Doctors have been practicing bypass surgery for nearly 30 years now. Basically, they take a segment of a healthy blood vessel from another part of the body and make a detour around the blocked part of the heart.
Bypass surgery occurs in one of two ways:
1. Vessel(s) are taken from the chest wall and the open end is attached to the heart artery below the blocked area.
2. A piece of a long vein in your leg may be taken. One end is sewn to the the aorta and the other end attached to the heart artery below the blocked area. The vein from your leg normally does only about 10% of the work of circulating blood from the leg back to the heart. Therefore, it can be taken out without harming you or the leg.
Are you going in for a bypass? When?