3 months post HA update - AMA
Hi everyone,
I wanted to share my journey thus far, in hopes that this may help at least one person. YMMV, and happy to discuss any of the below. AMA - will not be time bound and I’ll answer as much as I can in time, but could get delayed due to work and life.
I had my HA exactly 3 months ago while on vacation. Had 3 stents placed. Two in RCA, one in LAD. Funnily enough, I’m still fighting my insurance to get it reimbursed - they declined the claims because there wasn’t prior authorization (for an emergency procedure, but go figure)
Before my HA, I was a smoker for 20 plus years and diabetic for four years. Since the event, I’ve fully cleaned up my act - no smoking, no weed, barely any drinking. As I did a lot of research while on medical leave due to the HA, the main thing I learned is that this is a metabolic disease first, and it is insulin resistance that leads to fatty liver, visceral fat, and eventually plaque that gets unstable and ruptures. The few (big) changes that I made were:
Quit smoking (and marijuana) the day of the attack
Stopped eating processed foods
Cook and eat only whole foods that I cook
Healthy fats in good amounts - one avocado a day, olive oil for cooking(at least 2 tbsp), fatty fish (sardines and salmon) twice a week. Primary focus on monounsaturated fatty acids.
Huge impact - Time restricted feeding / intermittent fasting. Stop eating at 7 pm, first meal of the day at 12-1 PM (lunch) - total 18 hours fasting, 6 hour eating window. This is what allowed the metabolic switch (glucose to ketones for energy)
Huge impact - Bought a continuous glucose monitor - insurance doesn’t cover it, but doc prescribed it and it has made a big difference in helping me understand how food, exercise, sleep impact my blood glucose
Zone 2 cardio (slow jog) - 3 miles everyday;l15 miles / week. strength training 3X per week (not heavy, just resistance increasing progressively)
Sauna 4-5 times per week - helps a lot with keeping resting heart rate down
Meditation and Yoga - 1-2 times per week if I can
6- 7 hours of sleep
Therapy - once per week
ChatGPT as a second opinion provider, labs analyzer, research doer, advisor, emergency therapist when the urge to smoke comes thru a craving (ChatGPT prompt - urgent. Have a bad craving. Bring me off the ledge. 2 min talk track). See one of my older posts on how it helped save my life by diagnosing my HA while my buddies downplayed it as acidity. YMMV.
Medications: Brilinta 2X/day, 81 mg aspirin, Rosuvastatin (10mg), Ezetimbe (10mg), Losartan (25 mg), Metformin, Mounjaro (5mg, reduced to 2.5mg this month)
Supplements: COQ10, Omega 3 1000mg, Vit D3 (5000iu), Magnesium Glycinate (480mg), Calcium (Caltrate), Vit B12, One a day multivitamin.
Results: August 2025 vs April 14, 2026 (Advanced lipid panel has no past comparison, started post HA)
Weight: Down from 182lbs in August 2025 to 159.8 lbs
LDL - from 115 to 26
Triglycerides - from 165 to 47
HDL - from 39 to 59
Cholesterol - from 187 to 98
Cholesterol/HDLC ratio: from 4.2 to 1.7
Triglycerides / HDL (rough measure of insulin resistance): from 4.2 to 0.8
Non HDL Cholesterol: from 142 to 39
Apolipoprotein A1: 160
Apo B: 39
ApoB/A1 ratio: 0.24
HS CRP: <0.2
LP (a): <10
Fasting Glucose: from 105-110 to 85-90
HbA1c: From 6.3 to 5.7
Thankful for all the knowledge I have received on this forum. Happy to share more and answer any questions.