Friday 24 February 2017

Weak, Diseased, Hereditary or lifestyle HEART DISEASE? (YOU CAN’T RUN OR HIDE FROM IT) (By Sarahn Lawrence)

Yesterday, I went to visit a 63 years old family friend who is a retired nurse. She has been extremely ill lately and has been so ill for the past months, she started fearing death. She had symptoms such as excessive urination at night, fatigue, reduced exercise ability, palpitations,shortness of breath with activity, swelling of the abdomen, legs, ankles, or other part of the body and trouble breathing while lying down. She has been to so many doctors in the past and was diagnosed with exercise-induced bronchospasm, which is a narrowing of the airways in the lungs that is triggered by strenuous exercise. It causes shortness of breath, wheezing, coughing and other symptoms during or after exercise. She also has bilateral carpal tunnel which is a medical condition due to compression of the median nerve as it travels through the wrist at the carpal tunnel and some mild peripheral neuropathy which is a result of damage to your peripheral nerves, often causes weakness, numbness and pain, usually in your hands and feet. As time went by her symptoms started getting worse she started having constant edema, swelling of the ankles and shortness of breath.


Doctors at the hospital automatically assumed that her symptoms were related to hypertension, diet or even diabetes. She was then advised to travel overseas for further medical attention to see a cardiologist, which she did. They did an echocardiogram and realized some changes in the electrical conduction in the heart, and wanted to know what are these changes and why it was happening. The doctors then realized there where little star like structures in the walls of her ventricles just dispersed little areas of thickening that looked like stars after reviewing her echoes. They then insisted she do a myocardial biopsy to look for Amyloid, which came back positive. Amyloid is a disease called protein misfolding. There are normally soluble proteins that become insoluble for a number of reasons and deposits abnormally in tissues and organs around the body. She was then diagnosed with Familial Amyloidotic Cardiomyopathy (FAC). She inherited the genetic mutation from both her mother and father.



Normally before finding out patients has FAC, they are diagnosed with seemingly unrelated symptoms because it affects multiple organs with unspecific symptoms. FAC is an inherited progressively debilitating and often fatal disease caused by mutation in the TTR Gene. This gene is called transthyretin, which is the type that affects family members. The proteins that transport thyroxin and retinol the hereditary form of TTR there is a mutation, which makes the protein abnormal. The TTR protein has a different structure, which makes it unstable, and it tends to form this Amyloid fibril that then gets deposited into the body. The hereditary form of TTR amyloid usually affects the nerves causing neuropathy or the heart or sometimes both. There are 2 other proteins which normally affects the heart and they are called AL (Amyloid light chain) Immunoglobulin which is a protein which fights infections and due to abnormal cells in bone marrow it forms too much light chains and they form amyloid to deposit in tissues and organs in the body and secondly, the Wild type (Age related or senile) where the protein is normal with no mutations. It’s mysterious that the proteins become misfolded and form the amyloid substance and deposit it in heart or ligaments or carpal tunnel.

In FAC the walls of the ventricular parts of the heart becomes thicker due to substances called Amyloidosis. The muscle cells of the heart are disrupted and Amyloid fibrils goes in between heart cells and causes disfunction. The heart should be flexible but it causes the heart to be much stiffer than normal. Its not that the heart is weak its just that the walls of the heart is too thick and inflexible making it hard for the heart to get filled with blood, and when you can’t get enough blood into the heart there isn’t enough to send to the body. This causes conditions such as heart failure when there isn’t enough blood to meet the demands of the body and pressure can then build up in the heart causing a syndrome called congestive heart failure.

However the issue was resolved just in time since she was placed on the heart transplant list. She received a new heart in January of this year and the transplant was done successfully.


            

1 comment:

  1. I was able to overcome senile dementia via a complete naturopathic process.

    About two years ago, when I was 56, I started feeling foggy and had occasional memory lapses. My wife, Mary, started to notice it, too, but I also have hearing issues so she thought that was the problem. My memory worsened very gradually over the years, and we lived with it, compensating as needed. I became less social. After some months thereafter, it got to the point where we couldn’t keep making excuses or ignoring it. I had gone from doing our grocery shopping without a list to going with a list, to having the list but not buying what was on it.

    Mary went online to do some research, and it was during this process we had been fortunate enough to come across Dr. Utu Herbal Cure: an African herbalist and witch doctor whose professional works had majored on the eradication of certain viral conditions, especially dementia, ( improving the memory capacity positively), via a traditional, naturopathic process and distinguished diet plan. It was by the administration of this herbal specialist that I had been able to improve my condition for better. So to say, the encounter with the above-mentioned herbal practitioner was the first time we ever heard there was something that possibly can be done to improve my memory functionality.

    By the existence of such an encounter, I was able to learn of the new approach by which this herbalist successfully treated dementia conditions, which included a distinguished herbal therapy and lifestyle changes of which I had undergone to a tremendous, positive effect.
    It was after the completion of the herbal therapy I had started to experience a great deal of cognitive improvement when it came to rational decision making.

    In brief, I was able to go through the dreadful hollows of senile dementia without any further hazardous damage to my health condition, and within a short period. Had it not been for the support of my wife, of whom had encouraged me to undergo the above-mentioned therapy and that of the herbal practitioner of whom now happens to be benefactor - I would have been long exposed to the further perils of this condition and of which had been apt to result to a calamitous end.

    I would also wish for the same positiveness upon patients who may happen to be suffering from this debilitating disease, and would warmly beseech them to find a confidant like this herbal specialist with whose professional service I survived to attain a divine recovery.

    For further information concerning this African traditional cure for Alzheimer's disease; feel free to contact Dr. Utu directly via email: drutuherbalcure@gmail.com.

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