some there was a leg missing, in others there were other sections missing such as sections for bacon across the back and various other injuries, of which the pigs seemed somewhat unaware. I woke from the dream realising that I shouldn’t eat pork in the future.

That was my intention anyway, but the morning of my heart-attack we had breakfast at the cafe in Wellington Bridge. Well, you guessed it: bacon; egg; pork sausages etc. Within 2 1/2 hours I was truly regretting having eaten at all. Then again it was a gorey dream and we were about to move to Gorey….

THE HEART-ATTACK

At the time, our house was in the midst of a two acre lawn. We lived in the splendidly beautiful county Wexford in Ireland. It was in March and the day before St Patrick’s Day. The lawn had to be mown and I had a ride-on mower. It was always a pleasure to jump on the mower and tear around the garden at top speed, navigating the bumps and lumps. Talk about men and their toys!

On this cold March day, I raced around the mowing at top speed, clothed in just a T shirt and jeans, trying to get it over with as quickly as possible. It was freezing. The vibrations from both the engine and the bumps along the way combined with the cold, and by the time I had finished, I was feeling quite unwell, even nauseous. Nothing specific.

At around four o’clock the next morning I woke up feeling a sense of panic, constriction around my chest, and an ache that seemed to radiate from my chest to my neck. I couldn’t describe it as a pain exactly, but it was most uncomfortable. I have been meditating every day the last few years, so it made sense to simply go and meditate. After around one hour, the discomfort faded, and my anxiety along with it.

I went back to bed, and a few hours comfortable sleep. As far as I was concerned that was the end of the matter. Later that morning I realised that I hadn’t cleaned up the mower so on that freezing morning of St Patrick’s Day in 2007 I went outside and began to manhandle the mower which weighs around 600lbs.

As you’re probably expecting, this was a big mistake. I lifted one side of the mower to get underneath, and the mower started to fall away from me. As I heaved it back towards me, that same discomfort I had experienced in the early morning returned.

There was no way that I could right the mower, so I had to get the car, which I drove onto the lawn took some rope between the car and mower. Then I got in the car and hauled the mower back onto its wheels. I got onto the mower having cleaned it up a bit, restarted it  and drove it towards the back door. The hood was off so smoke was blowing into my face.

I felt disorientated, and when my wife Catherine came outside to see what I was doing she was completely shocked at what she saw, as you can imagine.  The car on the lawn ticking over, me driving the lawnmower with the hood off, smoke billowing in my face, totally disorientated.

I stopped the engine and dismounted.

Assisted by Catherine, I hobbled back inside, and lay on the sofa, hoping that the gnawing anxiety and radiating discomfort would subside with a bit of rest. I fell asleep for a couple of hours and when I awoke the pain was the same or worse. I felt nauseous and in fact I was sick.

At this point Catherine persuaded me to go to the hospital. I insisted on driving (can you believe that?!), and smoking. But we got to Wexford hospital and I was immediately taken on a stretcher, having put my last cigarette out, and within a few minutes, the news was that I had had a massive heart-attack and this was serious.

TWO VICTIMS, ONE GETS CARE AND ATTENTION

The medical team went to work, doing what they do, and after a scary night in a noisy open ward, I was in intensive care at the hospital. I can’t begin to describe to you the distress in all of this for Catherine. My distress was more existential and actually I was very calm at that time: I was being taken care of: everything that could be done had been done, all I had to do was lie there. All the drugs were probably a great help.

I lay quietly and asked Jeshua to help me surrender to God’s will.

Throughout the entire first night I was listening to the cries and gasps of the poor man next to me, who was obviously in some extreme condition. Why I  was in an open ward I do not know. But you can believe me when I tell you that when Catherine visited the next morning, all that changed instantly (She’s not one to mess around with!) and I was off to intensive care. Altogether, although Wexford General Hospital and the team saved my life without a shadow of doubt (and this under the direct care of Dr Yusif), how someone who was having a heart attack could be put in an open ward and left alone for the night is one total mystery to me.

Catherine, on the other hand, had to return home alone, not knowing whether I would live or die in the next three or four days. The specialist, Dr Yusif had indicated to her that my life was in the balance for the next 72 hours.. What a nightmare that must have been.

