The Good News
Posted By admin on January 5, 2009
- Diet
You do have options and choices for a healthy lifestyle
- External Counterpulsation (ECP)
Noninvasive External Counterpulsation has been proven to act as a natural bypass by creating collateral arteries around blockages
- Pacemakers, Biventricular Pacemakers, Defibrillators, Cardiac Resynchronization
These devices from Boston Scientific are very beneficial for CHF and/or arrythmias
Information Concerning Recognized and Little-Known Treatment for People With Serious Heart Problems
This site has been established for the purpose of providing information for people with certain heart problems. This information can mean the difference between life and death for some people–as it has been for the originator of this site.
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Non-Invasive Treatment for Heart Disease
Their is a non-surgical, non-invasive treatment for such coronary conditions as:
Angina.
Congestive heart failure.
Other coronary conditions, especially those associated with poor blood circulation. The treatment is something like a natural bypass for severely blocked coronary arteries.
The treatment creates additional paths for blood flow, called arterioles or collaterals, to provide additional pathways for blood flow to the heart that circumvents blocked arteries. In this way the treatment restores or improves the blood circulation to organs and tissues that have been affected by blockage in the normal blood supply.
The treatment is known as EECP or Enhanced External Counterpulsation, and encourages the formation of coronary arterioles or collaterals that circumvents blocked coronary arteries.
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Top Medical Centers Using EECP Treatment
Some of the medical centers performing EECP treatment include the following:
The Mayo Clinic.
John Hopkins Medical Center.
The Cleveland Clinic.
Beth Israel Medical Center, New York City.
University of California at San Francisco.
University of California at San Diego.
The Ochsner Foundation Hospital.
JFK Medical Center, Atlantis, Florida.
University of Florida at Gainesville.
University of New York at Stony Brook.
Kaiser Permanente of Denver.
Trinitas Hospital, Baltimore.
An article in the American Journal of Cardiology, 2004; 89(7): 822-4 stated that an international group had evaluated the effectiveness of EECP treatment on patients with chronic stable angina, at several medical centers. The article stated that over 80 percent of people with stable angina received significant improvement from their angina symptoms and an increase in the flow of blood to the heart, which was accompanied by an increase in their exercise ability.
The cuffs inflate and compress in response to the early diastole signal of the heart and deflate to the late diastole signal. The sequential cuff inflation creates a retrograde pressure wave the augments diastolic pressure, and this increases coronary perfusion pressure and venous return to the right side of the heart (which increases preload and cardiac output).
The University of Pittsburgh coordinated studies that were reported in the International EECP Patient Registry (IEPR) that showed:
About 75 percent of EECP treated patients achieved statistical significant improvements that included (a) improvement in quality-of-life; (b) significant improvement in ability to resume daily activities, including social interaction and recreational pursuits.
EECP was initially developed at the Harvard University. A Harvard Medical School study of EECP in diabetics with or without congestive heart failure showed EECP equally effective in both groups. The researchers found that the 70 percent of patients had a significant reduction in the severity of their angina; the number of angina episodes decreases, as well as reduction in the need for nitroglycerine.
Researchers in Germany discovered that elderly people, after receiving EECP treatment, experienced increased blood supply through the ophthalmic artery, which is a major artery providing most of the retina’s blood supply. (Graefe’ Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology, 2001; 239(80); 599-602.
EECP treatment was approved by the FDA for angina and coronary artery disease in 1995 and FDA approved for congestive heart failure in 2002.
Throughout the world over 100 scientific studies have been published in leading medical journals attesting to the value of EECP.
Nearly 1,000 physicians use EECP treatment.
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Reported Major Key Benefits of EECP Treatment
Reduction in frequency and severity of angina, or its elimination.
Increased physical ability.
Reduction or elimination of nitro glycerin or other medication.
Improvement in mental well-being.
Reduction of high blood pressure.
Elimination of the need for the invasive open-heart surgery or stents. This is especially important–or life saving–for those whose physical condition does not permit open-heart surgery, balloon angioplasty, or stents. Or those who do not want to undergo any of those invasive procedures.
For pilots, EECP treatment may prevent losing their FAA medicals as occurs following open-heart surgery.
The increased blood flow following EECP treatment is reported helpful in other conditions.
