We had an appointment with a Slidell Cardiologist. Dr. B.
Nice, friendly staff, we were crazy about his Nurse Practioner, and we both very much liked him.
False alarm on the Left Ventricle. Doc said that it was a shadow. Thursday's Carotid Ultrasound was fine.
Here's something odd.... Dom's always been on blood pressure medication. Today, they had to take it 4 times. His pressure was around 80/45!
So, we're going to stop taking one of his 2 blood pressure medications, and return to Dr. B. in 2 weeks.
Man, this has been a ROUGH year. Thanks for all of the prayers and calls!
Showing posts with label Heart Damage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Heart Damage. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Sunday, June 12, 2016
An Explanation From my Doctor on Friday
I had a follow-up with my dear Dr. C. on Friday. He admitted to me that he was very worried about me.
As the Cardiologist "Mr. Charming" did not explain to me what was going on, Dr. C. did.
Nicotine constricts your blood vessels. He compared it to tying a string tightly around one of your fingers. Eventually, it numbs. When unwrapped, the finger will begin throbbing.
This was the cause of my neck, chest and shoulder-blade pains.
So, I told him that I have sworn off my beach ciggies and ciggies on Wed. visits with Dennis and Cheryl.
I QUIT.
He also wants me to cut down on the strength of my E-Cig liquid. I'm currently at a very strong 36 MG. nicotine. I'm going to cut back to 24 MG. for a start.
Unfortunately, he insists that I follow up with Dr. Charming next Monday.
If all goes as planned, I will be on the beach next Tuesday.
Gang.... this scared the HELL out of me! It was great to get an explanation. This was truly a wake-up call.
As the Cardiologist "Mr. Charming" did not explain to me what was going on, Dr. C. did.
Nicotine constricts your blood vessels. He compared it to tying a string tightly around one of your fingers. Eventually, it numbs. When unwrapped, the finger will begin throbbing.
This was the cause of my neck, chest and shoulder-blade pains.
So, I told him that I have sworn off my beach ciggies and ciggies on Wed. visits with Dennis and Cheryl.
I QUIT.
He also wants me to cut down on the strength of my E-Cig liquid. I'm currently at a very strong 36 MG. nicotine. I'm going to cut back to 24 MG. for a start.
Unfortunately, he insists that I follow up with Dr. Charming next Monday.
If all goes as planned, I will be on the beach next Tuesday.
Gang.... this scared the HELL out of me! It was great to get an explanation. This was truly a wake-up call.
Monday, June 6, 2016
Nan's Heart Scare Last Week
Wow. What a frightening few days!
I kept waking up on Wednesday night with a stiff neck. This surprised me, as since sleeping on a buckwheat pillow, I haven’t had any neck problems.
*THURSDAY:
When I got out of bed Thursday morning, I was having shoulder blade shooting pains, as well as the pain shooting up my neck. Within minutes, I was having difficulty breathing, unable to take a deep breath.
As we were heading into Slidell anyway, we swung by our Dr. C.’s office. My gal was able to get me in at 1pm. I told her that I was certain that it was pleurisy, but couldn’t explain the shoulder blades and neck pain.
Dear Dr. C. ordered a chest x-ray. It came back clean.
Then he did an EKG. Read the results and told me that he was checking me into the hospital, as “results were abnormal”.
When we arrived at the hospital, they were expecting me. Zipped us right up to my room. Before I even had a chance to put on a robe, they were checking vitals, drawing blood, etc.
They wheeled me down for another Chest x-ray. (normal)
Then did another EKG. (normal)
Met the cardiologist who said that he was going to give me a Nuclear Stress Test on Friday morning. Ate dinner, fell asleep, and was awakened at 11:30 pm to say that the doc wanted an immediate CT Scan on my lungs....was worried that a blood clot was causing the pain.
By this point, I’m getting overwhelmed.
Woke me up at 3am to tell me that my lungs were fine.