In an ideal world, the partner of a heart-attack victim, would be considered as someone who needed help and support, just like the heart patient themselves. Obviously, that is not the case.

Catherine’s private and incommunicable worries continued from then on and for several years as I struggled to find a path to health, and strived hard to fulfil the potential of both my life and the relationship.

You can imagine this for yourself: the one thing going through your mind constantly, when your loved one is in danger, is the hope that they will recover. But underneath this idea, is constantly the darker and unspoken fear that maybe your loved one will not recover. This idea, that at any time your loved one may be struck again and killed, is an intolerable one. This fear, most partners find, cannot be discussed with anyone. It remains as a half formed scream of fear, ever present yet not possible to articulate.

COMING HOME

Within a couple of days of the initial heart-attack, I went to Dublin by ambulance in order to have an angiogram. What a journey this was: the blaring of the siren and the sheer pace of the journey was amazing. To this day, whenever I see an ambulance I thank God for the men and women who daily save countless lives in this country and around the world. They risk life and limb in patientswho are seldom able to give them the thanks they deserve.

This procedure was carried out by Dr David it appeared that there were three significant blockages, including one in the left anterior descending artery, one in the right coronary artery and one somewhere else that I don’t remember at the moment. One of the right coronary artery was just at the 70% level, and for this reason Dr Mulcahy decided not to place a stent at that time.

Within 10 days, I was ready to return home. The weather had been freezing cold with snow and all the worst of the elements in winter. The day Catherine collected me from Wexford hospital, the weather had changed for the better. There was bright sunshine and it continued right through until May. Say what you like, but sunshine is a great compensation when you’re recovering from a crisis of illness. And the sun came through on cue.

I had been placed on Plavix to continue with thinning the blood and aspirin daily 75 mg along with a statin which initially was Lipitor. On top of this I took bisocor which is a beta blocker, and also ramipril which is to lower the blood pressure.

I was very weak, and very scared. My chest felt very heavy and fragile all at the same time. I can only say that there was a very deep and very sore bruise.

I had been given a few pamphlets by hospital staff, but nothing prepared me for the fragility I now felt. Nothing prepared me for the complete change in the world including the level of helplessness I was to experience.

All I know is not allowed to drive my car for a number of months. Even as a passenger every bump in the road was agony, I felt as if my heart would fall out at any moment.

We had a dog called Sammy, and I was sitting in the conservatory watching him play when I suddenly realised that he had a chicken in his mouth and it was still alive. I rushed out of the door and across the gravel to get to him before too much damage was done to the chicken.

Halfway there I realised I was running and I’d had an heart-attack and I might die right here-right now. Thankfully, Catherine intervened, the chicken was saved and all was well, but it gives you some idea of how much the world had changed in just a short time.

I had quite a bad reaction to the Lipitor, in particular in the sense that I had very bad dreams and and had to stop. I went through a number of statins until my Dublin specialist insisted on my taking Crestor 10 mg after six months of not taking anything at all.

The reason I didn’t take any statins for that period of time is because I had torn a calf muscle in the lightest use situation possible, and having had significant muscle pain up until then I put it down to the Statins. I was, and I am still unconvinced of the statins, not a good choice if there are alternatives, and there are. That said, I still take Crestor. The reason is the insistence of my Specialist and the possible benefits from the preservation of the integrity of the remaining plaque.
But for the record:
According to the Los Angeles Times:

“[M]edical researchers found that, contrary to widely held belief, statins do not drive down death rates among those who take them to prevent a first heart attack.

A second article cast significant doubt on the influential findings of [the 2006 JUPITER] study … that has driven the expansion of statins’ use by healthy people …

A third article suggested potential ethical, clinical and financial conflicts of interest at work in the execution of the JUPITER study”.

Shortly after all of this happened, we moved to Gorey in the north of the county of Wexford.

In fact it was May now, around about seven weeks after coming out of hospital. I was of no real use to anybody and so Catherine bore the brunt of that move. My son Andrew came to give us a hand. I was still very delicate as regards my health, and to be honest I hardly knew what was going on.

