I recently had a calcium CT heart scan because of family history of cardiovascular disease, my ever increasing cholesterols (but not triglycerides), and previous 300-400% over the limit for Lp-PLA2.
The test came back as 0, which was nice to see.
In the US, my good insurance didn’t cover it because I’m only 40. However, it was only $130. Not cheap but surprisingly low and worth it to me.
I can stop taking 4 grams of niacin now. And my current cardiologist said they don’t recommend that treatment anymore anyway. That was fun to learn after going Rosso Corsa red once a day for the last 5 years.
Point being, I’d never heard of this calcium heart CT scan before. Maybe worth asking your doctors about it (it’s not for everyone).
Made my doctor do this test instead of accepting statins, and my score was below 100 which allows me to continue drug free.
The thing about the calcium score is that if there is non-zero calcium, it was deposited because you already have atherosclerosis old enough to have calcified. But if it is zero it does not mean you are free from arterial or heart disease–it only means that you don’t have old enough deposits to have calcium. You can still be floating in non-observable atherosclerotic deposits that can still eventually kill you if they break free.
Test is absolutely recommended if you have a doc who wants to stuff you with statins.
Glad to hear you are doing well, do they have you on any other “heart” drugs for rate control?
Just to pick up on gadgets (I have AFib). I got the Frontier but then returned it as I found the stress/worry prior to exercise about what it might find outweighed any benefits!
I then discovered Wellue, who have AI analysis in their products which have been superb! I’ve been getting loads of ectopic, PVC, PACS etc (which I eventually traced to the Flecainide which I’ve been taking). They do seem to do extra discounts on top of what the website shows, I ordered the 24 hour device last week after having tried the personal one.