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What Happened to Scott?

I have been a bicyclist and a swimmer for most of my life. At the age of 22, my wife and I became lacto-vegetarians. I have only a few times, and not for more than a couple of months in my life been out of shape aerobically.

When I was 26, my Dad had a quadruple bypass a few weeks before his 50th birthday. This somehow did not affect my thinking. My attitude was that when I get to be Dad’s age I need to be more careful. Also, I was a vegetarian and he was a meat eater, and that mitigated my worry.

However, I was drastically affected when I was 35. I had arthroscopic knee surgery, and my cholesterol was checked. Surprisingly, it was 335, which is very high. This prompted me to cut way back on the dairy in my diet and start having my cholesterol checked regularly.

After a few years of not being able to control it with diet and exercise, I asked my physician for cholesterol lowering drugs and was prescribed 500 mg of Niaspan. I took this for months, and then got sick once, and the doctor switched me to Lipitor. But I continued to eat well and exercise as best as I could.

Then while riding my bicycle up Left Hand Canyon toward Ward on August 16th 2003, I developed chest pains that forced me to coast home and drive to the hospital. They did an angiogram, and found 100% blockage. The cardiologist said that no dye would pass from the aorta to the left side of my heart. The next thing I knew it was 3:30 in the morning, and a quadruple coronary bypass had been performed.

My attitude from the start of my recuperation period was that I just wanted to get better. I worked very hard to come back, and the day before Thanksgiving was able to ride my bike to Carter Lake, about 55 miles. My doctor put me back on Lipitor, and told me to come in once a year for blood work, and perhaps a stress test.

In January of 2005, I met Dr. Turnbow. I told him that I needed my Lipitor refilled, and he asked me if I was ready to get serious about my cholesterol issues. Of course I was interested as neither another surgery in the future, or an early death was of interest to me.

We spent about two hours that day, and he changed my prescriptions from Lipitor. We did a lot of blood work, found out my particular chemistry, and Dr. Turnbow prescribed some medicines to address my particular issues. I had a greatly elevated level of the genetically caused type of cholesterol. Since then, we have continued to check blood, and other tests to adjust the amount of medicine and types to find what works best for me.

My last blood work showed my cholesterol to be in the double digits with good HDL vs. LDL ratios. The genetic cholesterol is well below the normally recommended levels, and I am feeling healthy and happy. My last heart scan also showed a small reversal of the amount of plaque in my arteries, which was fantastic.

Meeting Dr. Turnbow gave me hope and was a wonderful thing for me. Finding a doctor who was both interested in helping me reverse this disease, and excited about the work he was doing, was such a relief and joy. For two years, from the time of my surgery until meeting him, I had been worried that going back to the same treatment would cause my Coronary Arterial Disease to progress again. I had been doing research on the internet, and found a couple of 20 year studies that claimed that if cholesterol was lowered enough, CAD could be reversed. I had become more strict with diet (very strict), and had asked my cardiologist if there was any more that could be done. Sadly, he wasn’t too interested in aggressive treatments of CAD.

Now, I feel that while no one can control their destiny, at least I am doing everything I can to fight this disease. I do not think that I will live forever, but my goal at this point is to die of something other than a heart attack or stroke. With the treatment I receive from Dr. Turnbow, and the lifestyle changes I have made, I believe I’ll reach that goal.