EyeRunMD wrote:
Just had this done and was shocked to receive a 433. Now my cardiologist wants to do either a CT angiogram of my coronary arteries or cardiac catheterization (with angiogram). I ride with a group of 20-30 year old guys (I am 53yo) so my heart rate is maxed out on multiple occasions (and without any chest pain or new excess fatigue or any other adverse cardiac signs). Now that I have this calcium score, and after reading about other's heart "misadventures" on here, I am paranoid about being the "fit looking" guy with hidden heart disease. Genetics may have doomed me as everyone on my father's side has had stents placed and/or open heart surgery (none of them were healthy eaters or active).
I've read papers that endurance athletes can have calcium scores over 300 without the associated cardiac risk percentages as inactive adults but I am not going to put weight to that until I get further testing.
As you know, since I've PM'd you earlier, you are doing the right things to check things out from a cardiac risk standpoint and you will work with your providers to do the right things to mitigate long term risk.
There have been lots of threads that I've commented on after several athletes in the community had cardiac issues and posed so I'm not going to pull them all up. But here are a few threads that may be worth a read.
Here's a link to an article I wrote for ST a while back
What Endurance Athletes Need to Know about Heart Health
https://www.slowtwitch.com/...art_Health_7911.html
'Statins and training'
https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...st=last-6643505#last
'Worried about my heart'
https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...tring=dtoce#p6619853
'Heart health screening thread'
https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...st=last-7150717#last
plus, Tom's thread
I'm 51, and just had a 5x coronary artery bypass graft (cabg) surgery with no prior symptoms : Triathlon Forum: Slowtwitch Forums
Also, since this always comes up and people want to know what the real risk is about competing in triathlon once diagnosed with heart disease...so to be complete, I'll throw in this one
'Sudden death in triathlon'
https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...riathlon_P6427784-2/
Information about coronary artery calcium scoring
https://www.acc.org/...-cardiovascular-risk
You might like the article that Aaron wrote regarding athletes.
https://www.ahajournals.org/...LATIONAHA.117.028750
Good luck with your upcoming tests.