My Father - Heart Related (1 Viewer)

[Sauce]

Hey fellas,
As the title suggest, asking for some advice from the people in the world best at mitigating cardiovascular disease- steroid guys! 🤣

Anyway- i'm dealing with a bunch of my own health issues currently and i'm already very stressed out, just to recently discovered my Dad is having issues. He's only mid-late 50's. More fun.

Any advice is super appreciated!

He's a big dude, lifted his whole life, not overly fat probably 20-25% BF, but has recently taken on a stressful job in the past year and has slowed his training down hugely, and his diet is awful now. Really bad. Surprisingly hasn't gained much weight if any at all, but i'd assume a composition shift is taking place here.

Currently he's got;
- Terrible blood lipids (low HDL, high HDL) unsure of exact numbers
- Prediabetic fasting glucose
- Recently developed an irregular heartrate
- Experiencing some worrying chest palpitations that come and go randomly every few days/weeks
- Overall slightly feeling 'off'

I've urged him to press his GP to get him into a cardiologist ASAP, but his GP seems useless. I'd assume a cardiologist would prescribe beta blockers or other drugs to help? Hopefully someone can chime in here.
Worried about aterial plaque with his poor lipids and issues.

For now, he's had his last bad meal for a while- I'm in the process of creating him a full exclusion list of foods. He doesn't want to track calories so i'm trying to incorporate filling foods to ensure a calorie defecit without tracking + getting him into cardio, as well as back lifting.

I have Telmi and Metformin, would these be worth asking him to take, or wait for a professional opinion?

+ any other advice, what do you guys think would help? As always, I appreciate any input, some smart guys on here!

Cheers lads

 

[VFA1]

Hi mate, I don’t have any experience in that area but you have to use the GP for all they’re good for - writing a referral to a specialist to get his ticker looked at. The earlier they find any issues with an ECG, the sooner he can get the treatment he needs.

 

[Hegsy]

I would be of to get a CT coronary angiogram ASAP, make sure he goes to the cardiologist for a referral so it's free, Did one last year 5 mins to see if the heart is healthy is well worth it.

 

[Red0999]

Honestly mate I’d switch him to a better GP or don’t stop until you find one, since he has a few issues you want him to be seeing a good GP and someone who cares to straight away push him to a cardiologist to start getting on top of it.

 

[CCGrinder]

Definitely a better Dr and a lifestyle change healthy diet maybe intermittent fasting and some sort of low impact cardio type activity.. biggest killer is stress hope you can get a good Dr soon..older men are stubborn as mules so alot of patience is required

 

[Deca]

The old boy needs to try get back to his roots. Hitting his training, cardio and diet! Check his blood pressure and also send him for a heart ultrasound.


Get him some citrus bergamot for his Cholestrol, Metformin for sure even if it’s just 500, telmisartan if BP warrants ir. Life’s to short, espcially at his age where the body isn’t as resilient

 

[Maverick]

You need that @ArrogantWanker to reply.

If you suspect your GP is missing something head to the emergency department and get a full work up. Palpitations and flutters are not to be dismissed lightly.

I can remember a guy I worked with who was in his late 40’s and having repeated chest pains, his GP sent him home advising he was fine. Died the next night from a heart attack. Always be cautious with the diagnosis from a GP, if you’re concerned have a specialist make an assessment and sometimes you need to make it urgent.

 

[Shankle]

Hey fellas,
As the title suggest, asking for some advice from the people in the world best at mitigating cardiovascular disease- steroid guys! 🤣

Anyway- i'm dealing with a bunch of my own health issues currently and i'm already very stressed out, just to recently discovered my Dad is having issues. He's only mid-late 50's. More fun.

Any advice is super appreciated!

He's a big dude, lifted his whole life, not overly fat probably 20-25% BF, but has recently taken on a stressful job in the past year and has slowed his training down hugely, and his diet is awful now. Really bad. Surprisingly hasn't gained much weight if any at all, but i'd assume a composition shift is taking place here.

Currently he's got;
- Terrible blood lipids (low HDL, high HDL) unsure of exact numbers
- Prediabetic fasting glucose
- Recently developed an irregular heartrate
- Experiencing some worrying chest palpitations that come and go randomly every few days/weeks
- Overall slightly feeling 'off'

I've urged him to press his GP to get him into a cardiologist ASAP, but his GP seems useless. I'd assume a cardiologist would prescribe beta blockers or other drugs to help? Hopefully someone can chime in here.
Worried about aterial plaque with his poor lipids and issues.

