A Growing Heart Problem: Congestive Heart Failure

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Adult Stem Cells Healed My Heart – My Story of Tragedy and Ultimate Victory over My Condition
BY JAMES EILERT
VICE-PRESIDENT
SAVEALIFEHEALAHEART.ORG
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/280343/22931446?m=6987e7df
JUNE 24, 2009
When I was 27 years old I was a bodybuilder, 200lbs of solid muscle I worked out at the gym 6 days a week every day after work. Then the first of a series of medical problems happened, I completely destroyed one of my lumbar discs l5-s1. Three years later I also destroyed the disc above it l4-l5 and suffered from severe nerve damage to my legs. The nerves did eventually grow back but I suffered from excruciating leg cramping and spasms in my feet and calves for the next four years. It was hell to even sit down for my job, needless to say I stopped exercising and due to a very poor diet and 8 cans of mountain dew a day my weight jumped up to 280lbs. I started smoking because for a few minutes the spasms quite and gave me a little peace, this allowed me to work an extra 10 hours a week and I became hooked.
Four years later at age 34 after spending two years working 80 hour weeks at a very stressful job I was working the Chrysler plant in belvidere ill. I woke up in the middle of a heart attack, not knowing what it was I walked around my hotel room for the next 45 minutes until I realized the pain wasn’t going away.
The paramedics took me to the hospital and I was sent to surgery, when I woke up the doctor informed me that I had a widowmaker – 100 blocked LAD and they had determined that 50% of my left ventricle was not moving any more. They told me that more often than not people usually don’t make it very long after one of these.
During rehab I worked very hard, finally being able to jog slowly up to two miles, but I could never get beyond that and that combined with going back to my job left me a shell of a man. Crashing from exhaustion on the couch every night and spending my weekends in bed trying make it through the next week of work. During this time my leg pain did go away, and with a good diet I dropped 90 lbs over the next 6 months.
Then the other shoe dropped, a CT was done on my chest and it was discovered that I had not only a pulmonary embolism, but I also had a giant branchial carciniod tumor that completely filled up the cavity occupied but my right middle lung. During my stay for those issues a team of cardios also looked after me. they told me at best I had maybe 5 years left if I was lucky and the very good transplant surgeon that would crack the right side of my chest gave the same chances of making threw the lobectomy as an 80 year old man.
Well I ended up being so stable during the surgery he worked an extra 2 hours on me and I recovered. I did have a bought with pneumonia also but I survived that as well.
1 ½ after my heart attack I went to Thailand for my stem cell therapy.
Before I left I had a metabolic stress test done using the advance haskell protocol. I scored 8 mets with a vo2 of 28.
40% of my left ventricle was totally dead – mri mapping
Three days after my stem cell implantation I started walking through Bangkok again, my breathing had improved, my stamina was up, and for some reason I was really hungry all the time.
Before the treatment after walking it would take half and hour in air conditioning to stop sweating and my hr would be 110 to 120 for quite while cooling down.
In three days when I tried again my hr was 85 and I would stop sweating in 5 minutes. A week and a half later I had an echo done before I left and the bottom of my heart was very weakly beating again. This really gave me hope.
Two months later I did another metabolic stress test using the standard Bruce protocol and I scored 10.1 mets with a vo2 of 32. A 20% and 12.5% increase the doctor that had done my last one blurted out “absolutely stunning!” this put me in the 95th percentile for men my age of 37 years old, in other words out of a 100men my age 50 of them could not match my performance. If I lost 50 lbs then I would be way over the average.
Now 18 months later only a very small part of the bottom of my heart isn’t beating normally and I can do nearly everything I want to now. The only thing I have not done is hard sports because I still have a fear of maxing out my heart rate – old fears die hard.
All of my body chemical stats are now in normal range, I have maintained a cholesterol of 144 total without using any statins – I quite those several months ago.
The last three weeks of july I have worked over 90+ hours and I don’t feel especially tired
My last bike ride on a recumbent bike I rode 33.5 miles in 2 hours 20 minutes.
I can walk 5 miles on a whim, and not have to relax afterwards
I did a six minute walk test and I did 804 meters in 5 minutes which is on video
The next video I make I will attempt to do 1100 to 1300 meters in 6 minutes. – what else can I say.
Adult stem cells work. No placebo effect can change the physiological effects of heart failure that are easy to see and impossible to mask.
Aditional note, since I wrote this I will also be in the November edition of men’s health magazine where I was able to get through part of level 4 on a normal persons stress tests that proved I am back to normal.
Sincerely,
James Eilert

