If you’re tired of not being able to do normal everyday activities, join thousands of others who discovered the life-enhancing benefits of a revolutionary new therapy. If you’re among the more than seven million patients with symptomatic coronary artery disease in the United States, you’re probably all too familiar with the current conventional arsenal of treatments from statins and beta blockers to more invasive procedures, such as angioplasty and bypass surgery.
However for many, despite the best laid plans, diet, exercise, medication, or surgery, conventional approaches no longer work or seem too aggressive. Fortunately, a new and effective therapy is providing relief and allowing patients to once again live life to the fullest.
That’s certainly the case for the countless people undergoing enhanced external counterpulsation (EECP) therapy, a procedure that decreases demand on an ailing heart by helping push blood through the body.
The procedure is painless and simple. Oversized blood-pressure cuffs are strapped to the legs and buttocks that pulse in synch with your heartbeat. These pneumatic cuffs are timed to inflate in progression, starting with the areas around the calves, when the heart reaches its resting phase between beats. As it inflates, each cuff squeezes blood out of the legs and back to the heart.
“It feels like a deep muscle massage,” Dr. Eric Braverman, an internationally known expert in the treatment, told Time magazine writer Christine Gorman.
If the concept at first sounds “unconventional,” take heart. Initially based on Harvard research done more than a half century ago, EECP continues to gain ground in scientific circles where mounting evidence supports numerous benefits of EECP for patients suffering from heart disease, as well as a variety of other conditions. For heart disease, recent studies suggest that the extra blood flow to the heart from EECP therapy initiates the production of tiny blood vessels that in turn better nourish the heart muscle.
If you would like to learn more about the many benefits and uses of EECP, please contact The Guyer Institute of Molecular Medicine. We will be more than happy to explore this exciting treatment option with you.