For now, he's had his last bad meal for a while- I'm in the process of creating him a full exclusion list of foods. He doesn't want to track calories so i'm trying to incorporate filling foods to ensure a calorie defecit without tracking + getting him into cardio, as well as back lifting.

I have Telmi and Metformin, would these be worth asking him to take, or wait for a professional opinion?

+ any other advice, what do you guys think would help? As always, I appreciate any input, some smart guys on here!

Cheers lads

Sounds like you have him back on the right track. Number thing is to get his diet sorted. And back on the cardio will be hugely beneficial.

What's his BP looking like? I wouldnt give him any BP meds until you get a reading on it.

If his BP is high and needs treatment telmi of course is a great option as it will help with his lipids also.

Metformin would definitely help his body handle insulin better. He would most likely benefit from it. Though GPs don't think the same way as us.

 

[Sauce]

Sounds like you have him back on the right track. Number thing is to get his diet sorted. And back on the cardio will be hugely beneficial.

What's his BP looking like? I wouldnt give him any BP meds until you get a reading on it.

If his BP is high and needs treatment telmi of course is a great option as it will help with his lipids also.

Metformin would definitely help his body handle insulin better. He would most likely benefit from it. Though GPs don't think the same way as us.

Thanks brother for your advice + support. I feel like diet + lifestyle is critical here also.

BP is around 150/80, nothing absurd but absolutely not ideal.

I was mainly hoping Telmi would improve lipids too. I've got him doing cardio for sure, and weights too now.

Fingers crossed!

 

[Sauce]

Hi mate, I don’t have any experience in that area but you have to use the GP for all they’re good for - writing a referral to a specialist to get his ticker looked at. The earlier they find any issues with an ECG, the sooner he can get the treatment he needs.

Thanks mate. Sounds like new GP is the go.

The old boy needs to try get back to his roots. Hitting his training, cardio and diet! Check his blood pressure and also send him for a heart ultrasound.


Get him some citrus bergamot for his Cholestrol, Metformin for sure even if it’s just 500, telmisartan if BP warrants ir. Life’s to short, espcially at his age where the body isn’t as resilient

Yep for sure. Funnily enough from age 16-now he's eaten whatever carbs he wants with no issues because he used to train hard as hell. But now his diet is less protein, more carbs, very low exercise, and it's caught up for sure. I've told him to get citrus bergamot too. Cheers brother

 

[Sauce]

You need that @ArrogantWanker to reply.

If you suspect your GP is missing something head to the emergency department and get a full work up. Palpitations and flutters are not to be dismissed lightly.

I can remember a guy I worked with who was in his late 40’s and having repeated chest pains, his GP sent him home advising he was fine. Died the next night from a heart attack. Always be cautious with the diagnosis from a GP, if you’re concerned have a specialist make an assessment and sometimes you need to make it urgent.

Thanks for the reply brother.

I've told him ASAP see his GP, given him several good cardiologist names (private ones) and told him pick the quickest one you can find.

Hoping nothing happens to him in the meanwhile. He went to ER and i'm not sure what they did, but they sent him home (from ER) so i'm assuming it's ok? But who knows- seems like some doctors treat patients as a number, not a human these days. Next in line come through!!!

 

[Marcus]

Id look for a new dr, I had a random phone call from a Dr one day asking me to come in he had been looking over my files and wanted to check out a few things he pulled out a scanner plugged it into his phone and looked at my heart and done measurements he then sent me to get looked at further this dr went way beyond I couldnt believe how much care this dr

 

[ArrogantWanker]

Couple of separate issues here, but at present all things that should be manageable with a competent GP - getting a cardiology referral for now is going to delay actually getting stuff in place and be a waste of money

One is the lifestyle side of things - you sound like you've already got that bit sorted and know the answers there. Improve diet and especially the leafy green bullshit we all ignore, regular low to moderate intensity cardio, at least some resistance training although certainly doesn't need to be going hard on that

The second is the palpitations/irregular heartbeat. Given the rest of the story (overweight, recently sedentary, mid-50s male with high blood pressure) it sounds on clinical history like atrial fibrillation. The first step is to try and catch it which you either do on a standard ECG while they're in AF or on a holter monitor (7ish day wearable ECG monitor). Both of those are doable by the GP

