When something is out of rhythm with your heart, the rest of your body feels it. Correcting those issues used to require invasive and sometimes dangerous surgery, but now a new device and an innovative approach is helping give patients a new lease on life.
This isn't Ron Eimers’ first trip to see the specialist at the Avera Heart Hospital. 22 years ago, he had his first procedure to repair a leaky valve. That was just the start of his extensive medical history that includes atrial fibrillation, open heart surgery, and even a Watchman procedure to help keep his heart health in check.
“Initially, he was not having any symptoms, was doing fine, but through serial evaluations of keeping track of him when he started having problems with heart failure and fatigue,” said John Wagener, MD an interventional cardiologist with the North Central Heart Institute.
“I was getting dizzy and stuff like that, and that's when they found the new leak in my heart,” said Eimers.
Ron's tricuspid valve was malfunctioning, allowing blood to flow backward, causing him to feel winded and fatigued.
The tricuspid valve is a little bit more complex of a valve from an anatomy standpoint, and so we didn't have really any good devices at the time to try to treat this problem, but a lot of patients who have mitral regurgitation or atrial valve stenosis can also have tricuspid valve regurgitation.
Thankfully for Ron, there's a new minimally invasive option to help treat his condition.
"He did a lot of testing before he did this, which I admire. We made a lot of trips down here, but finally he said that we’ve got to go in there and put clips on it, like clothespins," said Eimers.
“The TriClip is similar to mitral clip. It's a clip that we put on the leaflets to try to bring them together so the valve no longer leaks. The TriClip device became FDA approved in April, and we were fortunate enough to be one of the early adopters for the procedure,” said Dr. Wagener.
“I'm only the second or third one they ever did, I think. I didn't know that until it was over with which was fine. I knew I was in good hands. Dr. Wagener is really thorough. I am really happy with him,” said Eimers.
This is not open heart surgery, and the valve repair can be done through the body's own blood vessels in the cath lab, rather than an OR, meaning an opportunity for a quicker recovery for patients like Ron.
“Now with this device, it's a tool in our tool belt to help treat this. Not everybody's a candidate, but it does give us some options to address tricuspid regurgitation that's persistent despite medications. And fortunately, we're at a place at North Central Heart and the Avera Heart Hospital that advocate to staying on the front edge of this type of treatment. And so we're very fortunate to be here. There's a lot of things we can offer, whether it's for AFib, valvular disease, vascular disease, and cardiac disease in general,” said Dr. Wagener.
As for Ron, he's on the mend and looking forward to returning to the hobbies and the people he cares most about.
“Yeah, I did some pheasant hunting. I didn't get too good luck, but I got a grandson that's going to come deer hunting with me. So maybe I can live another 20 years. I'm 76 now, and I'm hoping I can live longer,” said Eimers.
The team of North Central Heart cardiologists at the Avera Heart Hospital were the first to use implement the TriClip device in the Dakotas, Iowa and Nebraska. This historic milestone is the second innovative procedure to be implemented in 2024, joining the Pulse Field Ablation technology for heart rhythm issues early this spring.
