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Joining the Medical Business
 One
afternoon, in September of 2006, about a month after I turned
58, I was overtaken by excruciating chest pain, nausea, and
profuse sweating. I tried to "walk it off" for about two hours
at home but finally decided to go to the emergency room. I was
sure that if I could just get some pills that everything would
be fine. I drove myself 40 miles to the nearest hospital, and
the next thing I knew the staff was looking for a helicopter to
airlift me to a hospital that treats heart attack victims. I
remember thinking, "They must be mistaken, I could never have a
heart attack, I'm a healthy man, and I have no history of heart
disease or coronary artery disease in my immediate family."
Plus, I thought, heart attacks only happen to other people.
The doctor said that I had one artery that was completely
blocked, which had caused the heart attack, and another artery
was significantly blocked. He had opened up the completely
blocked artery with a balloon stent, but he did not do anything
with the other artery. As a CPA who had worked for a large Texas
hospital system for over 37 years, I had always told myself I
would never become a patient in a hospital's progressive
care/telemetry unit, but here I was.
That was just the beginning of my education in the
differences between how modern medicine treats heart attack
victims and how it should treat heart attack victims, in most
cases. The medical profession leaves the impression that it is
not possible for a heart attack victim to survive without drugs,
but it is simply not true. I have learned a lot along my
journey, and if at all possible, I hope to spare others from
unnecessary surgery and a lifetime of medication.
Working up to My Heart Attack
Having grown up on a farm near San Antonio, Texas, I was a
physically active youth. Even as I maintained my sedentary
office job as a CPA, I jogged and participated in organized
races, including four marathons while in my late 20's and 30's.
Even into my 40's and 50's, after my activity level dropped off
somewhat, I was sure that the amount of exercise I was getting
was sufficient. I took supplements, never smoked, my total
cholesterol ranged from 175mg/dl to 195mg/dl, and my blood
pressure and annual physicals were normal, so I generally
considered myself to be healthy. Given this, nutrition was of no
concern to me. I thought I should be able to eat anything I
wanted.
Things began to shift for me in my late 40's when I was put
on an intensive project at work that lasted several months. It
often required 12 hours of sedentary work a day and often on the
weekends, causing me to halt any type of physical activity. I
continued to eat anything and everything, and during this time I
gained 25 pounds. I became very sluggish and felt miserable by
the end of the project.
When I visited my primary care physician, he told me that I
had become a borderline diabetic and he wanted to put me on
medication. I asked him to give me some time to see if I could
lose weight before I started taking drugs. He reluctantly
consented and told me to come back in three months.
This was the first time in my life (my early 50's) that I
started to think about nutrition. I made what I thought were
some big dietary changes. My approach to healthy eating was
orange juice with a couple of boiled eggs, and either toast and
jelly or store-bought waffles and syrup for breakfast. I also
ate chicken, lots of "healthy" TV dinners, and salads (but it
was more like putting my salad on the oily salad dressing
instead of the other way around). By eating this way, along with
not sitting in front of a computer as long each day, I was able
to lose some of the weight, and my doctor ceased threatening me
with diabetic drugs. However, I continued eating sweets and
drinking soft drinks, and drank very little water. This was how
I was eating when I had my heart attack ….
Apparently Very Confused Heart Doctors
So, as I lay in the telemetry unit, following my heart attack
and the insertion of the first stent, the doctor said that he
had scheduled me the next day to have a stent inserted into the
second artery that he said was significantly blocked. I wondered
why he had not done the second artery to begin with; now I was
going to have to go through angioplasty again. That made no
sense to me, but I did not ask. Later that day I got word that
the procedure was cancelled since my insurance would not cover
an elective procedure at this hospital. I was given a bunch of
prescriptions when I was discharged and was told to make an
appointment to have the second stent put in elsewhere.
Two weeks later I arrived at another hospital for my
procedure, but at the last minute the doctor had to cancel
because of an emergency. It was then suggested that I have a
nuclear stress test done in order to determine just how bad the
second blockage was. The stress test showed that the blockage
was not significant, and the course of action was to watch the
blockage to see if I would need to have a stent put in at a
later date. If my insurance hadn't held things up at the first
hospital, and if my doctor had been available at the second
hospital, I would have been subjected to an unnecessary heart
cath procedure. Why wasn't the nuclear stress test ordered to
begin with instead of ordering angioplasty? But again I did not
ask. I began to wonder how much I should rely on these doctors.
Poisoned with Good Intentions
A little over a month after my heart attack I was scheduled
to see my primary care physician to go over my condition and
discuss the medications I was on. He explained that my heart was
beating normally and that I would need about six weeks to heal.
He also told me I would be on medication for the rest of my life
(a beta-blocker, an ace inhibitor, Zocor—a statin for
cholesterol, and an aspirin).
After this visit I started to embark on my own research.
Purely by accident I ran across Dr. John McDougall's website and
an article about avoiding heart bypass surgery and angioplasty
by changing one's diet. I was impressed that he offered
scientific proof and personal experience to support what he was
saying about the benefits of a plant-based diet. Hearing about
the experiences of others on his website was also extremely
helpful. I found that not only was there hope, but I could
actually be responsible for my own destiny through changing the
way I ate.
About six weeks after my heart attack I switched to a
plant-based diet and cut out soft drinks, fruit drinks, and
sweets. After being on the vegan diet, along with my medication,
for about six weeks, my total cholesterol dropped from 195mg/dl
to 80mg/dl, my LDL went down to 25mg/dl, and my triglycerides
came down to 150mg/dl. But I kept on taking all my medications.
