The exercise treatment for angina
Before discussing the type of exercise I did to deal with
angina I will give a brief account of the original symptoms.
The angina symptom was a squeezing sensation in the middle
of my chest just behind my breast bone. The first time it occurred
I was walking about 30 yards to my letter box and when I was
halfway across the lawn the symptom occurred. I kept walking
but the squeezing got tighter and felt ominous so I stopped.
After about a minute it eased so I continued to the letter box.
The symptom continued to be a problem thereafter, particularly
when I walked up and down the slight hill to the local shops.
On the way down the hill, for example, the symptom would occur
about every 50 yards and if I tried to continue it got worse
so I would stop, wait about a minute for it to pass, and then
continue. On the uphill journey I would have to stop more frequently,
and I noticed that I would also have to stop more often if I
was walking against a head wind, or carrying groceries, and on
cold days I had to stop more often than on warm days. I also
noticed that if I was doing any form of consistent mild exertion,
such as walking, the symptom would be a problem for about 15
minutes but then I could proceed without problems for an hour
or two. I later learned that this was because, during sustained
regular exercise, the coronary arteries dilate after 15 minutes
and allow more blood to reach the heart muscle.
Over the next two months the squeezing sensation became gradually
more frequent in relation to less exertion and ultimately I found
it impossible to sustain mild exertion because the symptom did
not stop recurring after 15 minutes of activity. I had to walk
at a slower pace and eventually decided to drive my car the short
distance to the local shops to avoid the symptom. Ultimately
the problem became so disabling that I was unable to do anything
of significance so I consulted a doctor. He diagnosed angina
and prescribed me a drug called Noten and referred me to a specialist
(who later confirmed the diagnosis and recommended urgent coronary
bypass surgery). When I left the clinic I had to go to the chemist
to get the drug, but to do that I had to go about 30 yards up
a relatively steep hill. I was unable to go straight up, so I
avoided the straight footpath, and chose to zig-zag up the driveway
alongside it, stopping each time as I changed direction. It took
me quite a few minutes to go that very short distance. (I had
also noticed a few days before that roads were built like small
hills, highest in the middle, and lowest at the edges so that,
on rainy days, the rain would run off the road into the side
gutters and flow away to drains. I noticed this fact because
when I tried to walk across a road I would have to stop and rest
before reaching the middle, and then I could get over the top
and proceed down the other side. For this reason I decided to
walk around the block on a flat footpath, and avoid crossing
the road. However, if I did have to cross a road, I had to watch
carefully for traffic because if a car came speeding along I
would not be able to hurry or run to get out of its way).
When I started taking the drug called Noten I noticed that
the squeezing symptom was less of a problem, and was replaced
by a vaguer sensation within my chest which indicated that the
squeezing pain was about to happen, so, with this warning I was
able to stop before it occurred, and that enabled me to control
the problem more effectively.
I decided to treat the problem by using a vegetarian diet
to remove all fat from my bloodstream with the ultimate objective
of cleaning away the fatty deposits which were blocking my arteries
and I used the symptom to monitor my progress. I did this by
walking until the warning symptom occurred and then stopping,
and resting a minute or so, and then proceeding. For example,
when I started I walked several times a day (1-3 times) around
the local street block (about 700 yards) on a mostly flat footpath,
and would have to stop about every 20 yards. There was a slight
rise on this journey for about 70 yards where I would have to
slow down and stop several times, and the driveway at the end
was sloped so I had to slow and stop several times in that 10
yard distance as well.
After a month of exercising several times a day with this
regime I had a vague idea of improvement in the distance I could
walk without incurring the symptom, and by the second month it
was still not obvious that I was better than the previous month
but it was somewhat more obvious that I had improved since the
start, and by the 3rd month I knew for certain that I was traveling
further with less symptoms. I had also become adventurous enough
to travel part way down the nearby sloped roadways, but initially
had quite a bit of trouble with the return uphill journey, having
to slow and stop more frequently to minimise symptoms. By the
sixth month I was able to perform my previously accustomed levels
of exertion (brisk walking) without too much trouble, so I decided
to stop taking the medication, and, by being judicious with my
exercise (not doing anything suddenly, vigorously, or strenuously)
I was able to avoid symptoms. I still felt the need to be somewhat
cautious, but two years later I was exercising quite vigorously
at times, without any need to be particularly cautious, and I
was confident that the symptoms had passed. I have not had those
symptoms in the 5 years since. M.B.
Angina and emotions
Various factors other than exertion were likely
to induce a sense of uneasiness in my chest which included the
sense that continuing in that situation would bring on the squeezing
symptom. These included instances of anger, especially sustained
anger, anticipation, excitement, and even engaging in lengthy
conversations. I dealt with these problems in the following manner.