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Additional Benefits Reported by Some People Due to Improvement in Circulation
Hypertension reduced.
Improvement in peripheral vascular disease.
Improvement in diabetic neuropathy.
Improvement in memory.
Improvement in vision problems in the elderly.
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People who Are Candidates for EECP Treatment
People who are candidates for EECP treatment, who can expect a high probability of improvements in their physical condition, include:
People experiencing angina, stable and unstable.
People whose medication, such as nitro patch, has lost their effectiveness.
People who must restrict their physical activities to avoid angina.
People who have suffered a heart attack.
People whose physical condition makes them unsuitable for invasive treatment such as open-heart surgery or stents.
People who do not wish to undergo the invasive treatments.
People who are at greater risk of complications after invasive treatment, such as the elderly, people with diabetes, pulmonary disease, renal dysfunction, or heart failure.
People who have coronary anatomy problems that put them at risk for open heart surgery or stents.
People with diabetic neuropathy.
People whose medication or invasive procedures have not provided relief, including angioplasty, or have failed.
Other circulatory problems.
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Further Information on EECP Therapy
EECP treatment is provided as an outpatient and consists of 35 one-hour treatments on consecutive days. Occasionally, additional treatments are recommended. Where travel is excessive, these treatments can be combined into two one-hour or a single two-hour session.
The treatments are easily tolerated. The person lies on a comfortable table with cuffs (similar to blood pressure measuring cuffs) wrapped around the legs and lower abdomen. To make the time go faster, the person often wears headphones and listen to local radio stations, recorded tapes, or music. Some read. And a very few, sleep.
The patient experiences the compression of the cuffs with every heart beat, which is not uncomfortable to most patients.
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Rare Heart Problems That Prohibit or Delay EECP Treatment
There are very few conditions that prevent or delay EECP treatments. Before the start of EECP treatment a physician checks the person for any condition that would bar such treatment. Among the conditions that would affect a person’s suitability for EECP treatment include the following:
Known aortic aneurysm that requires surgical repair.
Pregnancy.
Active thrombophlebitis.
Bleeding diathesis.
Arrhythmias that interferes with the triggering of the EECP machine.
People with blood pressure higher than 180/110 mmHg must have their pressure lowered before treatment.
People with a pulse greater than 120 bpm must have their heart rate lowered before treatment.
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Additional Comments
For those new to the problem, angina is the most common symptom of coronary artery disease, and reflected in chest pain, chest pressure, shortness of breath, pain in the neck, the jaw, the arms, back, nausea, or fatigue. Failure to react to angina could result in a heart attack.
EECP develops arterioles or collaterals that go around blocked arteries. EECP increases blood flow throughout the body, and in that way it often relieves other symptoms than those associated with heart disease. EECP carries no risk; it is non-invasive.
For patients with congestive heart failure, EECP usually reduces swelling in the legs and shortness of breath and often reduces the amount of needed diuretics.
No age limitation.
An EKG controls and keeps in sync with the heart the compression of the cuffs. For instance, when the heart is resting and when it is receiving its supply of blood, the cuffs inflate, which pushes blood to the heart from the legs and lower abdomen. Then, just prior to your heart pumping, the cuffs deflate and the blood is pumped from the heart. When the heart stops pumping, the EECP compression accelerates the return of blood to the heart.
Information spreads slowly in the medical profession. Many doctors had never heard of EECP treatment, despite the many studies and approval of the procedure (FDA, Medicare, and most insurance companies.) In these cases, it is up to the patient to bring the information to the attention of their doctor with a strong recommendation that referral to an EECP treatment center be approved.
Where a treatment location is beyond commuting distance, the normal seven week treatment can be cut in half by having two EECP treatments a day. The life-saving benefits more than justify renting accommodations near the EECP location during the treatment period, if necessary.
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Safety Comparison
EECP treatments are safe, are done as an outpatient treatment, and does not involve any drugs or surgical intervention. Drugs have side effects. Invasive open heart surgery had risks. Invasive stent placement or balloon angioplasty have risks.
Some people feel that EECP treatment should come before the potentially hazardous open-heart surgery or stents.
