Hi everybody,

Sorry that I haven't been around much lately. Life and work havebeen pretty hectic the past few weeks. Well, it has now been 6 weeks since my hospital stay, and 4 weeks since I've started taking Plavix. I must say that I am fell better and better everyday since starting plavix. I can actually say that it has now been two weeks since I've had any major TIA symptoms....other than a few shortlived dizzy spells, I can't complain.

I finally had my follow up conversations the doctors at Columbia. In a nut shell, as I mentioned before, it is not MM, but rather a restriction in the Left MCA (specifically MC1 area). The good news is that they compared my 10 month old MRA to my hospital MRA, it doesn't look like anything has progressed. They also compared the CO2 Challenge Doplar with the Perfusion MRA and both show the same reduced blood flow...however the Perfusion MRA is showign a 4 to 6 second delay in blood flow response.

The good news is that all other arteries in the brain appear healthy and happy. Apparently, my blood flow has decided to take the long travel path, as they are seeing a "communicating" artery coming from the right posterior artery.

Durring our discussion, they started talking about "opening it up" options....angioplasty, and/or stenting the artery. From what  I read a few years back, both procedures are risky and were considered experimental. Does any one have any updated information on either procedure for use within the carotid arteries. I've done a couple of quick searches, but all that I've been able to find is a couple of reports from 3 to 4 years ago. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance,
Greg