You didn't mention if you have children. I remember sharing with someone who had lost her husband and daughter to heart disease. I was sharing about the movie Widow Maker, which shows people about your husband's age dying and the impact of the loved one left. There was a lot about stents, which I really don't understand other then it really is about the food, which Dr. McDougall shared they didn't talk about enough. You might watch that for yourself, and your husband might find it interesting as the main character changed his lifestyle, prior but it can be post to having a stent. And what I witness in care giving, people don't understand that they always don't just die, and living without the consequences of chronic disease can be avoided as Dr. McDougall shares they are food borne. It is always not so easy to get out of these bodies. I enjoyed Dr. McDougall's MS online video, as he shares we don't talk enough about a natural death where the organs shut down at one time. Wishing you and your husband the best health with the goal of living independently with the least amount of help to your last breath.
I have heard Dr. McDougall on a video share he would just wish a diet change would be suggested for two weeks, prior to any surgery. And luckily, my son didn't have medical insurance and did change his diet when having chest discomfort and it went away. Of course his old habits came back, but I know he can't deny the relief he experienced.
Dr. Fuhrman in his "End of Heart Disease" shares about someone who did change their diet while experiencing HD…
Barry’s Story: Dramatic Change in Twelve Weeks
I went to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to give a lecture to a large church group of more than seven hundred people. Gaby Henderson coordinated this event. She had lost more than 100 pounds following my advice and had kept the weight off for more than four years. She was excited about sharing my Nutritarian approach with her community.
She had mentioned to me in a prior e-mail correspondence that her husband, Barry, age 53, was experiencing increasing chest pressure and shortness of breath with exertion. It had slowly worsened in intensity, to the point where he could no longer run or even walk uphill. He called his diet “Fuhrman-light” because he still ate out almost every day, in addition to eating the healthy food Gaby prepared for them in the evening. There was Barry, sitting right in the front row of the church, ready to listen to my lecture.
While we were waiting for people to arrive, I asked him how he was feeling, and he told me that recently the pain had become significantly worse. He had been experiencing continuous chest pain, even at rest, since the previous day. In fact, he was having chest pressure and significant discomfort sitting right there in his chair. Wow, I thought to myself. He had really waited too long to get “on board.”
I told him that he was now in a potentially life-threatening position called “unstable angina,” since his condition had advanced to the point that he felt chest pressure even at rest that worsened with activity. He needed to go the emergency room immediately; he could even have been experiencing a heart attack at that very moment.
I don’t know whether it was because of his religious beliefs or his fear of medical care, but he refused. Barry said he would rather die than go to the hospital and be treated for heart disease, and he asked me whether I would still help him.
So I told him that he and his family needed to be aware that he could have a fatal heart attack at any time, because his condition was unstable, and he was placing himself at extremely high risk.
I was concerned that a heart attack was imminent. Certainly, I did not want Barry to die, and I did not want to be held responsible if something bad happened. But he adamantly refused medical care. Instead, he agreed to let me totally control what he put into his mouth.
I told him that he should not make any decisions about what to eat or not eat. I would make those decisions for him, and I would also talk to Gaby about his dietary and supplemental regimen so that she could help him, too.
When he began the Nutritarian diet program, Barry, who was 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighed 183 pounds and had an average blood pressure of 160/ 108 mmHg. Within three months, he lost 30 pounds and his angina symptoms faded away. The sensation of chest pressure lightened in a few days, and within a week he no longer experienced chest pain at rest. His blood pressure came down to 130/ 80 during that first week. After two to three weeks, he was able to walk a few blocks without experiencing chest pain. After eight weeks, he was able to jog without symptoms. And after twelve weeks, he was able to do any amount of physical activity, even run fast, without any signs of angina. After one year on the program, his weight was down to 154 pounds, his blood pressure averaged 112/ 75 mmHg, and he continued to live in excellent health without any angina symptoms.
In twelve weeks, Barry went from being a cardiac cripple, unable to walk without pain and hovering close to death’s door, to feeling normal— all without a stress test, cardiac catheterization, stent placement, or bypass surgery. He would still have been recovering and rehabbing from bypass surgery at that twelve-week point if he had gone to the emergency room, yet in the same time frame, after a different choice, he was essentially cured.
Barry never should have waited until his condition was so precarious to seek help. But even with the most severely obstructed patients, this life-threatening condition can completely resolve quickly with dietary intervention alone. Of course, Barry’s atherosclerosis was not entirely gone within those twelve weeks, but it will continue to lessen as he stays on the program. Most importantly, his vulnerable (most dangerous) plaque transformed and became nonvulnerable and nonobstructing.
This simple, illustrative case makes an important point and is an excellent teaching tool, especially when you recognize that bypass surgery and angioplasty do not prevent future cardiac events or extend life span in heart patients. These procedures just relieve symptoms temporarily, like a Band-Aid, while the disease process remains and advances throughout the coronary vasculature. 1 In Barry’s case, his reversal reflected a true reduction of risk, not a temporary fix like one gets from drugs and surgical interventions.
Fuhrman, Joel (2016-04-05). The End of Heart Disease: The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease (Kindle Location 360). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Aloha, patty
