Stents And A Road Accident. Would / Could The Stents Get Damaged?

[pattayadingo]

Maybe a bit of an odd question but here goes.

In a car accident where you hit a solid object at 60+ kmph and write off the car and you suffer bad pain to the breastbone from the seat belt jarring, are the arterial stents likely to be damaged or move at all? And can that affect blood pressure?

An X-ray showed nothing but would an x-ray show the stents or do they need to be scanned somehow?

thanks.

[Sheryl]

Stents can be seen on Xray.

You would be morel likely to damage your artery than the stent and even that would take a severe penetrating trauma, unlikely to happen if wearing a seatbelt.

[zzdocxx]

PD, the questions as I understand them really boil down to this:

Has the accident damaged or compromised the function of your stents?

The stents function to keep the blood supply flowing to the heart muscle, or myocardium.

If they were not working properly, you might or might not experience symptoms consistent with poor oxygen (blood) supply to the myocardium, eg. shortness of breath, pain similar to what you may have had before the stents were out in, eg. angina, chest pressure, chest pain, etc. you could? just feel crappy, no energy sweating, etc.

The thing is, you have chest pain now because you got banged up pretty good,w so it could be hard to sort out why you have pain in your chest, am I right?

So the question is, has the blood supply to the myocardium been affected?

You could get some testing done, but the cost might factor in to that decision. Eg. A perfusion scan or a stress echo. You could google those.

I'll tell you what else, the blood pressure being too high is not a good thing for someone with a cardiac history ie someone who has stents. It could be due to pain or even stres, but you ought to get it under control by adequate pain management, BP meds, or whatever is suitable to treat the cause.

There are a few other things blunt trauma to the chest can cause but I am reading that your main concerns are compromise of the stents, pain, and elevated BP, have I got that right?

You could wait to see if this all clears up, especially if you don't think you have symptoms indicating compromised blood flow per above, though it could be hard to sort it out.

Seriously, 60mph ? ? ? Was your vehicle totaled? That would be a life changing experience for me.

Good luck with it.

[pattayadingo]

Stents can be seen on Xray.

You would be morel likely to damage your artery than the stent and even that would take a severe penetrating trauma, unlikely to happen if wearing a seatbelt.

Thanks for that Sheryl.

[pattayadingo]

PD, the questions as I understand them really boil down to this:

Has the accident damaged or compromised the function of your stents?

The stents function to keep the blood supply flowing to the heart muscle, or myocardium.

If they were not working properly, you might or might not experience symptoms consistent with poor oxygen (blood) supply to the myocardium, eg. shortness of breath, pain similar to what you may have had before the stents were out in, eg. angina, chest pressure, chest pain, etc. you could? just feel crappy, no energy sweating, etc.

The thing is, you have chest pain now because you got banged up pretty good,w so it could be hard to sort out why you have pain in your chest, am I right?

So the question is, has the blood supply to the myocardium been affected?

You could get some testing done, but the cost might factor in to that decision. Eg. A perfusion scan or a stress echo. You could google those.

I'll tell you what else, the blood pressure being too high is not a good thing for someone with a cardiac history ie someone who has stents. It could be due to pain or even stres, but you ought to get it under control by adequate pain management, BP meds, or whatever is suitable to treat the cause.

There are a few other things blunt trauma to the chest can cause but I am reading that your main concerns are compromise of the stents, pain, and elevated BP, have I got that right?

You could wait to see if this all clears up, especially if you don't think you have symptoms indicating compromised blood flow per above, though it could be hard to sort it out.

Seriously, 60mph ? ? ? Was your vehicle totaled? That would be a life changing experience for me.

Good luck with it.

Yes, the car is totalled. Sadly. But that body shell saved me. ( 2nd major crash with cars written off . The two accidents 40 years apart !! )

With the blood pressure rising from my usual 120/80 is why I asked about the stents.

OK, regards the blood pressure ....

Yes, I have been through a lot of pain in the last 3 months. First the appendicitis and removal of a leaking appendix and the pain after though not severe was there for 7 weeks or so.

Now this accident. Broken toe bone protruding through the skin, toe nail ripped out by the root, cuts and glass shards in the hands and that bad pain to the chest.

