Posted on September 24, 2012
NYC Cardiologist
Carotid Artery Disease (CAD) affects the blood vessels leading to your head and brain. It can cause a stroke if the arteries in your head and neck are blocked, thus, depriving your brain of oxygen. Your risk of a stroke increases if the arteries are narrowed by plaque, blocked by a blood clot, or the plaque spreads to other arteries in your head. Interventional Cardiologists have developed a treatment for CAD which prevents strokes. The procedure is called carotid artery angioplasty.
What is carotid artery angioplasty?
Interventional cardiologists use a balloon-tipped catheter to open the congested arteries in your neck. They expand the balloon at the site of the obstruction which condenses the plaque next to the vessel wall.
Carotid angioplasty is often combined with the placement of a stent. The stent acts as a scaffold, to keep the artery open. The extra support improves blood flow to the brain.
What can I expect during a carotid angioplasty-stent procedure?
The procedure takes approximately 30 to 90 minutes. After being wheeled into the cath lab, you’ll be given anesthetic to numb the catheter insertion site. A small incision will be made so the Interventional Cardiologist can thread the balloon catheter into the carotid artery. You may feel a bit of pressure at the insertion site, but you won
Posted on September 21, 2012
Stroke Doctor
Most people are pretty familiar with the basic signs of a stroke, but what you may not know is that there are two categories doctors use to classify strokes; Ischemic and Hemorrhagic. Depending on the stroke type Thrombotic and Embolic Ischemic Strokes account for 87% of cases.
What causes a Thrombotic Stroke?
Thrombotic strokes are the most common type. They occur when a blood clot blocks the flow of healthy blood to your brain. Before the clot forms plaque builds up in the carotid artery lining causing it to narrow. As it narrows your blood flow decreases and the plaque releases a clotting agent. This clotting agent makes platelets stick together within the artery forming a clot.
They are precipitated by mini strokes (Transient Ischemic Attacks).
What causes an Embolic Stroke?
Embolic strokes are caused by a traveling clot. If a clot forms somewhere else in your body, like your heart, the clot can be quite fragile and if a piece of it breaks off, it can use your bloodstream to access your brain.
Once the clot reaches your brain it can lodge itself in a large artery or small blood vessel. Either way, the clot will eventually be too large to pass through your brain
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Cardiologist NYC
Most of us know that you see a cardiology doc when something goes wrong with our heart, but how many of us understand its basic mechanics. For example, what makes your heart beat? To understand the treatment you
Posted on September 20, 2012
Heart Centre
There’s a misconception among the general public. Heart disease is a term used to classify over 100 different cardiovascular conditions. Among these conditions are two that are commonly mistaken for one another; a heart attack and sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). Believe it or not, these are two different heart problems. Heart Centre specialists have helped to define the differences between these two conditions.
What is SCA?
SCA, also called sudden cardiac death, occurs when your heart suddenly stops beating. Once the electrical signals that make your heart pump give out, the circulatory process also stops. This means that the oxygenated blood your body needs in order to function can no longer reach your brain and other vital organs. Immediate treatment is needed to restore your pulse or you will die within minutes.
SCA is not a heart attack, but it is often described using similar terms. The main difference between SCA and a heart attack is how each condition affects the heart.
A heart attack is caused when healthy blood flow is slowed or stopped due to a blockage or arterial rupture. Depending on the amount of damage inflicted, this might cause cardiac tissue death without affecting your heart
Posted on September 13, 2012
Stroke Doctor
One of the keys to stroke prevention is education. The medical field teaches that the more we understand about an illness, the better we can treat it. This article will focus on the various types of
Posted on September 12, 2012
Hypertension has several nicknames including “the silent killer.” Of the 76 million Americans diagnosed with high blood pressure annually, 16 million of them aren
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Cardiologist NYC
Heart disease is costly in more ways than one. In fact, 17% of the health care budget in the United States is spent on cardiovascular problems. These costs are on the rise. In this article, we
Posted on August 27, 2012
Heart Doctor
A primary question for a lot of patients with Heart Failure (HF) is what their life expectancy is after they
Posted on August 23, 2012
Heart Doctors NY
If you could describe the entire medical field in one word, what would it be? Here are some answers that come to mind: innovative, life-changing, evolving; but perhaps the most interesting answer is broad. No one is more familiar with how broad the field is than NY heart doctors. They take a diagnosis of heart disease and narrow it down to a root cause. For instance, look at Ischemia.
Ischemia is a condition where your oxygenated blood flow is temporarily interrupted. This wide-ranging diagnosis can affect any area of your body. To track it more specifically you have to look at where the problem originates.
Cardiac Ischemia refers to minimized blood flow in the heart muscle. This condition has been linked to Variant Angina and-in severe cases-heart attack and cardiac tissue death. There’s a type of Ischemia that causes chest pain and a type that does not; the latter is called Silent Ischemia.
How common is Silent Ischemia, and what are the risks?
It’s estimated that between 3 and 4 million people are affected by Silent Ischemia. Patients who have already had a heart attack or are diabetic are at greater risk. If left untreated, the condition can cause Cardiomyopathy and lead to heart failure.
Other risk factors include:
Posted on August 22, 2012
After conducting several research studies on a cross-section of their patients; New York City Cardiologists have identified certain variables that increase a person