Anger - I often
listened to talk back radio shows for light entertainment to
observe the hijinks of politicians making promises to get votes
and then justifying their reasons for breaking them later, and
scientists telling lies in the name of science to deceive the
public with their veil of respectability. However, sometimes
these interviews would annoy me and as the string of nonsense
continued I would become angry and start feeling a sense of uneasiness
in my chest, with the added impending sense of the squeezing
sensation, so I would turn off the radio. Ultimately I found
it easier to avoid talk back radio shows altogether and switched
channels to the easy listening music stations.
Excitement - I
sometimes found it entertaining to watch football games on television,
but often, in close games, the scores of each team would be within
a goal of each other half way through the last quarter, and if
an opposing team kicked two goals to get ahead with only 5 minutes
to the siren I would feel uneasy in the chest and have to turn
the TV off, and then turn it on again 1/2 hour later to learn
of the final score on the evening news programme.
Talking - When
I engaged in general social conversations of any sort, without
there being any argument, or ill-will, the simple act of talking
would tend to bring on the uneasy feeling in my chest, so I tended
to stop talking in mid-conversation. (for example, if I was telling
a joke I would often have to stop before reaching the punch line).
I assume this was because, in order to produce voice, air has
to be pushed from the lungs through the vocal chords in the throat.
This meant that less oxygen was available in my lungs for the
blood stream, and therefore less oxygen was reaching my heart
muscle.
Coffee - I also noticed that when I drank coffee, especially more than
one cup a day, that the symptoms seemed to be more readily induced
and to increase in frequency and intensity, especially in relation
to anger, excitement, or conversation, so I stopped drinking
coffee.
While I was experiencing the symptoms of angina, and for some time after they stopped, I adopted the practice of avoiding the provocation
of annoying talk back radio shows, and I avoided watching football
games, and I avoided lengthy conversations and drinking coffee. I
cannot recall the exact time frame but it would have been for
6 - 18 months afterwards. Now, 6 years later I listen to talk back shows,
watch football grand finals, and talk as much as I like, and
I drink coffee about 3 times a week, but I do not get those symptoms
anymore. M.B.
My family diet and heart disease history
There have been general discussions about
health relating to the fact that some diseases run in families.
With regard to heart disease it has been suggested that this
may be due to inherited limitations in the ability to metabolise cholesterol, in which case it would be genetic,
or due to the fact that the children adopted the same diet practices
of their parents, in which case the cause would be familial.
In my case I think that the predominant factor is familial as
will be evident with the following information.
As a child I lived in a house which had
a large back yard with many fruit trees and a chook yard. My mother would make a lot of home made jam from the fruit but would add
a large amount of white sugar into the recipe. We also
had boiled, poached, or scrambled eggs, and roast chicken
in many of our meals. My mother had a penchant for adding butter to all of her foods such as carrots, and mashed potatoes, and
she would use butter extensively in sandwiches. She also liked cheese and cream toppings and would often refer
to the fact that it was bad for her figure but that never stopped
her from eating those things. By the age of 40 she was quite overweight (pear shaped) and she died of heart disease at age 51.
My father ate the same foods but had less of a penchant
for butter and cream, however he smoked like a train and drank like a fish. He had to retire from his job in his
late 50's because he started getting pains in his legs which made it difficult to deliver letters as a postman on his
push bike. This pain was due to congestion of the arteries in
his legs. One night when I visited him at his club and had a
game of table tennis I noticed that whenever he exerted himself
to hit the ball vigorously his face would go quite red, probably
due to his problem with high blood pressure. One day I
heard that he was playing table tennis, and after finishing a
game he went towards the bar with a cigarette in his mouth and
an empty beer glass in his hand and he collapsed with a heart
attack. An ambulance arrived 5 minutes later but he died
on the way to the hospital at the age of 61. He had always told
me that he knew that his smoking and drinking was bad for his
health but that his whole social life involved such activities
and he enjoyed it so he was not going to stop. He only wished
that one day he would die suddenly and not have to linger with
a disabling illness in a hospital for many boring years like
his friend Nobby. He got his wish.
My brother ate the same foods, but I note that he tended
to drink a lot of milk as a teenager. As an adult he smoked prolifically
and drank a lot of coca cola. I often saw him drink a
1 litre bottle of coke in a few seconds and go back for more.
In his late thirties he had to use an asthma like puffer, which
I think was to help his breathlessness which was related to his
ailing heart. He died of a heart attack at the age of
42 and at some stage I learned that his coronary arteries were
90% blocked.
In my own case - my diet - I can remember
as a child putting 2 wheat bix or a handful of corn flakes into
a bowl and then filling it with milk and topping it with a lot
of white sugar and then eating it for breakfast. My mother would
make jam sandwiches, or fritz, cheese, and tomato sandwiches
on white bread for lunch. (fritz is a very fatty compressed mince
meat which is cut into thick slices for sandwiches). I would
also have a lot of white bread, butter, and vegemite sandwiches
because my mother said that vegemite contained vitamin B which
was good for health. We often had boiled or scrambled eggs, or
egg and lettuce sandwiches, and on most Sundays we would have
a roast beef meal with mashed potato, carrots, cauliflower, and
cabbage. The mashed potato was topped with a generous dob of
butter while still hot, and the meat was drowned in gravy. My
mother would drain off the fat from the roast and store it as
lard and later use it in cooking fried meals. As an young adult
I had white bread rolls with lettuce, tomato, gherkin, and a
thin slice of meat and thought it was a healthy lunch. Some time
later I was living in poverty and scrimped on meals and ate cheap
foods. These included liver and kidneys for iron, and offal.