After that (assuming he has it), management of straightforwards AF is definitely within scope for many GPs. Consists of either trying to stop you going into AF or at least keeping the rate down when you do, then considering blood thinners to reduce the risk of stroke (he's going to be borderline on whether he meets criteria for blood thinners but cross that bridge when you come to it)

The third is other drugs. At present there's not going to be a clear role for metformin, especially if he's going to clean up his diet - that's not to say he can't take it, there's plenty of people who argue it might have life extension benefits more generally but it's not really good quality evidence to say he should be taking it yet. Telmisartan may have a role for his blood pressure, but if he's got AF it's worth sorting that first because most of the rhythm or rate control drugs we use for it also lower blood pressure and he may not need telmi once he's on them

The drug that he almost certainly should be on is a statin. Obviously hard to say without knowing what his LDL actually is, but the constellation of other features means he's going to have a high enough risk of cardiovascular/coronary artery disease that if his LDL is up he'll probably meet criteria. You'll probably get people telling you they're terrible drugs, the truth is they're one of the best drugs we have as long as they're targeted at people who need them (don't just have a high cholesterol but also have a high cardiovascular risk profile). As well as lowering cholesterol, they reduce cholesterol deposition into arterial walls and actually stabilise the plaque that's already there so it's less likely to burst and cause an acute heart attack. Which one doesn't really matter - the principle is gradually up the dose until you either hit the max dose or you get side effects and need to back off

The fourth is other investigations. He doesn't need a calcium score at the moment unless he wants to know just how high his risk is to a greater degree than he can already do with an online calculator ( https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/bundles/for-professionals/cvd-risk-calculator ). The main real medical indication to get a calcium score done at the moment is to decide whether people should be on a statin if they don't meet the criteria based on the history risk calculators

I haven't been checking the forum as regularly recently (started a new job) but feel free to message me if you have specific questions. Pretty much everything you've said here is something I've been through personally with my own father as well as knowing professionally

 

[Sauce]

Couple of separate issues here, but at present all things that should be manageable with a competent GP - getting a cardiology referral for now is going to delay actually getting stuff in place and be a waste of money

One is the lifestyle side of things - you sound like you've already got that bit sorted and know the answers there. Improve diet and especially the leafy green bullshit we all ignore, regular low to moderate intensity cardio, at least some resistance training although certainly doesn't need to be going hard on that

The second is the palpitations/irregular heartbeat. Given the rest of the story (overweight, recently sedentary, mid-50s male with high blood pressure) it sounds on clinical history like atrial fibrillation. The first step is to try and catch it which you either do on a standard ECG while they're in AF or on a holter monitor (7ish day wearable ECG monitor). Both of those are doable by the GP

After that (assuming he has it), management of straightforwards AF is definitely within scope for many GPs. Consists of either trying to stop you going into AF or at least keeping the rate down when you do, then considering blood thinners to reduce the risk of stroke (he's going to be borderline on whether he meets criteria for blood thinners but cross that bridge when you come to it)

The third is other drugs. At present there's not going to be a clear role for metformin, especially if he's going to clean up his diet - that's not to say he can't take it, there's plenty of people who argue it might have life extension benefits more generally but it's not really good quality evidence to say he should be taking it yet. Telmisartan may have a role for his blood pressure, but if he's got AF it's worth sorting that first because most of the rhythm or rate control drugs we use for it also lower blood pressure and he may not need telmi once he's on them

The drug that he almost certainly should be on is a statin. Obviously hard to say without knowing what his LDL actually is, but the constellation of other features means he's going to have a high enough risk of cardiovascular/coronary artery disease that if his LDL is up he'll probably meet criteria. You'll probably get people telling you they're terrible drugs, the truth is they're one of the best drugs we have as long as they're targeted at people who need them (don't just have a high cholesterol but also have a high cardiovascular risk profile). As well as lowering cholesterol, they reduce cholesterol deposition into arterial walls and actually stabilise the plaque that's already there so it's less likely to burst and cause an acute heart attack. Which one doesn't really matter - the principle is gradually up the dose until you either hit the max dose or you get side effects and need to back off

The fourth is other investigations. He doesn't need a calcium score at the moment unless he wants to know just how high his risk is to a greater degree than he can already do with an online calculator ( https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/bundles/for-professionals/cvd-risk-calculator ). The main real medical indication to get a calcium score done at the moment is to decide whether people should be on a statin if they don't meet the criteria based on the history risk calculators

I haven't been checking the forum as regularly recently (started a new job) but feel free to message me if you have specific questions. Pretty much everything you've said here is something I've been through personally with my own father as well as knowing professionally

Dude. You're a fucking legend, seriously.

