Coronary Heart Disease Support Group

Hi!

You should continue to see your Cardiologist (Heart Doctor) that performed the angioplasty...or any other Cardiologist...but you must continue seeing a Cardiologist. Your visits may only be a couple times a year as long as you're not having problems...but since you had a heart attack with stent placement...you HAVE Heart Disease...so you want to try to prevent further problems...though as good as one can try to prevent it...things still happen, and future heart probs may arise.

You should also have a good family doctor or Internist, aka Internal Medicine Doc...to manage your other medical problems...like colds, diabetes, flu...what have you.

BOTH are needed. Your cardiologist should monitor your heart meds and your cholesterol meds...NOT your Family Doc/Internist.

Don't stop taking your heart meds....you need them...Unless advised by your heart Doc.

Hope this answers your question!

Thankyou TLCDaisy I have been concerned about who is taking care of my post heart attack care because there has literally been zero testing except for one blood test at about the 4 month mark even though angiogram was recommended by a visiting internist from Toronto (it was never considered only mentioned in passing). Only the old handy stethoscope has been used and that lead to a preventable heart attack in the first place . The internist wants me to take a stess test and then blood sugar monitor in mid December . We don't have a cardiologist within 3 hours of here so its been all general family doctor and 2 visits to the internist. I'm pretty disappointed about the whole thing right from 3.5 months prior to this MI . I really appreciateyou input Thanks again .

Are you on a Beta-Blocker, like Lopressor or Toprol XL??

I didn't see that listed on your profile??

If NOT...You need to talk with your Heart Doctor about getting on one....that's a recommended med for someone that has had a heart attack. Helps to prevent future heart attacks by decreasing heart rate and BP. This is an important drug, I hope it wasn't overlooked....

Also, make sure you have Nitroglycerin tabs...they should have given you a script for those...in case you have chest pain again...Always need to keep those on hand as well.

I don't see the point of another angiogram, ie Cardiac Cath, I believe is what he is referring to....you don't just go in and do another cath to see how it looks....ONLY if you are continuing to have problems.

A stress test is ok, should be ran through Heart Doc though.

Checking your blood sugar is good, b/c diabetes is another risk factor for Heart Disease, so definitely want to catch that early if it's a prob for you.

You should be on a Cholesterol Pill...didn't see that listed either...but you should be on one, and they should be monitoring your cholesterol levels, prob every 6 weeks right now to see how you are responding to it.

Keep up with the Plavix...that helps to prevent blood from sticking to the stent...

Sorry you don't have Cardiologists near you...but as long as you don't have tons of probs, you may be OK with a GOOD internist, but if anything major crops up, you need that Heart Doc.