I would follow the media health advice that the average
Australian diet was healthy and did not need modification
as recommended by the loopy fringe vegetarians and health extremists,
so I would have the occasional treat of ice cream or chocolate,
and I would have fish and chips for one meal, pizza for another,
and greasy chicken and chips for another throughout a week. I
would also eat at least 3 loaves of wholemeal bread per week,
and to improve its taste I would spread it with margarine which
was promoted as being healthier for the heart than butter. The amount of margarine consumed would have been 1-2 500gm tubs per week or about 50kg per year. After developing chest symptoms and
being diagnosed with angina I became a strict vegetarian
for two years and have continued to be a less strict vegetarian
since. My vegetarian diet is vastly different to my pre-angina diet and is not "the average Australian diet" which
kills 50% of the population. For example, I have probably only consumed 3 tubs of margarine in the past 7 years. M.B.
Celebrity heart attacks
Bill Clinton - The chest pain of former
U.S. president Bill Clinton was caused by narrowing of his coronary
arteries resulting from junk food addiction, and treated by coronary
bypass surgery.
Elvis Presley - died of a heart attack which was caused by narrowing and blockage of
the coronary arteries resulting from junk food addiction.
British comedian Benny Hill would
often stay with friends in his free time, and they described
how he would spend a lot of time watching TV and eating snack
foods and drinking beer between meals and be too full to eat
the normal meals with the rest of the family. After being sacked
from his television show at the age of 62 he became disillusioned
with life and continued to eat snack foods and drink beer to
excess, and to gain weight, and three years later was diagnosed
with a heart ailment and offered bypass surgery. He refused to
have the bypass or change his diet and soon after had a heart
attack and died in his lounge chair while watching TV.
West Australian billionaire Robert Holmes-Acourt was diagnosed with diet related diabetes in his
forties, and advised of the cause, and to change his diet and
lifestyle. He refused to change his diet and continued to eat
the same sorts of meals when dining out at restaurants and died
of a heart attack in his early fifties.
Many people have shorter than normal
life expectancies because, even if they know the cause of heart
disease, they do not wish to change their lifestyle, and even
after having a heart attack the still don't alter their diet.
Famous Australian rock star Billy Thorpe was rushed to hospital at midnight 28-2-07 after
suffering from chest pains and he died of a heart attack at 2.30
a.m. A spokesman from the hospital said that sometines no matter
how many top specialists, or how much technological equipment
is available the doctors still can't save the patient. Friends
of Billy Thorpe said that he had been having health problems
in recent months and was advised to have bypass surgery, but
the declined the offer and continued with his energetic lifestyle
of strenuous physical performances of loud singing at pop concerts.
Richard Carlton's heart attacks
>Australia's most famous and controversial
investigative journalist, Richard Carlton, of 60 Minutes TV show,
has had heart attacks and bypass operations since 1988. After
his second attack in November 2003 he had another bypass, and
he died after his third heart attack on Sunday 7-5-06. In effect
he died after three lots of blood vessels silted up with cholesterol
and blocked completely.
Richard Carlton said "I'm
quite fatalistic about life really, so there was no real choice.
If these doctors would have me, then I'd put my life in their
hands. By any measure it's a huge operation (coronary bypass
surgery)".
A reporter said that shortly
before he died he was seen drinking several bottles of wine,
and eating some cheese.
I have found as a matter of
necessity that I have to take the responsibility for everything
that happens to me even if it is not my fault, and that I have
to be the master of my own destiny, and that humans can alter
the course of great rivers, and that I can influence the course
of disease and life. Sometimes I fail, usually because of my
own limitations and because of unknown and unpredictable factors,
but sometimes, as in the case of heart disease, I succeed.
Angina is a condition which
involves chest pains which indicate that the coronary arteries
are partially blocked with cholesterol, and a heart attack occurs
when they are completely blocked. I cured angina with a vegetarian
diet, and prevented an impending heart attack 9 years ago in 1997. M.B. (the current date is 10/5/06)
(now 24-1-2011)
A new note about Bill Clinton
On 25-9-10, in a radio interview, former U.S. president Bill Clinton reported that he had a stent inserted to clear a blocked artery, and that he had changed his diet to prevent it from clogging up and blocking again like his former arteries.
He said that his diet was pure vegetarian with no meat and no oils. He substituted meat with a liquid protein supplement.
Although the advice he got was attributed to two doctors who have written their own book on this subject, every word he spoke could have come directly from this website. Perhaps any of his friends who see this website might like to draw it to his attention for confirmation.
He is still alive today because of people like me who report their successes for others to think about and evaluate.
