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clogged arteries

How does one tell that they have clogged arteries? Is there any symptoms?
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Avatar universal
Hmmm  So many different ways to answer and people have covered some good ones already.  Momto3 is right on that for many people there are no symptoms until you have a heart attack and even those can be silent/unrecognized (esp in women)!  Some people have angina (chest pain) which is an indicator of insufficient blood flow to the heart (caused by a blockage in your coronary artery(ies).  Stable angina means you get chest pain with a certain level of activity and when you back off and rest the pain subsides relatively quickly (chest pain exacerbated by exercise and eased by rest is a good sign to check in with your doctor).  Unstable angina means you get pain at unpredictable times and it doesn't always respond quickly to rest (this condition is considered more dangerous).  People describe the pain of angina in many ways but some of the classic signs are "crushing pain" in the center of the chest, pain in the jaw, throat and left arm.  If you look up a distribution for how people describe heart attack/angina pain youll see that certain symptoms are mentioned more and less often but that that list includes like 20 distinguishable symptoms!  

In terms of testing, doctors will usually take your med. history and family history and then do an ekg and stress test.  Nuclear stress tests are even more sensitive and cardiac cath (angiogram) is the current gold standard (though there are some exciting developments in cardiac mri that may soon proliferate whereby doctors can nonivasively image coronary arteries and determine which plaques are dangerous and which are not!)  There is also a CAT test for calcium scoring which allows doctors to assess plaque build up in the coronary arteries (it seems that different facilities have different abilities in regard to the CAT and specificity).  Those are the basics as I understand them - the tough thing about blockages is that they don't always reveal themselves until you have a heart attack unless you have some of the invasive testing done - hopefully that will change as MRI and CAT come of age in terms of cardiac applications.

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Avatar universal
A nuclear stress test can give an indication regarding blood flow to the heart.  If you are having clogged arteries, it is likely to show up with the nuclear scan.  
Another choice is a 64 slice CT scan.  It is a scan that can image your coronary arteries.  And of course, as stated earlier, a heart cath is the best.  Unless you have significant symptoms, your doctors will not do a heart cath due to the risks--although slight-- of serious adverse events.  
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21064 tn?1309308733
Unfortunately, the symptoms can be silent for a long time.  The mose observable symptoms would be chest pain, pressure.  A significant blockage could lead to an MI.

A heart catherization is the gold standard for determining blockages.  

As for what you can do for yourself, maintain a good BP, eat a heart healthy diet, exercise, no smoking and regular checkups.
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489725 tn?1280052553
that is a good question
am----- i think dont quote me cholesteral plays a role for sure but is not the main reason in that as plaque builds up in the arteries over time they may be symptoms such as blockages which could lead to problems with heart function and in severe cases symptoms of stroke .but i think symptoms may not arise until problems occur .it is important to watch your diet and have your cholesteral ,lipids etc checked regurarly and brought back under control if needed.i think vit c play an imporant role in helping here as it helps keep the arteries healthy and stops cholesteral binding to the arteries i read that somewhere once dont know if it is true but vit c is always good for u any ways
there are things u can do to help
quit smoking if u smoke
keep away from saturated fats no more than 7%
consume an overall healthy diet
and the best weapon is exercise at least 30mins a day
watch foods high in cholesteral keeping it to a max of 200mg a day so for all u egg lovers one egg has about 250mg of cholesteral just eat the white

thats all i know
maybe someone will add all the technical stuff
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554422 tn?1220575366
Gosh that is a good question,I wish I could answer that but Im not sure..I do know high cholesteral can cause it but im not sure what the signs are...Ill be interested in the answer to your question as well...
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