LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Right now,
nearly 100,000 people need an organ transplant. But for some, the life saving
surgery won’t happen because they’re allergic to the drugs needed for the
surgery. Now, help may come in the form of leeches!
Daryl Vinson got his groove back! It’s amazing he can move -- let alone, salsa!
Just four months before this interview, Vinson’s heart shut down.
"As I was driving, I felt like my body was on like a dimmer on a light, and you
start to turn it down, and as I was driving, I felt like someone was turning me
off," Vinson says.
He went straight to the hospital. Vinson says 80 percent of his heart had
completely failed.
"He says, 'It’s so far gone, that the only thing that’s going to save your life
is going to be an immediate heart transplant,'" Vinson says.
He immediately cancelled his upcoming wedding and focused on getting a new
heart. The catch? Vinson was allergic to Heparin -- a blood thinner that plays a
critical role in heart transplantation surgery.
"The end result, you give Heparin to somebody and they clot a lot of things in
their body," says Sinan Simsir, M.D., a cardiothoracic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai
Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Dr. Simsir offered Vinson his only hope -- leeches!
"It just secretes this substance in its saliva and it prevents clots from
forming," Dr. Simsir says.
Vinson got the synthetic version of leech saliva, bivalirudin, also known as
Angiomax. It kept his blood from clotting, but the risk for Vinson was not over
… he could bleed to death.
"There’s no antidote. It just needs to get out of your system," Dr. Simsir says.
But in just two hours, doctors filtered the drug out of Vinson’s system … and
with his new heart, Vinson didn’t waste any time!
"At that time, I was in the hospital and I was like, 'You know what? This would
be a really good time to get married!’ I called the chaplain downstairs and he
thought it was a great idea," Vinson says.
And now the couple has added a little spice to their salsa!
The Heparin substitute is currently used for angiograms, stents and heart
attacks, but Vinson was one of the first to have it used for a heart transplant.
Now, doctors are testing it for other organ transplants. In fact, one in four
people are allergic to Heparin, and this drug from leech saliva may be an
alternative.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Patient Information Line
(800) 233-2771
