Bill Goes Nuclear

It’s time to go beyond lab work and see how Bill  is doing with the lifestyle changes we put in place two years ago.  So here we are at the nuclear stress test lab, preparing for a followup with Dr. Crandall.

Nuclear Stress Test… sounds kind of ominous, doesn’t it?  It goes by a number of different names but this one’s called nuclear myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI), and it will be done to assess the health of his heart as well as blood flow to the heart. After injecting a radioactive liquid called a tracer into his bloodstream, a series of heart pictures (32 in Bill’s case) will be taken with a special camera before and then again after exercise while his vessels are dilated to assess blood flow. As Bill’s nurse explained, “blockages don’t dilate.”  In his book, The Simple Heart Cure, Dr. Crandall writes, “the heart lights up like a lantern wherever there’s good blood profusion.  If an area of the heart remains dark, we know that blood isn’t flowing as it should.” Continue reading Nuclear Stress Test →