Meg Farris / Medical Reporter
Doctors say it's a dangerous thing we do, ignore signs of a heart attack because we're in denial that it's really happening. But now technology can warn you before there are chest pains. And you might qualify to get the new device - free.
Erwin Olexa, 63 of Mandeville, remembers Good Friday of 2010. That day nearly changed his life forever.
"I started getting a heaviness in my chest. It wasn't a pain, just heaviness," said Olexa.
He waited, then later that afternoon he knew it was time to go to the E.R.
"I used to be a paramedic so I knew what was going on then when I started getting the chest pain," he remembers.
His EKG was normal. The insurance company actually wanted him to go home because just months before his stress test was normal. But cardiologists still took him into the cath lab for an angiogram. And the doctors were right as there were bad blockages everywhere.
"In every major vessel he had blockage, including the left main which is called the widow maker," said Dr. Pramod Menon, an Interventional Cardiologist at Cardiovascular Associates in Covington.
Immediately he was rushed into quintuple by pass surgery. Three months later, more chest pain, more blockage and a stent. This cardiac history made Olexa the perfect candidate for new potentially life-saving technology.
It's called the AngelMed Guardian System. A device that looks like a pacemaker being tested at 43 sites across the country. One of the test sites is InnoMed in Covington. Here's how it works: Cardiologists take patients into the O.R. for a simple 20-minute surgery. A small two to three inch incision is made under the collarbone where the AngelMed is sewn right under the skin. A lead is passed through a vein and into the heart muscle. Patients are just lightly sedated and numbed in that area. They go home the same day.
Since this is a study, some people have the device turned on and others turned off. Then as heart patients go about their normal lives, every 90 seconds this device will take 10-second recordings of the heart beat. If oxygen levels to the heart are not right, the AngelMed will pick up changes and sound the alarm.
Before you have any symptoms, it will either tell you to get to the E.R. right away or that it's picked up an abnormality that should be checked out by your doctor at some point soon. In the doctor's office the recorded information is downloaded onto a computer where every beat of your heart, with the exact time and date, can be studied.
"In their heart, it's monitoring 24-7 and it's looking specifically for those changes that we would see when somebody's artery's closed or about to close and it will get them to the E.R. or potentially cath lab quicker," explained Dr. Menon.
"Time is heart muscle, is what we say in cardiology and this is very important here because it will actually notify the patient that there could be a problem even before there is any heart damage," said Dr. Dale Presser, an Invasive Cardiologist at Cardiovascular Associates.
And if you can save heart muscle, then for the rest of your life, you will live better. And here in Southeast Louisiana there is a high number of people with heart disease.
"We are aligned with what's called the blubber belt here in Southeast Louisiana that extends all the way down from the Midwest all the way down through the south. We have a much higher incidence of coronary artery disease, diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol in this part of the country," said Dr. Presser.
What doctors are finding is that this device also lowers anxiety and gives peace of mind.
"Anytime that you're diagnosed with coronary artery disease, it's almost like you're diagnosed with cancer. A lot of them become depressed, they get anxious, they are worried about when's the next time I'm going to have a heart attack," explained Dr. Presser.
For Olexa, AngelMed is like a guardian angel.
"Finally it did go off on me one time and it was, believe it or not, it was because I didn't take my meds. It's a comfort to me and my family, especially my wife, to know that there's something there that's tracking that all the time," said Olexa.
If you're a cardiac patient or if you've had chest pains or a heart procedure you may qualify for this free study. Call 1-985-871-0735 extension 145 for more or go to www.innomedla.com .