Thanks for taking the time to write this.

I'll discuss with him and PM you if need be. Makes me feel at ease, knowing there is a method to help.

 

[Thegodofwar]

Hey fellas,
As the title suggest, asking for some advice from the people in the world best at mitigating cardiovascular disease- steroid guys! 🤣

Anyway- i'm dealing with a bunch of my own health issues currently and i'm already very stressed out, just to recently discovered my Dad is having issues. He's only mid-late 50's. More fun.

Any advice is super appreciated!

He's a big dude, lifted his whole life, not overly fat probably 20-25% BF, but has recently taken on a stressful job in the past year and has slowed his training down hugely, and his diet is awful now. Really bad. Surprisingly hasn't gained much weight if any at all, but i'd assume a composition shift is taking place here.

Currently he's got;
- Terrible blood lipids (low HDL, high HDL) unsure of exact numbers
- Prediabetic fasting glucose
- Recently developed an irregular heartrate
- Experiencing some worrying chest palpitations that come and go randomly every few days/weeks
- Overall slightly feeling 'off'

I've urged him to press his GP to get him into a cardiologist ASAP, but his GP seems useless. I'd assume a cardiologist would prescribe beta blockers or other drugs to help? Hopefully someone can chime in here.
Worried about aterial plaque with his poor lipids and issues.

For now, he's had his last bad meal for a while- I'm in the process of creating him a full exclusion list of foods. He doesn't want to track calories so i'm trying to incorporate filling foods to ensure a calorie defecit without tracking + getting him into cardio, as well as back lifting.

I have Telmi and Metformin, would these be worth asking him to take, or wait for a professional opinion?

+ any other advice, what do you guys think would help? As always, I appreciate any input, some smart guys on here!

Cheers lads

Brother get a gp to prescribe if he has pre diabetes
Referral to cardiologist asap ask for a calcium score / echocardiogram / ecg
If he feels really off crushing chest pain indigestion Blocked ears stomach issues straight to ER
Do not self medicate !!! (Gear is different obv)
His left atrium could be enlarged due to his size and could be causing this or his stress levels or arterial plaque etc … we are meat heads here go to a cardiologist …. I hope he is ok keep us posted

 

[Sauce]

Brother get a gp to prescribe if he has pre diabetes
Referral to cardiologist asap ask for a calcium score / echocardiogram / ecg
If he feels really off crushing chest pain indigestion Blocked ears stomach issues straight to ER
Do not self medicate !!! (Gear is different obv)
His left atrium could be enlarged due to his size and could be causing this or his stress levels or arterial plaque etc … we are meat heads here go to a cardiologist …. I hope he is ok keep us posted

Thanks bro. Seeing a professional is priority #1, then lifestyle changes are second.

He knows to go to hospital if any pain or issues, thanks brother.

I'll keep posted

 

[Splazzy]

Good on you for looking after your father bro ❤️
My father is only 60 and had the same stuff about 5 years ago, had a heart attack and got operated and all was good untill about a week ago,
He now has cirrhosis and his liver is pretty fked, he's been in the hospital for about a week now and my brother just called me saying I need to get in a plane this week because they don't know how long he has left. I feel shit and terrible coz across the planet from him and was never able to help much.

 

[Shankle]

Any update on your dad @Sauce ? How's he travelling

 

[Sauce]

Any update on your dad @Sauce ? How's he travelling

Yes brother,
Has changed his diet, is starting cardio once he's had an appointment with a professional and cutting out all the bad habits.
No real update, refused meds but moving forward thanks ❤️

 

[Sauce]

Good on you for looking after your father bro ❤️
My father is only 60 and had the same stuff about 5 years ago, had a heart attack and got operated and all was good untill about a week ago,
He now has cirrhosis and his liver is pretty fked, he's been in the hospital for about a week now and my brother just called me saying I need to get in a plane this week because they don't know how long he has left. I feel shit and terrible coz across the planet from him and was never able to help much.

Don't feel bad brother. Treasure the time he has left.
Sorry you're going through this mate 🙏