Carotid Artery Surgery

Baptist Health Paducah: Carotid Artery Surgery

Vascular surgeon Griffin Bicking, DO explains how plaque buildup in the arteries can lead to a stroke, describes risk factors for strokes, and discusses preventive treatment.

Carotid Artery Surgery Health Talks Transcript

Griffin Bicking, DO

The carotid arteries come up as a single artery out of the chest and they feed oxygen-rich blood to your brain that controls things like speech, movement, feeling, memory. The thing that causes blockages in the carotid artery is atherosclerotic plaque. It causes narrowing of the arteries, and it’s not so much that you have a lack of blood flow to the brain because of the narrowing, but pieces of the plaque break free and travel into your brain and give you a stroke. Some of the risk factors for carotid disease include age, family history, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and smoking, of course, is the No. 1 risk factor. The things I would tell patients to keep your heart as healthy as possible would be to really get out and exercise, eat healthy and really control your risk factors.

Alicia Morris, Mayfield

I had two mini-strokes and when I had the third one, that’s when I met Dr. Bicking, and I already had significant buildup in the carotid arteries. He said that one side was built up enough that I needed surgery. We liked him from the first day we saw him. You could tell he was compassionate and he was genuinely interested.

Griffin Bicking, DO

Alicia came to the hospital. She met the criteria for stroke-risk reduction. Post-operatively she did great. She never had any return of symptoms and she has been doing fine ever since.

Alicia Morris

My health is great. I can do almost anything I want to. I think he definitely kept me from having another stroke, if not saved my life. Everyone at Baptist was very attentive and compassionate, and just very knowledgeable. I highly recommend Baptist Health.