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Old Wed, May-29-19, 14:33
khrussva's Avatar
khrussva khrussva is offline
Say NO to Diabetes!
Posts: 8,671
 
Plan: My own - < 30 net carbs
Stats: 440/228/210 Male 5' 11"
BF:Energy Unleashed
Progress: 92%
Location: Central Virginia - USA
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Well that turned out to be in infuriating exercise in futility and a waste of $49.95. I'll give him a nickel for the comment that he has "no reason to doubt my new score." He said that they did upgrade to a whole new machine and that might explain the differences in the score; though he admitted that this was only a guess. He really had no idea. What my new CAC score means to him is that I still have significant CAD and his recommendation is that I should be on a statin and daily aspirin. As far as the significant downward trend in my scores? "I don't know. I couldn't tell you." He has no explanation, nor did he care one iota. Again, he only looks at the one number -- the Total Agatsten score -- and makes his recommendations accordingly. I explained that my point with the followup exam was to see if my lifestyle changes are having a positive effect and halting or possibly reversing CVD. "Sorry I can't be of more help" is all I got. Blinking robots is what they are, just like my doctor's fixation on LDL-C. There is no interest in diving deeper. Standards of care robots.

I was misled when I made this appointment. I was told that he would be able to review the image data with me. The stated purpose of my appointment with him was explicitly to review and compare my 2017 results to my latest scan. The reality was that he had no idea why I was there. He told me that he never sees the image data -- he only gets the same report that I do. I let him know that I was quite upset about how this appointment was turning out. He was nice enough to offer to give the retiring Dr. Phillips a call to see if he could check into it. Dr. Phillips was the authority who reviewed and signed off on my latest scan. He is the one that I wanted to talk to in the first place. So hopefully there will be more information to come.

I guess that the only good news in this is that the cardiologist said that the new machine had been in use for about a year and is supposed to be more accurate. If the machine is producing bogus results, then you'd think that the issue might have come up by now. But then again, they don't seem to care about the actual score or tends from the previous - other than the fact that there is a score and calcium is present.
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