Cardiologist’s Reminder About Blood Clot In Heart Will Make You Think About Your Stress Levels

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There are only a few things in life that are as scary as the enemy within, when your own body turns against you in unseen ways.

Diseases and conditions that are microscopic and invisible to the naked eye claims many lives each year without them even realising what happened until it’s too late.

A cardiologist at Pantai Hospital Kuala Lumpur, Dr. Muhammad Imran Abdul Hafidz, shared an intriguing post on Facebook about something as small as a “baby worm” that’s able to kill a human being from within.

A 60-year-old patient went to him with severe chest pains

In his post, Muhammad Imran spoke about a recent patient of his, who was in his 60s and had diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholestrol.

He described the patient coming to him with severe chest pains, which happens after moments of emotional stress, and not during exercise or any other physical activity.

“Aside from chest pains, he also had cold sweats, the feeling of passing out, and nausea. He has never felt this bad before,” Muhammad Imran said.

Tests and scans showed that the patient was actually experiencing a heart attack

Muhammad Imran said the results from the elderly patient’s electrocardiogram (ECG), a non-invasive test that records the electrical activity of the heart, from the hospital’s emergency department gave him a clear answer to his diagnosis:

“The ECG was showing ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI), which is basically a Grade AAA++ heart attack,” he said.

An angiogram discovered blood clots in the patient’s heart

According to Muhammad Imran, the next step to take in this situation was bring the patient to the angiogram laboratory.

An angiogram is a minimally-invasive x-ray imaging procedure to visualise blood flow and identify blockages or structural issues in arteries or veins.

“The angiogram showed that a blood vessel in his heart was 100% blocked by a blood clot. Blood flow had completely halted in one of his heart’s main arteries — Left Anterior Descending (LAD). It was clear this was caused by a blood clot,” he explained.

The solution: a tiny vacuum device

The doctor said he used a device called a Thrombuster to carry out a procedure called “thrombus aspiration”. He said to think of the device as a “mini version of a vacuum cleaner” that is inserted into the vein to suck out the blood clot.

“When we looked at what came out, it was so small, like a ‘baby worm'”, he said, adding that the tiny blood clot was the thing completely blocking the patient’s artery.

After the procedure, the patient went through an angioplasty procedure which is used to open up narrowed or blocked blood vessels.

What causes blood clots in the heart?

Muhammad Imran explained that heart attacks don’t necessarily happen during exercise. He said stress and emotions are also catalysts because stress could cause heart attacks as it releases hormones like adrenaline in high amounts.

“This hormone will increase heart rate and blood pressure, causing the heart to work harder and demand more oxygen. At the same time, the pressure could destabilise the cholestrol plaque that’s already in the heart to break. When it breaks, the body will quickly form a blood clot, and this clot is what blocks blood vessels,” he explained.

He revealed that the entire procedure was about RM28,000 and jokingly added that it costs about the same as a Perodua Axia 1.0 (manual) with an Armytrix aftermarket performance exhaust.

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