*FRIDAY:
Wheeled me down to Nuclear Medicine for the first step on the Stress Test. They inserted Isotopes in my IV which basically makes your heart radioactive.
Shoved me into a tube for 12 minutes to take photos.
Wheeled me up to Cardiology for step two. They injected “Staci-Scan” (??) into my IV which raised my heart rate and blood pressure as if I was on a tread mill.
Wheeled me back down to Nuclear Medicine for step three, where they shoved me back in the tube to take more pics.
At noon, the cardiologist said that he didn’t see anything wrong, but had to wait for them to develop the photos and show to a radiologist. He was pretty confident that it was indeed, pleurisy that didn’t show up on the xray.
Said that Rheumatoid Arthritis (have been diagnosed), Fibro-myalgia (also been diagnosed) or Lupus (one Rheumatologist thought that I might be a “carrier”) could have caused this.
Great. 3 auto-immune diseases in which I have been diagnosed.
Around 3 pm, they came in my room for a heart ultrasound.
At 6 pm, they announced that the stress test showed a 70% blockage in one of my veins.
Cardiologist who had no bed side manner whatsoever talked me through the next procedure. Saturday morning they’d to an ANGIOGRAM. (insert a tube through my groin up to my heart, shoot red dye in it, then snake a camera up to have a look around)
He said that this was the only way to confirm heart disease.
Then went on to tell me that if he found something wrong, he’d then put a stent in. I risked stroke, heart attack and open heart surgery if something went wrong. He’d have an emergency surgeon standing by.
I basically cried myself to sleep.
*SATURDAY:
They wheeled my bed down to cardiology. I was the only patient there. They said that they only do these on Saturdays in case of an emergency. Oh great. More tears
They hooked me up to a huge contraption, put Antihistamine in my IV in case of allergies to the dye they’d be injecting into my groin, then proceeded to give me a drug that KNOCKED ME OUT! (when I asked later what kind of drug it was, they said that it was very similar to what Michael Jackson overdosed on. I can understand the addictive implications of it)
When I finally opened my eyes, my cardiologist gave me a warm smile (a first) and said, “I wish that my veins looked like yours, Nanette. Your heart and lungs are in GREAT SHAPE. The Stress Test was a “false positive”.
Sent me back to my room for 6 hours.... flat on my back. Then sprung me at 5:45.
*As frustrating and frightening as this all was, I was glad that I went through it, as my tears had dried, I have great insurance, and a horrid family history.
I have now given up my “beach cigarettes” and weekly few cigarettes with friends Dennis and Cheryl after Mass on Wednesdays. E-Cigs ONLY in the future!
Heading to Dr. C. on Friday for a follow up, then Mr. Charming at the hospital next Friday. (One thing I'll say is that Dr. A. is as thorough as my Dr. C.)
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Stem Cell Therapy Study in Heart Patients
You've heard of conventional treatments for heart patients, like stents. They're a Band-Aid compared to a cutting-edge research at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University.
Stem cell therapy is an exciting breakthrough in regenerative medicine... using a patient's own stem cells to treat a weak heart muscle.
This is the kind of medicine that makes you think of medical technology meeting science fiction!
There is no approved stem cell therapy for the heart right now, but a national study going on at the medical college at Georgia Regents University could change all that.
WJBF News Channel 6's Jennie Montgomery has details.
This is a 3-dimensional map of the heart... and all roads lead to improved blood flow and heart function IF a clinical trial at GR Health System shows positive results.
"And the red zones are all zones that are scarred, and if you take this map and scrunch it up, like an accordion, you generate this map right here, and everything that's in red is densely scarred heart."
Dr. Adam Berman is the director of Cardiac Arrhythmia Ablation Services at GR Health System. He is the principal investigator of the study which is being done at several institutions across the country, taking stem cells from the patient's own bone marrow. The bone marrow is sent to an Aastrom Biosciences research laboratory where the stem cells are significantly expanded.
