You’d be amazed at how many heart attacks and heart disease I’ve seen these past few months. And I’ve seen it in people you wouldn’t expect to have heart disease.
Stress, of course, plays such a critical role in this.
But it’s got me thinking a lot about the ways we can protect our heart, and we have a lot of tools at our disposal!
The CT Calcium Score, Cleveland Heart Panel, and the Carotid IMT Ultrasound are the best things we can do to protect your heart. This combination gives us a really good picture of where you are at.
In this article, I want to focus on the Carotid IMT Ultrasound. I get some great information out of this test. Here’s why.
The Carotid IMT Ultrasound test is just a really good test to get. It stands for Intima-Media Thickness.
It’s non-invasive, and only takes a minute or two.
It’s an ultrasound on your neck, and gives us a look at your carotid arteries and vertebrals.
Carotid IMT versus Carotid Ultrasound
The Carotid IMT Ultrasound is a much more detailed picture of your cardiovascular system than just a plain carotid ultrasound that you might see on a lifeline. That’s just going to show blockage.
This ultrasound measures the thickness of the innermost lining of your artery, which is a direct correlation of what’s going on in your heart.
It also shows carotid plaque, soft and hard plaque , and it correlates the difference between the two.
Hard plaque is calcium. Soft plaque is fiber and deposits, which is much more likely to cause a problem.
What I like about it the most is that it gives you your vascular age, which is also a direct correlation of what’s going on in your heart.
Are you close to having a heart attack or a stroke? That’s what we’re trying to find out, so that we can take preventative measures.
Again, in the world of primary care and integrative medicine, we always have heart health on our minds when it comes to our patients. Heart disease is the number one killer by far, and that’s what we’re trying to prevent.