The mother of New Hampshire suffered two strokes at a young age. After she checked her heart, she decided to check the whole family.
What the Tufts team discovered was incredibly rare.
“I think it all happened to check them out,” said Heather Strong from New Boston, New Hampshire.
Now she feels healthy and grateful, but this is how the mother of New Hampshire felt before she experienced her first stroke at the age of 47.
“My hand just turned in front of me, so when I grabbed it, everything was numb and I know what was going on, and when I tried to calculate what was going on, my right foot also betrayed, so I just fell on the floor and I was just there with the whole right side,” Heather said.
Heather, fortunately, after a few minutes she returned. The nurse heather herself knew that something was wrong, even though she lived a healthy lifestyle and was a former sports athlete and a passionate traveler.
“I always know I really tried my whole life,” Heather said. “So I didn’t suspect anything with my heart. That was the last place I watched.”
Despite the fact that he had no classic stroke risk factors, dr. Carey Kimmelstiel Tufts Medical Center found that Heather had a pair of holes in her heart, a rare condition called a atrial partition defect.
“One in 2000 live births, you know that most of them will be collected in childhood,” said Dr. Carey Kimmelstiel with interventional cardiology at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. “And one thing you can say for sure is that the sooner you close them, the better the patients do.”
Instead of open heart surgery-2016. The FDA confirmed the ASD closing device to close the hole to close the outpatient procedure.
“And we were like the leading center associated with the inclusion of those tests and implant devices in the study that believes in whether or not for nine years, and eventually proved to reduce the incidence of recurring stroke,” said Dr. Kimmelstiel.
Dr. Kimmelstiel implanted a small metal device to help close Heather heart holes, but little he knew was not the only strong family member he had to heal.
Heather Strong
“He was what he could check them,” Heather said. “And I accepted it when I check them, and you do it now.”
Of the three Heather adult daughters, the Tufts team learned that two of them also had holes in their hearts. Both Emma and Molly also decided to perform the same procedure as their mother.
“So we went the same day and our procedure was back,” said Emma Strong. “I went first and she was then. It was a kind of fun. The way it was a little outing to Boston.”
They also had a doctorate Kimmelstel, overseeing it all.
“It was very fast, I didn’t feel any pain,” Molly Strong said.
Just as rare as a condition, is the same doctor who performs the procedure of three family members …
“I do it for a while, long, and you know, you can count on the one hand,” said dr. Kimmelstiel.
A strong family hopes their ASD devices will prevent any future stroke – and will keep their hearts out of here when they have learned a valuable lesson.
“I would just say that it is better to know than to know, for example, to go to check if you care and find out, face it, not worry about what it can be,” Emma said.
ASD is twice widespread in women than men, and can be a certain genetic component, but dr. Kimmelstiel says more research is needed. By filling the holes in the heart, the device also protects against heart failure and pulmonary hypertension.
This is a developing story. Check that there are no updates when more information is available.
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