james eilert II of MI 11:11PM October 09, 2009

lemyaskin rulezz

lemyaskin of NM 9:49PM September 22, 2009

Since the 1950s, the gold standard of dietary intervention for people with congestive heart failure has been a low salt diet. Search on Google for diet + “congestive heart failure”, and you'd find more than ½ a million citations, virtually all of them recommending a low salt diet, mirroring current advice to curtail dietary salt.
But a consensus approach does not necessarily mean a correct approach. The 1970s witnessed a similar consensus over need to reduce saturated fats in the diet, however, more comprehensive research has since shown this notion to be incorrect. Only consistent, high quality research can verify whether or not a particular therapy works. Might this be the case with congestive heart failure?
When one system of the body is not functioning optimally, other systems may attempt to take over to make up for the problem. In the case of heart failure, several types of compensation are possible. The heart may enlarge or beat faster. Or the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) may be activated.
Two new studies have just been published that have supported the observation that when people, who have had previous congestive heart failure problems, are placed on a low salt diet, they fare far worse than those who were kept on a regular salt diet.
The conclusion of the first study was that a normal level of sodium in the diet improved health outcomes and that low sodium intakes had detrimental renal and neurohormonal effects -- in summary, far worse clinical outcomes.
The second, much larger study, was designed to evaluate the effects of different levels of sodium in the diet together with different diuretic doses and different levels of fluid intake. Again, hospital readmissions and clinical outcomes were carefully measured.
The Paterna results showed that the group placed on a regular salt diet proved to have far better health outcomes than the group that was placed on a low salt diet. The low salt diet caused a general worsening in renal function and lead to greatly increased rates of readmissions and mortality.
Serious consideration has to be given to changing the low sodium dietary intervention gold standard for patients with congestive heart failure. Research, carefully and objectively carried out, shows that such patients will fare much better when they are not placed on a low salt diet.
For the same reasons, we should get over our smug assumptions about encouraging low-salt diets for our healthy population.
Read all about these studies in Salt and Health, http://www.saltinstitute.org/content/download/8099/43917.
Dick Hanneman
President
Salt Institute

Dick Hanneman of VA 4:31PM March 31, 2009

Medline articles are numerous on this topic,
Nutrition on top of exercise and lifestyle is neat! It has to be from whole food that is ripe and raw and deeply colored.

Herb Breitkreutz 12:03PM February 23, 2009

My mother died from it back in 2003, it was a case of age,
addiction to cigarettes, cough syrup and Tylenol. When we
took her for the final time at the hospital, she was released
to us with out a "game plan". She spent the last five months
of her life in a local nursing home. The nurses, and nursing
assistants did their best for her. I still blame the cigarettes
most of all.