It was about this time that I started having some unusual
symptoms that I thought might be caused by my heart attack. I
was trying to walk as much as I could but felt really sluggish.
Every time I bent over and straightened up I would almost pass
out. The muscles in my legs would ache and hurt so much that I
could hardly stand it at times. My blood pressure was being
forced down with drugs to a top number lower than 110 and the
bottom reading to less than 70. As I researched the drugs I was
taking, I found that they were most likely the cause of my
symptoms. When I consulted the cardiologist about my symptoms
and asked him about eliminating or lowering the dosages of some
of my drugs, he absolutely refused. After almost begging him to
at least lower the cholesterol drug (Zocor) he finally consented
to reduce it from 40mg to 20mg. This provided absolutely no
relief.
After having more blood work done (another six weeks later),
my total cholesterol actually went down even more to 79mg/dl and
my LDL was at 26mg/dl (even after I had reduced the strength of
the Zocor). My primary care physician, just like the
cardiologist, did not want to lower or eliminate any of the
drugs I was taking, even though it seemed that my vegan diet
(without a cholesterol drug) was more than sufficient to manage
my cholesterol.
Taking Self-control
After five months of taking drugs I gradually started
reducing some of them on my own to see if they were causing the
symptoms. I first eliminated the Zocor, and three months after I
had completely eliminated it I had more blood work done. My
total cholesterol, just from the vegan diet and my exercise
program, was 105mg/dl, and my LDL was 52mg/dl, both very
positive numbers (compared to my total cholesterol of 195mg/dl
and LDL of 92mg/dl before my heart attack). For the first time
since I had started taking the drugs, the pain and aching in my
legs disappeared, and now, 11 months after my heart attack, I am
off the other drugs (I still take the aspirin but have reduced
it to 81mg instead of the 325mg that the doctors insisted I
should take).
I feel fine now that I am just on the vegan diet along with
the baby aspirin and my exercise program. My blood pressure is
normal, my total cholesterol remains well under 150mg/dl, my LDL
remains under 70mg/dl, my triglycerides remain under 150mg/dl,
my glucose level remains under 100mg/dl and I am able to
run/walk seven miles a day with no side effects. My weight is
down 15 pounds since my heart attack to a level that is
considered normal. My heart rate is also significantly lower
than what it was before I had the heart attack. In addition, I
have noticed remarkable improvement in my sleep since I have
been on the plant-based diet.
Even though my primary care physician insisted that I should
be taking the standard drug regimen for heart attack survivors,
he now admits that the vegan diet may provide some real health
benefits, such as healing my arteries. He says that he does not
have any knowledge of any studies that have been done on heart
attack survivors who are just on the vegan diet alone (without
the standard medications that are normally prescribed to heart
attack survivors). As far as the cardiologists; they are
concerned and still feel the standard drug treatment is the only
way to go. As for me, I fully expect to remain on the vegan diet
the rest of my life.
Kelly Caraway
San Antonio, Texas
Dr. McDougall's Comments
When I meet patients with coronary artery (heart) disease,
without even asking, I know what medications they are taking: a
statin, beta-blocker, ace inhibitor, aspirin and Plavix. If they
have had chest pain then their recent history includes an
angiogram, angioplasty with stent, and/or a bypass operation.
Essentially all doctors practice with such little original
thought that it would appear as if they are reading from a
cookbook. This absolute uniformity of prescriptions might be
warranted if the results were as perfect as grandma's
Thanksgiving dinner. But, they are not, and the prescribing
doctors know this all too well. They know that 8 out of 8
studies performed to establish the benefits of angioplasty with
or without stents all show no improvement in survival. Every
well-read doctor knows that bypass surgery does not save lives
in the vast majority of cases, and that all patients attached to
the heart-lung machine during this major operation suffer from
brain damage, at least to some degree. Anyone interested in
reading scientific research quickly concludes that the absolute
benefits from the pile of pills patients are asked to swallow
daily are far less than those professed by their doctors; with
troublesome side effects glossed over by these same
professionals.
You might ask, "How can such a charade continue?" Don't act
surprised when I say "cash rules." Look at your own business.
Doesn't the profit margin steer every decision? Why should the
medical businesses be any different? Naïve thinking leads people
to conclude that doctors, drug companies, and hospitals work
with a higher level of ethics than everyone else because the
consequences of their efforts are people's lives—my wife, my
husband, my child are at stake. So what!
In fact, the medical businesses are more loathsome because
they operate with undeserved respect. We place doctors on a
pedestal of honesty and trust only deserved by most of our
parents. When I was growing up I knew that my mother and father
always acted in my best interest—they loved me so much no amount
of money counted more. We have transferred childhood feelings
about our parents to our doctors—with this mistake, we pay with
our money and our lives.
Doctors should not ask for, nor should they expect to
receive, such blind faith from consumers, because when these
professionals fail to deliver perfection—a perfect baby, a
perfect operation, or an absolute cure—we become more than
disappointed. We feel we have been failed by someone who
figuratively stands next to God. A commonplace reaction is to
seek revenge for such a grand disillusionment—a lawsuit.
Kelly Caraway is one of the growing numbers of patients
asking himself hard questions about the doctor and drug
businesses. Access to information once buried in libraries, and
purposefully concealed from consumers by industries, is now
available through the Internet. Not only can average people
defend themselves against harmful treatments, but they can also
take the monumental step of learning how to heal themselves
through a sensible, profit-free, diet and exercise program.
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