Alternative Heart Bypass Treatment
Reported December 5, 2005
SPRING HILL, Fla. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) — It’s one of the most common heart procedures in Cina, and it’s now gaining popularity in the United States. It looks uncomfortable, but patients say it doesn’t hurt, and it’s giving them a new chance at life — for many, without surgery.
Larry Rodarmer died five years ago from a heart attack. Doctors brought him back to life. But his heart was damaged. He couldn’t walk to his kitchen without getting tired.
Nora Cina loves dancing but had to give it up because of the pain in her chest.
Today, Rodarmer and Cina share a treatment room. They will lie on a bed and exercise. This is Enhanced External Counterpulsation or EECP.
Cardiologist Lingappa Amarchand, M.D., offers this alternative to bypass surgery. “It’s a noninvasive way of treating coronary heart disease,” Dr. Amarchand, of Cardiology Associates in Spring Hill, Fla., tells Ivanhoe.
As the patients’ legs are squeezed, blood flow is pumped back to the heart. The pulses are timed to the patient’s heartbeat. Dr. Amarchand says it creates new channels of blood supply around the heart. Studies show 85 percent of patients see an improvement in their symptoms.
“I guess one of the prouder moments was when I was able to rake my lawn for the first time,” Rodarmer says. He often falls asleep during the treatment. “It looks uncomfortable, but it’s really not.”
Cina says, “It’s definitely a life-saving treatment.”
A session includes a one-hour treatment, five days a week for seven weeks — 35 treatments that add up to years of relief.
The total treatment cost is about $5,000. EECP is FDA approved and covered by Medicare and most insurance companies. One of the side effects of the treatment is weight loss. On average, a person loses 10 pounds to 12 pounds during the seven-week treatment.