Acute Myocardial Infarction - (Heart
Attack)
From our book
Bypassing Bypass, published in 2002 |
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In an old Townsend Letter for
Doctors, February/March, 1993 they pointed out costs of
different therapies:
Conventional Therapy:
Fibrinolytic (“Clot-busting”)
drugs such as tissue plasminogen activator (TPA) or streptokinase.
Estimated annual cost of
conventional therapy: TPA costs $2,300 per dose, streptokinase $280
per dose. Approximately $500 million to $1 billion spent annually on
these drugs.
Alternative therapy:
Intravenous magnesium.
Controlled studies show that magnesium reduces the death rate from
acute myocardial infarction as much as, or even more than, the
fibrinolytic drugs and has fewer side effects. Magnesium costs about
$5 per dose.
Estimated annual cost savings
with alternative treatment: The cost of magnesium is negligible, so
approximately $500 million to $1 billion would be saved annually if
doctors used magnesium instead of fibrinolytic drugs.
[Sheckter M, Hod H, Marks N,
Behar S, Kaplinsky E, et al, Beneficial effect of magnesium sulfate
in acute myocardial infarction. Am J Cardiol 1990;66:271-274]
If you ask your doctor what
causes a heart attack (myocardial infarction) he will tell you what
he learned in medical school: heart attacks usually occur when a
blood clot forms inside a coronary artery at the site of an
atherosclerotic plaque. The blood clot cuts off blood flow to part
of the heart, starving it of oxygen and the heart muscle begins to
die. In a small percentage of cases, blood flow is cut off due to a
vasospasm (the muscles in the artery wall contract suddenly) which
constricts the artery and flow is reduced depending on how much
plaque has been already deposited. Either way, atherosclerosis is
the main cause and oxygen deprivation is the final result. Forty
percent of all first heart attacks end in death.
Now, ask her/him one more
question: Why do some people who suffer heart attacks have little or
no clogged arteries?
Again, we must fall back on our
hypercoagulabilty state, the infections in our blood, and the fact
that our blood is as thick as 10W40 oil.
The heart has many blood
vessels, not just the cardiac arteries. The heart muscle is very
powerful, and is fueled by these blood vessels, which also act as
the route by which toxins and waste products are eliminated from the
heart. If the blood is thick, it doesn’t flow through these tiny
vessels efficiently and doesn’t efficiently clean up the wastes. The
heart becomes acidic and cells begin to die. When enough cells are
killed, the heart stops.
Thus, again, we have a
nutritional problem. The blood must be thin enough to both feed the
heart muscle and to facilitate the exchange of waste products.
Again we recommend the blood
thinners we spoke of earlier. We will do a wrap-up of all the
supplements good for the heart in an article/chapter dedicated to
just that. But, in the mean while:
Everyone should take a course in
CPR, but keep in mind that only 28% of heart attack victims are
resuscitated using standard CPR. On the web, at the American Heart
Association’s web site (http://www.amhrt.org)
we discovered a method of CPR that increases the chances of
resuscitation to 53%. Here is how it goes: instead of chest
compressions only, alternate between the abdomen (at the navel). You
perform 16 compressions, alternating, 8 to the chest, and 8 to the
abdomen, followed by two full breaths. Compressions should be
performed at about 80 to 100 per minute. The secret is this:
compression on the chest gets the blood flowing out of the heart;
compression to the abdomen helps blood return to the heart. They
mention in the article that the pressure to the abdomen is 100
ml/Hg. The only way you can tell if you are doing this right is to
practice by pressing down on an inflated blood pressure cuff till
the mercury reaches 100. It is always best to get proper training in
CPR. If they are up to date on this method, they should be able to
help you get a feel for it.
Finally, when all else fails,
try this trick from the Orient: acupressure. The point is called
Shao Ch’ung, or Heart 9. It is located on the little finger, inside
corner, base of the fingernail. You can press it and hold it, though
it is better to dig your fingernail into it. The basis of this
procedure is this: we are energy. Though we might not feel it, or
see it, or believe it, we have lines of energy running throughout
our bodies; energy lines that can be measured by sensitive
electrical devices. When the heart stops, there is a blockage in
energy. Not only is there blockage in the electrical impulses from
the brain to the heart, but there is a blockage in the heart
meridian (that invisible line of energy to your heart). Pressing
this point firmly restores energy to the heart, and amazingly
enough, this technique has been known to work after CPR has failed.
If you want to carry something
in your first aid kit for a heart attack, carry a cayenne tincture.
Even a bottle of Tabasco Sauce® might be good enough. Dr Christopher
discovered that a cup of cayenne tea, one tsp of cayenne in a cup of
hot water, stopped a heart attack in under three minutes. If you
feel one coming on, try a few droppers-full of cayenne tincture and
if that doesn’t stop it, then nitroglycerine wouldn’t work either.
As Dr Richard Schulze says, “You
cannot die of a heart attack if you have a bright red face. It’s
just physically impossible.”
* * *
Everyone should learn CPR
(cardiopulmonary resuscitation). Our knowledge about resuscitation
techniques is always growing and changing. For example, it has
recently been discovered that applying an upward pressure on the
stomach area seems to help (this is applied in between the rhythmic
pressure to the chest, but we here are not qualified to teach you
CPR and you must attend a certified class to get your
certification.)
However, we do know something
they do not teach you in CPR classes. This information comes from
China and Traditional Oriental Medicine. In the Orient, if CPR does
not work, there is one acupuncture point that you can work on. It is
said that 25 to 35% of unsuccessful resuscitations could be turned
around using this simple acupressure technique.
The name of the point is Heart
9, or Shao Ch’ung (meaning Lesser Rushing). It is located along the
inside of the little finger (for some reason I was told to use the
left hand) next to the fingernail. Traditionally this point is used
to revive a person who has suffered a sudden loss of consciousness
and to clear the brain. Squeeze hard!
Shao Ch’ung is
marked here by the ♥
on the little finger of the left hand.
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