At this time I was attending rehabilitation classes in Wexford hospital on a weekly basis. Gradually, I managed to learn what I could do as regards exertion. This was a major problem for me, and I’m sure it is for many people who are recovering from a heart attack. You just don’t know where your limits lie any more. The tendency is to do nothing and to remain fragile. Of course this is exactly the opposite direction to that which would make life better and promote recovery. So this was one of the great revelations for me , going to rehabilitation classes gave me the opportunity to expand my new self-awareness to test my limits safely and to take pretty well considered advice in broad terms upon the subject of diet and exercise and personal care.

One of the possibly unique outcomes of this event for me, was that I am and I remain very sensitive to overload of stress. This is part of the problems I’ve had in most of the 3 1/2 years since my heart attack. But not all.

Catherine is a healer, and the healing generates significant heat. At times the heat was so strong around my chest that I mistook it for a symptom. I didn’t need much prompting to rush down to the hospital to check to see if things were going wrong. As it happens, on four occasions that I visited hospital I checked out clear after a day or so.

On one occasion, my specialist in Dublin Dr David Mulcahy, pretty much insisted on doing another angiogram, having run a nuclear stress test in response to a difficult spell regarding chest pain and again, very intense heat around the chest(to the point where the heat was projected out in front of the body).

Apparently to his great surprise, and certainly to mine, after the procedure he swung the TV screen towards me to show me that where the most significant blockage (70%) was located, a significant proliferation of new blood vessels had grown to bypass the blockage and reattached to the heart. Not the odd one or two but a whole new network, clearly visible on the monitors. He was as delighted as I was, and of course my relief was boundless.

At this time, I had begun in earnest to study everything to do with heart and circulation and related matters, searching for answers and ways to improve my longer term outlook, and in particular quality of life. I have the greatest respect for those doctors and specialists who take their work so very seriously. However I am aware that there are limitations for  them on what they might advise patients outside of the conventional paradigms of modern, and mainly surgical medicine when it comes to heart issues.

I am reminded here of the comments of Oliver Wendell Holmes

‘I firmly believe that if the entire materia medica as now used could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind and all the worse for the fishes’

Although I was inducted into the heart watch scheme in Ireland, and they have been very polite and as helpful as they can, their role seems mainly to be data collection. Fair enough, I think that’s a very good thing but there is a huge gap between simply lifestyle advice and the potential of supplemental health foods and products, and just plain good advice or counselling in helping to improve life outcomes.

Let  me give you an example: take statins for instance: I think that’s more about pharmacological companies making billions and perhaps trillions of dollars and not so much about saving or extending lives. I saw one research programme which declared that if you take all causes of death as valid, statins showed no improvement whatsoever in life expectation.

Cholesterol is a fundamental building and repairing block of the human body. If the cholesterol level is abnormally high, then surely the science should be investigating and identifying causes and treating them rather than arbitrarily blocking the channel of the body’s clear and natural response to something within it that is not working properly.

In this particular case, the agent that blocks the cholesterol production channel also blocks the facility in the body that makes CoQ10. CoQ10 is a cellular level energy food for the musculature of the body, and that includes the heart, where there is a concentration requirement. As the body ages, efficiency at producing CoQ10 is reduced.

As Mercola (www.Mercola.com)points out: “CoQ10 is a cofactor (co-enzyme) that is essential for the creation of ATP molecules, which you need for cellular energy production. Organs such as your heart have higher energy requirements, and therefore require more CoQ10 to function properly.

Statins deplete your body of CoQ10, which can have devastating results.

<em>Physicians rarely inform people of this risk and only occasionally advise them to take a CoQ10 supplement. As your body gets more and more depleted of CoQ10, you may suffer from fatigue, muscle weakness and soreness, and eventually heart failure.

Coenzyme Q10 is also very important in the process of neutralizing free radicals. So when your CoQ10 is depleted, you enter a vicious cycle of increased free radicals, loss of cellular energy, and damaged mitochondrial DNA.

