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Heart Disease In Virginia - Part I

Heart Disease is the number one killer in Hampton Roads and the entire state of Virginia. It's serious business and many doctors believe not enough people are taking heart health seriously.

It took three frightening episodes before a local woman, Barbara Claiborne, realized how bad her heart really was. Claiborne works long hours managing a convenience store. She always thought her work gave her enough physical activity to keep her healthy. She was wrong. On Christmas Day, 2001, Barbara had her first heart attack.

" For the last three out of four Christmases, I have had episodes. I have gained two more stents since that point and Christmases are not good for me," said Barbara. Barbara's parents had heart trouble at an early age. But Barbara never noticed what they went through, so when it began happening to her, "I stood there speechless, throwing up, perspiring," she said.

" A lot of women dismiss the idea that they could have heart disease. It used to be and characteristically now, a man's disease who is overweight, inactive and may have high blood pressure," said Dr. Philip Goldstein, a cardiologist affiliated with Maryview Hospital in Portsmouth.

But now, many women are overweight, inactive and have high blood pressure as well as a host of other problems that lead to heart disease. "If your mom has a family history of heart disease at a younger age, especially if its premenopausal, if there's a history of cigarettes, blood pressure, diabetes, I can't overemphasize and say how important this is."

There are more specialized tests these days that can detect heart disease in women. "We now have nuclear testings, which is more sensitive and accurate and once we do these tests, if additional procedures needed, heart catherizations are more and more common," said Dr. Goldstein.

Maryview Hospital is building an expanded cardiac catherizations lab. It's an necessary expansion because the business of caring for diseased hearts has grown tremendously. Barbara Claiborne now doesn't hesitate to give advice. "I'm a little overweight, but I can't stress enough how important it is that you listen to your doctor and watch things going on around you with your body," said Barbara.

Another local woman, 74 year old Ethylyn Howard's life and heart changed one day ten years ago. It was right before Christmas. "I was sitting at my desk and no one else was in the office after lunch and I suddenly had electrical currents radiating up and down my arms and I said, well this was very unusual," said Ethylyn.

Then she got nauseous. It turned out, she was having a heart attack. "I was not surprised at all. Its certainly in my family history. And I knew that I had been sitting in a desk, sitting in a car and never getting any exercise, drank too much coffee and worked in a high stress job," said Ethylyn.

Ethylyn did not need surgery, but medication to help her heart. Because of her medical history, she was place in a Sentara Health Care clinical Trial to see if a defibrillator implanted in her chest would keep her alive should she suffer another heart attack.

Sentara Cardiologist Dr. John Herre explains how it works: "It senses a rapid potentially fatal heart rhythm problem and within about 6 or 8 seconds delivers an electric shock to the heart that about 99 percent of the time sets the heart rhythm straight."

Dr. Herre says when it happens, patients feel a jolting sensation. "If you're awake when you feel the shock, it feels like being kicked in the chest by a horse. It lasts only a fraction of a second, but if you are awake when you receive the shock, it is very uncomfortable," said Dr. Herre.

Uncomfortable or not, having an implantable defibrillator is lifesaving. "If you have a cardiac arrest and need one of these devices and you don't have one, the likelihood of dying is very high," said Dr. Herre. Ethylyn Howard hasn't felt a jolt yet. But she knows it is ready if her heart ever needs it.

" Because I'm on the study they will follow me for the rest of my life, every three months, I go have it checked to see if its been any activity or any changes."

Medicare is now picking up the $30,000 cost of implanting these tiny defibrillators in many patients. Medicare made that decision largely due to results of a clinical trial at Sentara.Your doctor will recommend whether you are a good candidate for this device.