Symptoms of a Blocked Circumflex Artery & Its Treatment

Circumflex artery is referred as the circumflex branch present in the left coronary artery branches off via the left part of the coronary artery. Main function of circumflex artery is to supply oxygenated blood to a few specific portions of the human heart.

Circumflex artery delivers blood to the muscles of the heart. Because of this, any disease or disorder to the coronary artery may result in severe implications because of reduction in the flow of essential nutrients and oxygen to the heart. In this way, a person may suffer heart attack or causes his death.

Circumflex coronary arteries encounter a common problem called atherosclerosis, which results in severe heart problems. Here, atherosclerosis refers to the formation of plaque or any other similar type of fatty deposits in the artery’s inner lining to make it narrow or causes blockage. Fatty deposits or formation of plaque takes place during the childhood phase of a person and it consistently becomes thick as well as large during the entire life span. This thickness results in narrowing of the arteries and thereby, blockage in the blood that flows to a person’s heart.

Symptoms of blocked circumflex artery problem depend on the disease’s severity. In this case, a few people do not encounter any symptom, while others deal with angina or minor chest pain. However, there are a few people, who suffer with severe chest pain.

When only a little amount of oxygenated blood goes to a person’s heart, he will experience angina or chest pain. When the blood supply cuts off completely, it results in heart attack and muscles of the heart become inactive. However, some individuals may face heart attack but they never be able to recognize any symptoms of blocked circumflex artery. This case is silent heart attack.

When symptoms remain present, each patient may experience it in a different way. Common symptoms associated with the blocked circumflex artery problem are:

• Huge pressure, tightness, heaviness or pain in the patient’s chest, particularly, at the back portion of his breastbone.
• Pain radiating in the neck, jaw, shoulders and arms or in the back portion
• Breathing shortness
• Fatigue and weakness are also symptoms of blocked circumflex artery.

Cardiologists recommend for the following important treatments to cure the problem of blocked circumflex artery.

One of the best ways to cure the problem of atherosclerosis is to modify or reduce the various risk factors. These include reducing the elevated levels of cholesterol; avoid smoking, reducing the elevated levels of blood glucose, overcome the problem of obesity and deal with blood pressure effectively.

Doctors recommend for following two different categories of medicines to treat the problem of blocked circumflex artery problems.

• Antiplatelet medications, which intend to reduce the platelets’ ability in the patient’s blood to stick together and thereby, avoids blood clots. Examples of this category are Ticlid, Aspirin, clopidogrel and prasugrel.
• Antihyperlipidemics medications, which help patients by reducing the fats or lipids present in the blood, especially LDL i.e. Low Density Lipid cholesterol. Statins are the best examples of Antihyperlipidemics medications.
• Antihypertensives medications intend to reduce the blood pressure. You will find varying groups of medicines under this category, which act in different ways to reduce the blood pressure.

In the coronary angioplasty procedure, cardiologists use a balloon for creating a relatively big opening within the blood vessels to boost the flow of blood. Most of the times, cardiologists and other doctors refer it Percutaneous Coronary Intervention, which involves angioplasty of the coronary arteries to allow the flow of blood in the heart.