Your heart’s three main blood pipes work like Mumbai’s favorite bike routes. The front pipe powers the main pump. The left pipe and right pipe feed the sides. When all three narrow 70% or more, blood trickles like bikes stuck in Dadar traffic. Chest tightness that used to hit only on long rides now appears during chai breaks. Pills ease the pressure temporarily. Stents clear one jam effectively. Three-way blockage requires building new routes.
A single roadblock gets a quick stent detour. Multiple routes choked end-to-end force a biker to find fresh paths past the mess. This situation is called multivessel disease. Walking tires you much earlier than before. Scans reveal poor blood supply zones. Cardiologists maximize cholesterol pills and blood thinners first. When steady pain persists despite treatment, rerouting becomes necessary.
Bypass surgery builds those permanent lanes. Arteries taken from the chest wall or arm go around the clogs. Blood flows smoothly again. Your own vessels last 15-20 years. Stents re-clog in 30% of these cases by year 5. Diabetics do best long-term with bypass. The small-cut version uses a 5cm incision. Patients go home day 3, return to desk week 3, resume riding month 2. The heart beats during surgery, so no machine is needed.
Cardiologists handle daily tune-ups. Multiple jams trigger Heart Team review. Three pipes blocked plus diabetes points clearly bypass. Like choosing between pothole patches or an expressway, sometimes the highway wins. Studies confirm multivessel patients live longer with bypass and need fewer repeat fixes.
Pills steady the ride. Stents fix local spots. Bypass opens highways. Tightness ignoring tweaks signals it’s time for the upgrade. Smooth roads lie ahead.