If you decide to take a CoQ10 supplement and are over the age of 40, it is important to choose the reduced version, called ubiquinol. Ubiquinol is a FAR more effective form—I personally take 1-3 a day since it has such far ranging benefits.”

So taking statins as far as the literature I’ve read is concerned, exacerbates the deficit of  CoQ10 in the body. This is likely therefore to make heart failure worse not better.

Given that Beta Blockers, which I also take, such as bisocor (drugs which slow the heart rate and lower blood pressure) can also inhibit coenzyme Q10-dependent enzyme reactions, there is no doubt in my mind that supplementation is appropriate.  The dismay I feel is that no doctor would ever “prescribe” it. I have to decide, then purchase it privately, and take it without their considerable skill and care.  Why is that?

When I mentioned this to a very eminent specialist, his response was “I don’t believe they’ve done the science yet” Can you imagine? “The science”. There is abundant evidence out there that this is the case. And yet will it be another generation before all this is accepted and taken account of?

My point is, that the whole of the medical establishment in the Western world today is geared towards responding to symptoms with symptomatic treatment. Doctors do not generally go beyond the pharmaceutical or surgical solutions to inhibit or relieve symptoms. Maybe they don’t have time.

For this reason maybe the patient has to, with the support of the higher forces (prayer, Faith), look in to causes for themselves and find out more about how lifestyle and deficits in diet or environment may be impacting on their health.

I believe the orientation should be towards establishing causes, and creating actions and yes of course medicines, and sometimes even surgery, but doctors should also offer diet, supplemental and vitamin and mineral advice, not to mention behavioural advice that offers real remedies to solving and thus removing the causes of sickness. To me, this point seems outrageously simple and yet it flies in the face of everything that I’ve seen in the field of established medicine. Has the medical world finally become the handmaiden of the vast pharmaceutical industry and lucrative consultant market?

The risks of litigation, and the extreme conservatism of modern medicine, means that real progress, not in the cutting edge of medical science but the honest cause finding and cause curing process is ignored.

Linus Pauling and vitamin C

I regard vitamins C as one of the reasons why I’m still here. The recommended dose of vitamins C is 100 mg per day. I can assure you that with this amount you will not get scurvy. And that’s about it.

Linus Pauling a twice Nobel prizewinner, came to the conclusion following up researchers from his predecessors, that heart disease had a great deal to do with what can only be described as internal scurvy. In other words, a chronic deficiency in vitamins C.

Pauling also noted that the only three animals that do not produce their own vitamin C : man gorillas and Guinea Pigs are also the only animals that suffer heart disease in the sense that we are discussing here. I’d say that was a pretty strong clue?

Together  with Rath, he came up with the theory that, since most arterial plaque is mainly in the very high volume areas of blood supply to the heart, in these areas may be most at risk to mechanical damage to the fluctuations caused by the pumping action of the heart.

This seems to make sense, since this is where most arterial plaque damage seems to occur. The ability of the body to repair and clear the results of this mechanical damage within the arterial lumen is modified by the availability of vitamin C.

In a nutshell, is substantially increasing the daily intake of vitamin C, and adding lysine and proline as supplements substantially helps in promoting the natural repair processes.

I personally take around 5 g per day unless I have flu etc in which case I will significantly increase that to say around 10 to 12 g. It is important that pure and unoxidised  Vitamin  is used i.e. ascorbic acid, and those with sensitivity perhaps with a buffer.

What is surprising, is that many normal pharmacy supplies of this vitamins C and is either of the oxidised variety (the tell tale sign is in that it is brown) Contains various taste orientated additives including on some occasions monosodium glutamate or MSG which is a well-known excitotoxin.

In any case, it’s worth going online to LinusPauling.org and taking a close look at his findings and recommendations. I this has not been integrated into the health consciousness of the population is yet another strange mystery. Of course, I am open to contrary views. I really would have that someone would give me a new perspective. However, my personal experience has been that vitamins C supplementation together with sensible CoQ10 supplementation (in this case, in the form of UBIQUINOL ) has helped produce dramatic improvement in quality of life, and equally dramatic reduction in angina symptoms, and allowed me to live at least a half normal life.

This is only the beginning of the story. There’s so much more to convey to you…