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Oct 6, 2008 10:00 pm US/Central
Local Doctor Offers New Heart Disease Treatment
DALLAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
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A new, non-invasive procedure looks to put the squeeze on heart disease.
CBS
Imagine getting tired and out of breath just by doing everyday tasks - like laundry and cooking. For thousands of North Texans, who suffer from heart disease, those everyday tasks can be overwhelming. Now a North Texas doctor is using a little known device to actually squeeze life back into patients.
Coye Tidwell, 47, says she loves her life in the country. Coye, her husband, and their two dogs live on more than 40 acres of land in Princeton. The couple loves to work in the yard, fish and play with their four grandkids.
Coye says she now lives everyday to the fullest, but that hasn't always been the case. "I was falling asleep at the drop of a hat," she says. "I had no energy to do anything."
In 2001, the normally healthy woman found she was feeling tired, run-down, and was always out of breath. After going to the doctor and undergoing several tests, Coye was told she had congestive heart failure. That means the heart has trouble pumping enough blood to the extremities and other organs.
The grandmother admits, when she was diagnosed, she didn't know much about her condition. "He said 'You're in heart failure,' and I said 'Okay, give me whatever I need and I'll be on my way,'" Tidwell remembers. "He said 'I need to put you in the hospital.'"
Over the next few months, Coye was outfitted with a pacemaker and was put on medications to control the heart failure. Years later, though, she says she still didn't quite feel like herself. "I just didn't have the energy that I wanted," she says. "I was just so tired all the time."
New hope came when her cardiologist, Dr. Akram Khan, introduced Coye to a non-invasive procedure called Enhanced External Counterpulsation, or EECP. "It's basically; we're getting the blood back to the heart in a very rhythmic and systemic fashion," Dr. Khan explains.
"I didn't know what it was at the time, but I didn't care," Tidwell says. "As long as it helped...I didn't care."
Dr. Khan, with the Cardiac Center of Texas, is the only cardiologist in the Dallas/Fort Worth area offering EECP to patients with angina and congestive heart failure. He says 10-15% of those people don't get completely better even after the medication is introduced.
Here's how the treatment works. The patient's legs and abdomen are wrapped with special compression cuffs that are then hooked up to a machine that monitors the person's heart rate. Once the machine synchs up with the heart, it begins compressing the patient's legs in perfect rhythm with the heart beat. "By doing this pumping function, we are directing the blood back to the heart," explains Dr. Khan.
According to Dr. Khan, the treatment strengthens the heart muscle by increasing the blood flow from the lower body, back to the heart. As more blood gets back to the heart, the heart muscle will respond better to push that volume of fluid back out. As the heart muscle strengthens, patients say they feel stronger and have more energy.
Coye says it didn't take long before she felt positive results. "The first week, I would come home and was like 'This is awful,'" she remembers. "But, by the second week, I started having more energy, and I wasn't falling asleep. By the end of the treatment, I felt great!"
After 36 treatments over the course of six weeks, Coye says she finally feels like she can live again.
The EECP treatment is approved and covered by Medicare and Medicaid. Dr. Khan hopes by getting the word out, more doctors will get on board and offer the option to their patients.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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