Berman then injects the stem cells back into multiple weak points in the heart-- using a catheter inserted through an artery at the groin, up into the heart.
"In the study we typically do about 20 injections within the healthier territories of the heart, with that needle, and that's the actual needle."
The difference between stem cell therapy- and conventional therapy, like a stent- is that the idea behind stem cells is "regenerative medicine," which is kind of like allowing the body to heal itself.
"When we put a stent in, or a pacemaker in, for instance, we're not really healing your heart-- we're treating it, so to speak, but we're not promoting its own healing. The idea behind stem cell therapy is to try to get the heart to begin to heal itself, and that I think is very exciting!"
The Medical College of Georgia at GRU is the first site in the state to be selected for this study. To be eligible, patients must have explored other existing options and have an internal defibrillator.
62-year old Richard Daggett was the FIRST patient in Georgia to get this therapy.
"I feel, personally, that it is my time to try to help myself and somewhere down the road for what they did to me, they can do it to someone else and help them."
Of 108 patients across the country, half are getting their own stem cells, the other half get placebo. Daggett won't know what he got until the end of the year long study.
Researchers will follow the patients for 12 months, looking at heart failure symptoms and quality of life. If the study results are positive, the placebo participants will be able to get the stem cell therapy.
LINK
Clinical Trial Info
Stem cell therapy is an exciting breakthrough in regenerative medicine... using a patient's own stem cells to treat a weak heart muscle.
This is the kind of medicine that makes you think of medical technology meeting science fiction!
There is no approved stem cell therapy for the heart right now, but a national study going on at the medical college at Georgia Regents University could change all that.
WJBF News Channel 6's Jennie Montgomery has details.
This is a 3-dimensional map of the heart... and all roads lead to improved blood flow and heart function IF a clinical trial at GR Health System shows positive results.
"And the red zones are all zones that are scarred, and if you take this map and scrunch it up, like an accordion, you generate this map right here, and everything that's in red is densely scarred heart."
Dr. Adam Berman is the director of Cardiac Arrhythmia Ablation Services at GR Health System. He is the principal investigator of the study which is being done at several institutions across the country, taking stem cells from the patient's own bone marrow. The bone marrow is sent to an Aastrom Biosciences research laboratory where the stem cells are significantly expanded.
Berman then injects the stem cells back into multiple weak points in the heart-- using a catheter inserted through an artery at the groin, up into the heart.
"In the study we typically do about 20 injections within the healthier territories of the heart, with that needle, and that's the actual needle."
The difference between stem cell therapy- and conventional therapy, like a stent- is that the idea behind stem cells is "regenerative medicine," which is kind of like allowing the body to heal itself.
"When we put a stent in, or a pacemaker in, for instance, we're not really healing your heart-- we're treating it, so to speak, but we're not promoting its own healing. The idea behind stem cell therapy is to try to get the heart to begin to heal itself, and that I think is very exciting!"
The Medical College of Georgia at GRU is the first site in the state to be selected for this study. To be eligible, patients must have explored other existing options and have an internal defibrillator.
62-year old Richard Daggett was the FIRST patient in Georgia to get this therapy.
"I feel, personally, that it is my time to try to help myself and somewhere down the road for what they did to me, they can do it to someone else and help them."
Of 108 patients across the country, half are getting their own stem cells, the other half get placebo. Daggett won't know what he got until the end of the year long study.
Researchers will follow the patients for 12 months, looking at heart failure symptoms and quality of life. If the study results are positive, the placebo participants will be able to get the stem cell therapy.
LINK
Clinical Trial Info
Thursday, February 27, 2014
University of Miami researchers explore potential of stem cell therapy to repair heart damage
In 2009, Steven Bustamante, 58, was in bad shape.
A major heart attack, along with nearly every complication in the book, had led to heart failure. He called his brother from the hospital to say his goodbyes, fearing he would fall asleep and never wake up.