Thomas of WY 8:02PM February 16, 2009

I must state that I have not viewed all the comments above mine but as soon as the words, "Death Certificate" mirrored my view, I immediately began to race my thought process which is not good for someone living the rest of their days with the chronic illness CPM. (Central Pontine Myelinolysis) Yesterday as I celebrated my 7th Anniversary since I acquired the iatrogenic monster. Many of you who have been viewing these online health communities over the years have seen me hopping around carrying my "CPM Awareness Flag." It's quite interesting but for the last seven years, rarely ever was the subject of heart attack brought up to be disgussed with me as I kept very busy assisting all the others world wide who had paralleled my CPM facts of reality. Yes my friends, after spending two years searching a well qualified surgeon to repair either of my knees w/ torn meniscus along with an anesthesiologist who believe it or not first had heard of Central Pontine Myelinolysis and second felt as I and many neurologist did by having a spinal block used instead of general anesthesia. I won't go into full detail but follow this run of events.
Found the surgeon but required a heart stress test if choice was to do the epidural. Naturally my test was induced which happen to be fine. As we go on, the symptoms I have from CPM which most everyone are different in my opinion, caused complete havoc post-op as the actual process was the same as the rest by doing it as an out patient which personally I questioned because of all the "Non-Recorded Information That Has Been Available For The Last FIFTY YEARS But For Reasons Unknown To Me This World We Live In Has At Least One Excuse I've Read In Regard To It's Cost Being Hyponatremia When Using All The Ways To Acquire CPM."
After a lengthly wait time to be discharged post-op, I finally was released and was back in an ambulance an hour later heading back to the hospital as I was having "Severe Pain," in my leg's.(yes legs) In regard to the CPM, my nerve sensation and motor issues usually appear to have a dead battery. Now as I admitted for almost a week, I became accustomed to the line of the oxycontin & oxycodone. Two weeks later I get another ambulance ride for a said to be "Heart Attack," without any blockage. A few weeks after this event, I now get to be like a donkey carrying oxygen.
You remember, "I Said No Detail Right." You really have not heard any yet. OK, just as the one above, it sure appears that with a Death Certificate when there is such a small percent of autopsies it sure gives to much control to thoughs setting the numbers in regard to "Who Died Because Of What!" Hoping this comment can be read in to. G-d Bless...
Franky (boston terrier neuro companion) and WhataBreeze (that be me)

Franky and Jeffrey of MO 8:16PM February 07, 2009

My father died of CHF in 1999. He had bypass surgery some years earlier; however the CHF was attributed to infection or treatment for infection on a badly degenerated knee. Since I was living in another state some distance away, I did not see the effects or the progression of the CHF. I knew about the symptoms, but really didn't understand the relationship to the disease until now.
I was told that when he made his last trip to the hospital with failed kidneys and full of fluid, that he was calm and strong. Those that were with him said that his faith had served him well.
Thank You for the article and the caregiver comments.

Don of SC 4:18AM February 06, 2009

Heart Failure and its impact on families is profound.
We have compiled a list of advocacy groups for heart failure that readers may find helpful.
http://www.patientoptions.com/heart-failure-advocacy.php
If you know of others please let us know.
Sincerely,
Tim Thigpen
Editor
PatientOptions.com

Tim Thigpen of OR 3:11PM February 05, 2009

I had a heart attack and bypass surgery in 1985 which did some damage to my left ventricle. I went on meds and exercise and made it until late 2001 when I had again had bypass surgery and another heart attack more damage. In early 2002 I ended up with CHF close to stage 3. My ejection faction is 24. I have been on meds for cholesterol and CHF since then. I also had an ICD implanted. I have been determined not to give up and to exercise and take my meds and diet seriously. I now can walk The treadmill at a grade of 2 1/2 at 3 mph for 30 minutes a day, every day. My advise to all with heart problems is to eat a healthy diet and exercise daily

Don of WI 4:53PM February 04, 2009

Thank you to Dr. Healy for a very informative article & to Janice for your SVR recommendation. The rest of my comments are for Vivien Hight of OR.
My perspective on death changed after taking care of Mother, who developed Type II diabetes from obesity that led to CHF. She had a heart attack at age 60 and quad-bypass surgery at age 76 followed by a mild stroke & TIA's then severe dementia. I eventually moved her to assisted living, then a nursing home. She was on diuretics & coumadin & had monthly blood tests, but not for thyroid. At age 81, the lab mistakenly discovered her thyroid was no longer functioning (31 TSA), a major cause of dementia.
SynThroid brought profound improvement in her overall health & mental abilities. She broke a hip, recovering quickly, but had a stroke 6 mo. later. She said then that she was tired of making the effort to live. Told that 3 granddaughters were coming to show her their first babies, she used her tremendous will power to overcome the stroke & live just long enough to see them.
By the time my daughter came with her baby, Mother had been moved from the dementia unit to nursing care where she simply refused to eat. She perked up for my daughter, asking her to sing Amazing Grace, but was failing rapidly. She died when & as she wanted to - gracefully - soon after my daughter left.
But the death certificate states she died of CHF.

MomsHugs (aka Eve) of GA 1:40PM February 04, 2009