How Angioplasty Helps in Preventing Cardiac Disorders

Heart disease claims several lives everyday of both man and woman worldwide. The most common causes of heart disease are smoking, birth control pills, stress level, hypothyroidism, blocked artery and many more. The good news is that it is reversible. What is needed to is to bring down the risk factors like smoking, blood pressure and cholesterol level. For example, once you manage to stop smoking, you can reduce your risk of heart attack within a couple of weeks. By the end of two years of quitting cigarettes, your heart becomes as good as a nonsmoker’s. The blocked artery is caused by deposition of a fatty substance known as plaque on the inner wall of artery.

If you have a blocked blood flow in your heart, then Coronary Angioplasty is the most common method that is employed to remove such blockage. It is also widely used as an emergency treatment for heart attacks. This can quickly remove the blockage and restore the bold flow in the heart and thereby reduces the chance of heart muscle damage. Other advantages of Coronary Angioplasty are that you don’t have to undergo a surgical procedure; the procedure does not need anesthesia and has quick recovery time. The only disadvantage of this process is that over a period of time the artery can again narrow down causing blockage. But the chance of such event can be lowered by the use of medicated stents. This is comparatively a safe procedure with less chances of serious complication. However, like all other medical procedure, there is always a possibility of complication even if ultimate care is taken.

Before you undergo Coronary Angioplasty, the doctor will advise you to go through coronary angiography to locate the exact position of the blocked artery. This is done by injecting a special dye in your artery through a catheter. X-ray picture then reveals the blood flow in your coronary artery. This will exactly locate the positions of the blockages. A second catheter is then used for the angioplasty procedure. This catheter has a balloon at the end of it. This balloon is inserted in the artery near the blockage and then inflated. If needed the balloon can be inflated and depleted number of times to ensure it removes the blockage. This removes the blockage and improves blood flow. Once the procedure is complete, both the catheters are removed. If the plaque is too hard to remove using the balloon catheter then sometimes a drill-like device called rotablator is used to clear the blockage.

Though angioplasty is very safe, in some rare cases it can develop complication due to consistent bleeding from the point of insertion of catheter. The dye can have an allergic reaction to some person. Damage to the kidney can be also caused by the dye. There is also possibility for a heart attack or stroke. The risk of a complication is higher for women, elderly people, people with kidney ailment or suffering from diabetes, people with major coronary blockages and extensive heart disease.

Judah Judah is the author of this article on Cardiologists.
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