But when he did wake up, an unfamiliar doctor from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine was sitting in his room, offering him the opportunity to participate in a clinical trial where his heart would be injected with stem cells extracted from his bone marrow.
The results were transformative.
“I went from being a person who probably needed a heart transplant to someone whose heart is in a normal range,” Bustamante said. “I don’t feel like a sick person anymore, at all.”
Several studies at the UM Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute (ISCI) have shown that stem cells derived from adult bone marrow, which carry the potential to grow into various kinds of cells based on their environment, can help repair damaged heart tissue.
As researchers continue to explore the potential of stem cell therapy in current and upcoming studies, they are taking what some see as early but steady strides toward changing the future of cardiac care — perhaps to one in which doctors help patients regenerate and rejuvenate their own hearts.
“We’ve taken some very important steps,” said Dr. Joshua Hare, director of the ISCI, “and we really envision the possibility that this may be an applicable therapy that could help a lot of people. But there are a lot of questions.”
To answer those questions, researchers are simultaneously expanding trial sizes, branching into various cardiac diseases and trying to hone in on ideal treatment, dosage and delivery.
One of the pilot trials, published in November 2012, aimed to determine if stem cells from a donor are as safe and effective as a patient’s own stem cells. The results from 30 people showed that both types are safe — good news because donor cells can be prepared in advance.
Another study with 65 patients, published at the end of 2013, was the first to compare stem cells to whole bone marrow as well as a placebo. Bustamante was one of the participants, all of whom had weakened, damaged hearts.
Like the first study, stem cells injected directly into the heart via catheter reduced scar tissue by an average of one third, helped ‘remodel’ the heart to its healthy, football shape and improved quality of life. The cells were more effective than the bone marrow or the placebo, a vital finding for moving the therapy forward.
Dr. Alan Heldman, interventional cardiologist and member of the ISCI, delivered the actual injections in a procedure that lasts about an hour.
“I’m not ready to say that all doctors should start doing this, we’re not there yet,” Heldman said. “I try to maintain a skeptical neutrality, but I have to say I have seen some results that absolutely stunned me with the magnitude of improvement. I’m convinced we are on to something.”
Heldman and Hare echoed that one of the next big steps is finding a treatment that works even better, reducing more scar tissue faster.
Preclinical research seems to show that a combination of bone marrow stem cells and cardiac stem cells taken directly from the heart makes for a more potent treatment, even doubling the effect. This could have implications for other organs that harbor their own stem cells, like the kidney.
“It’s like a cocktail,” Hare said. “A little of this, a little of that, and you get a mixture of cells that works much better than either alone.”
The ISCI pitched the findings to the National Institute of Health, and Hare said he expects the cell mixture to head to human trials there within the next year.
“We’re fantasizing about the day when we will be able to completely eliminate the scar tissue,” Hare said. “That would be like doing a heart transplant through a catheter. It would be complete recovery.”
Meanwhile, another trial has found that stem cells are beneficial when given during heart surgery, and a current study is looking at whether stem cell injections are effective for heart disease that doesn’t cause a specific scar site. They are even looking at whether the space environment of microgravity has an effect on stem cells — an endeavor that might someday land UM researchers on the International Space Station.
Overall, these early trials, in which stem cells consistently show positive outcomes, are setting the stage for researchers who foresee a new stage of regenerative medicine.
“This may be one of the biggest, just because there is so much heart failure out there,” Heldman said. “There are so many patients, and it’s not just that they die from it, but that when they have it, they feel awful.”
As for Bustamante, today he is able to speculate about what his own future might look like — maybe retiring from his job as a public defender and moving to the West Coast.
“You go through life and you don’t think about it . . . then all of a sudden something happens and you realize you are mortal,” he said. “Thanks to what has happened, I can think about the future and doing other things and living my life.”
Amazing Times we Live In!
A major heart attack, along with nearly every complication in the book, had led to heart failure. He called his brother from the hospital to say his goodbyes, fearing he would fall asleep and never wake up.
