{"id":492910,"date":"2026-02-27T04:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T04:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/492910\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T04:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T04:04:09","slug":"young-restless-melissa-claire-egan-shares-heart-disease-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/492910\/","title":{"rendered":"Young & Restless’ Melissa Claire Egan Shares Heart Disease Diagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s nothing quite so scary as being blindsided by health news. You may be feeling OK, maybe even great, then you learn something that shakes you to your core and sends you down a seemingly endless pit of \u201cWhat Ifs.\u201d The Young and the Restless\u2018 Melissa Claire Egan (Chelsea) just went through that very thing after a routine check up with her doctor. And she\u2019s speaking up about the experience, in the hopes that it can help others.<\/p>\n

She shared over on her Instagram page that \u201cin late January, I was diagnosed with coronary heart disease.\u201d Luckily, she hastened to reassures us, \u201cThanks to early detection, and medicine, I will be okay! I\u2019m a private person, but this seemed too important not to share. Especially for women.<\/p>\n

\"Text<\/a><\/p>\n

She got some bloodwork done and upon seeing the results, her longtime doctor sent her to a cardiologist, \u201cand through a heart calcium scan he found plaque in my [left anterior descending] artery (known as the \u2018widow maker\u2019). It\u2019s mild so far and tends to be genetic, but rare for a 44 year old woman. This could have caused the plaque to chip off and cause a fatal heart attack or stroke any time over the next 5-10 years, maybe even sooner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Egan shared a link to the American Heart Association<\/a>, which had more information about what she\u2019s been through, including the tests both her doctor and her cardiologists ran to detect the problem. Her doctor has her on medication and, as she told husband Matt Katrosar, she\u2019s calm and feeling good. Her \u201cdoctor said I\u2019m going to be OK. I\u2019m going to take my medicine, and I believe him. I do feel calm.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s given her a lot to think of and reflect on. That night Egan wrote on Instagram, after the initial diagnosis, \u201cI laid with my sons, putting them to bed, feeling so grateful to God and my doctors that I found this early. But I couldn\u2019t stop thinking about all the other women (and men) that might have this disease and not know it. It is under-tested and under-recognized.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the American Heart Association noted in her story, one in five women have heart disease and it\u2019s the leading cause of death for women. \u201cTell your doctor you want to be evaluated for coronary heart disease risk,\u201d Egan urged in her post. \u201cA takeaway from my situation, for your blood tests ask your doctor to specifically look for Lipoprotein(a) and ApoB levels. Also you must ask your doctor about a \u2018Heart Calcium scan.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s all band together,\u201d she concluded, \u201cfocus on our heart health, and live longer!\u201d Amen to that! We\u2019re incredibly grateful that Egan and her doctors caught the problem before it was too late, and hopefully her story can help others do the same.<\/p>\n

Before heading out, take a look at our photo gallery below of the serious, real-life problems that soaps have tackled<\/a> to make a difference in people\u2019s lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s nothing quite so scary as being blindsided by health news. You may be feeling OK, maybe even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[225812,88,42275,19332,225813],"class_list":["post-492910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-chelsea-lawson","tag-entertainment","tag-melissa-claire-egan","tag-the-young-and-the-restless","tag-yr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}