Being treated every day to clean and disinfect the toe they take my blood pressure. Averaging 165 - 172 / 80 & 88 (Not good). This is about 2 weeks of readings.

Prior to these readings I had several readings done in the UK in February and March at the doctors and the hospital and they were all 120 / 80.

Todays reading for BP was 172 / 88.

I am being treated with HCTZ Hydrochlorothiazide 25mg once a day.

Doctor here has done liver, kidney function & urine tests. Lab results below (if needed)

Liver all were good.

Total Protein 6.6

Albumin 4.0

Total Bilirubin 0.4

Direct Bilirubin 0.1

AST (SGOT) 10

ALT (SGPT) 22

Alkaline Phosphate 88

Kidney

Creatinine 1.4 (slightly over limit)

total cholesterol 197 (under)

Triglyceride 181 (30 over)

HDL cholesterol 61 (good)

LDL Cholesterol 97 (Under)

Urine

Colour - Yellow, Appearance - Turbid, Glucose & Protein - Negative, Specific gravity - 1.020, PH - 5.0, Blood - Negative, Ketone - Negative, WBC - 0-1, RBC - OK, Epithelieal cells - Squamous epi cell :0-1, Bacteria - Many, Amorphous - moderate.

[zzdocxx]

It seems the BP is a bit high, i'm presuming they check that when you are relaxed and i'm also going to presume the pain has been adequately treated.

Probably need to make sure the blood pressure readings are communicated to yuor regular physician -- it sounds like they are not quite doing the job.that is if evrything else is under control -- pain, stress, etc.

When was this accident? How did they treat yout toe? Any other injuries?

You need to start taking extra good care of yourself, a couple of things ike this and you can get really deconditioned. The older we are the longer it take to bounce back.

OK keep us posted.

[pattayadingo]

It seems the BP is a bit high, i'm presuming they check that when you are relaxed and i'm also going to presume the pain has been adequately treated.

Probably need to make sure the blood pressure readings are communicated to yuor regular physician -- it sounds like they are not quite doing the job.that is if evrything else is under control -- pain, stress, etc.

When was this accident? How did they treat yout toe? Any other injuries?

You need to start taking extra good care of yourself, a couple of things ike this and you can get really deconditioned. The older we are the longer it take to bounce back.

OK keep us posted.

Injections to the toe to anaesthetise it. Nail removed. Bone set. Aluminium splint over the toe. Next x-rays on the 14th. I'm hoping it has set.

The toe was the worst of it in reality. everything else has sorted itself out.

When the BP is back down I'll obviously feel better.

<p>Yeah, with old(er) age it does take longer to recover, but that has its benefits of seeing more nurses

[Sheryl]

Do you have your own home BP monitor? If so, get one. Sometimes readings done at the doctors can be unnaturally elevated due to tension.

If you do and your BP at home, relaxed, is still elevated better the doc who manages your BP, as additional medication may be needed.

[pattayadingo]

Do you have your own home BP monitor? If so, get one. Sometimes readings done at the doctors can be unnaturally elevated due to tension.

If you do and your BP at home, relaxed, is still elevated better the doc who manages your BP, as additional medication may be needed.

I'll do that, Sheryl.

BTW. Before, I remember you mentioned the blood tests and the Thyroid test too. Looking at the kidney results on google, I noticed they do say that at least one of my elevated readings are indicative of thyroid problems. So far they have not wanted to give me a Thyroid test but I'll ask again.

[katana]

http://www.sharecare.com/question/can-a-stent-move-around-after-implementation

[pattayadingo]

http://www.sharecare...-implementation

Cool

Thanks. I could not find something similar on google.

[Pacificperson]

Some pain medicines can raise your blood presure.

[Sheryl]

You should definitely insist of thyroid test (TSH, T3 and T4), any lab can do it.

[phuturatica]

Your BP could be raised due to stress at the hospital?! Sometimes when I was in hospital for treatment for my kidney disease my BP would be up more than usual but it was due to the stress I was under in the hospital with the treatment. Getting a home BP kit will mean you can do it when more relaxed and less stressed.