But when he did wake up, an unfamiliar doctor from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine was sitting in his room, offering him the opportunity to participate in a clinical trial where his heart would be injected with stem cells extracted from his bone marrow.
The results were transformative.
“I went from being a person who probably needed a heart transplant to someone whose heart is in a normal range,” Bustamante said. “I don’t feel like a sick person anymore, at all.”
Several studies at the UM Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute (ISCI) have shown that stem cells derived from adult bone marrow, which carry the potential to grow into various kinds of cells based on their environment, can help repair damaged heart tissue.
As researchers continue to explore the potential of stem cell therapy in current and upcoming studies, they are taking what some see as early but steady strides toward changing the future of cardiac care — perhaps to one in which doctors help patients regenerate and rejuvenate their own hearts.
“We’ve taken some very important steps,” said Dr. Joshua Hare, director of the ISCI, “and we really envision the possibility that this may be an applicable therapy that could help a lot of people. But there are a lot of questions.”
To answer those questions, researchers are simultaneously expanding trial sizes, branching into various cardiac diseases and trying to hone in on ideal treatment, dosage and delivery.
One of the pilot trials, published in November 2012, aimed to determine if stem cells from a donor are as safe and effective as a patient’s own stem cells. The results from 30 people showed that both types are safe — good news because donor cells can be prepared in advance.
Another study with 65 patients, published at the end of 2013, was the first to compare stem cells to whole bone marrow as well as a placebo. Bustamante was one of the participants, all of whom had weakened, damaged hearts.
Like the first study, stem cells injected directly into the heart via catheter reduced scar tissue by an average of one third, helped ‘remodel’ the heart to its healthy, football shape and improved quality of life. The cells were more effective than the bone marrow or the placebo, a vital finding for moving the therapy forward.
Dr. Alan Heldman, interventional cardiologist and member of the ISCI, delivered the actual injections in a procedure that lasts about an hour.
“I’m not ready to say that all doctors should start doing this, we’re not there yet,” Heldman said. “I try to maintain a skeptical neutrality, but I have to say I have seen some results that absolutely stunned me with the magnitude of improvement. I’m convinced we are on to something.”
Heldman and Hare echoed that one of the next big steps is finding a treatment that works even better, reducing more scar tissue faster.
Preclinical research seems to show that a combination of bone marrow stem cells and cardiac stem cells taken directly from the heart makes for a more potent treatment, even doubling the effect. This could have implications for other organs that harbor their own stem cells, like the kidney.
“It’s like a cocktail,” Hare said. “A little of this, a little of that, and you get a mixture of cells that works much better than either alone.”
The ISCI pitched the findings to the National Institute of Health, and Hare said he expects the cell mixture to head to human trials there within the next year.
“We’re fantasizing about the day when we will be able to completely eliminate the scar tissue,” Hare said. “That would be like doing a heart transplant through a catheter. It would be complete recovery.”
Meanwhile, another trial has found that stem cells are beneficial when given during heart surgery, and a current study is looking at whether stem cell injections are effective for heart disease that doesn’t cause a specific scar site. They are even looking at whether the space environment of microgravity has an effect on stem cells — an endeavor that might someday land UM researchers on the International Space Station.
Overall, these early trials, in which stem cells consistently show positive outcomes, are setting the stage for researchers who foresee a new stage of regenerative medicine.
“This may be one of the biggest, just because there is so much heart failure out there,” Heldman said. “There are so many patients, and it’s not just that they die from it, but that when they have it, they feel awful.”
As for Bustamante, today he is able to speculate about what his own future might look like — maybe retiring from his job as a public defender and moving to the West Coast.
“You go through life and you don’t think about it . . . then all of a sudden something happens and you realize you are mortal,” he said. “Thanks to what has happened, I can think about the future and doing other things and living my life.”
Amazing Times we Live In!
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