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Resistance from Many Doctors
Despite the fact that EECP is well proven, and used by top medical centers, most doctors are unfamiliar with this treatment. One reason for this is that the people selling the machines do not have detail people making periodic calls on physicians, as is done by the pharmaceutical companies. There isn’t that much profit in the selling of a machine as there is in having doctors prescribe certain medication.
Another reason for resistance is that there is far more profit in insertion of stents or open-heart surgery. There is virtually no profit in referring a patient to a location that has the machine necessary for EECP treatment.
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To get information about the location of an EECP treatment source in Northern California, send an email to information@heartsurvival.biz. Or send a fax to 925-295-1203, and provide your name, address, and phone number.
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This site has been put up, at his expense, by Rodney Stich. He credits being alive for many years after the coronary blockage had become so severe that he contacted a funeral home to make final preparations. The open-heart-surgery that he had done in 1985, that required multiple bypasses, could not be repeated, nor could stents be inserted, the doctors said, because the vessels were too small. He was sent home from the hospital in 2001 to die. Nitro patches did not correct the all-night angina, often called terminal or unstable angina. (Stich is no youngster; he joined the Navy in 1940, a year before the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor.)
Fortunately for him, he discovered through Internet searches about EECP, and the first series of 35 treatments eliminated the angina. He was still no athlete, but he could continue his normal research and writing activities as if life was normal. For him, the improvement from the series lasted about seven months, after which he repeated the treatments. Once, he had to go 70 treatments for relief. But today, in July 2007, he is alive, four years after counting the remaining life, day-by-day.
He discovered the most physicians don’t know about EECP, evene though the treatment is recognized and used in key medical centers and overseas. He also discovered a somewhat unpleasant fact: those doctors who do know about it don’t refer patients to it because of financial reasons: doctors and hospitals make millions of dollars a year on open-heart-surgery and stents, and have no intention of giving up this financial source.
Unfortunately, there are some patients that are not candidates for stents or open-heart surgery, and they are simply ignored.
Pharmaceutical companies make millions, and even billions, on doctors dispensing or prescribing their drugs, and certainly have no intention of diverting this cash-cow to a low-profit EECP treatment.
And the two companies in the United States that make the machines do not make sufficient profits to send detail personnel visiting doctors on a regular basis as doe the pharmaceutical companies.
For these reasons, Stich has put up this site to inform people of the treatment and the important need that they must advocate that their physicians authorize the treatment.
Stich can refer people to a reliable provider in the northern California area. People living elsewhere can find an EECP provider from the lists at this site.
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Angiogram Showed Clinical Evidence of Value of EECP
A recent angiogram in San Francisco (August 2008) was compared to an angiogram for the same person done in 2003, and showed a significant increase in coronary collaterals. During this five-year time period, several series of EECP treatments occurred. The doctor doing the latest angiogram, prior to the angiogram, stated his disbelief in the EECP treatments. But, during about a hour of probing attempting unsuccessful to open any of the blocked coronary vessels, he stated that there were a considerable increase in the collaterals that had been keeping that heart patient alive.
That patient turned down the next scheduled angiogram that was to attempt drilling a hole in the blocked vessels and insert a coated stent. The reason for turning down the treatment, in lieu of additional EECP treatments, was (1) the requirement for Plavix or other blood thinner, to avoid a possible deadly clot (prior Plavix treatment resulted in major blood loss from a ruptured kidney cyst); and (2) because of the danger associated with the drilling procedure.
Thanks for the information, I found this website very useful. CAD is the most common type of heart disease. It’s the leading cause of death, but with the technological development and lifestyle changes, medicines, medical procedures effectively prevent or treat CAD in most people. Consult Dr.Subash Chandra to know more about advanced surgical procedures in cardiology.
PROFESSIONAL QUESTION:
TO LESSEN THE RISK OF STROKE OR HEART ATTACK POST-OPERATIVELY, WHAT REASONABLE LENGTH OF TIME SHOULD BE ALLOTED FOR A DRUG “WASH-OUT” PERIOD FOR VALDECOCIIB (=BEXTRA) BEFORE PERFORMANCE OF A CORONARY ARTERY BYPASS PROCEDURE??
THANK YOU!
JOSEPH C. COOK
PHARMACIST 3-28-09