An Echocardiogram (or cardiac ultrasound) is an ultrasound of the heart used to measures blood flow through the heart, heart valve structure, and heart wall function.
The average life expectancy for a man is around 75 years. However, every year thousands of men die much younger. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) latest data, heart disease is the number one cause of death among men, followed by cancer, unintentional injuries, COVID-19, and stroke. Heart disease has ranked as the number one cause of death for more than 100 years. It is responsible for one in every four men’s deaths. That added up to nearly 400 thousan...
Atrial fibrillation, or AFib, is the most common irregular heart rhythm. The American Heart Association estimates between three and six million Americans are living with the arrhythmia. It is difficult to get an exact number of people affected because it is possible to have AFib and not realize it. “Sometimes atrial fibrillation can be asymptomatic,” says McLaren Flint interventional cardiologist Dr. Hameem Changezi . AFib typically causes heart palpitations, a fluttering feeling, or the sensation...
August 31, 2023, started out as a normal day for 41-year-old Fenton resident Mike MacDonald, but it certainly did not end that way. “That morning, I dropped my youngest daughter off at kindergarten and stopped by my mother-in-law’s house to discuss something,” said Mike. “I didn’t quite feel right, and suddenly I had crippling pain like a gorilla was beating on my chest, it toppled me over. I texted my wife that I was having chest pains while my mother-in-law drove me to the McLaren Fenton emergency dep...