A mother from New Hampshire suffered two strokes at a young age. After she had her heart checked, she decided to have her entire family checked.
What the Tufts team detected was incredibly rare.
“I feel that the whole thing happened so that I could have them checked,” said Heather Strong of New Boston, New Hampshire.
She now feels healthy and grateful but so the mother from New Hampshire felt before she had her first stroke at the age of 47.
“My arm just waved in front of me and so when I grabbed it, it was all stunned and I had something like that, you know what happened and while I tried to calculate what happened, my right leg also spent on the floor and I just fell with my entire right side,” Heather said.
Fortunately for Heather, she got the feeling back after a few minutes. A nurse himself, Heather knew that something was not good, although she lived a healthy lifestyle and was a former three sports athlete and an avid walker.
“I always know that you really put my heart to the test,” said Heather. “So I didn't suspect anything with my heart. Like that was the last place I would look at.”
Although they have none of the classic risk factors for a stroke, Dr. discovered Carey Kimmelstiel in Tufts Medical Center that Heather had a few holes in her heart – a rare condition known as atrial septum defect.
“One in 2,000 living births, you know that the majority of them will be collected in childhood,” said Dr. Carey Kimmelstiel, with interventional cardiology in Tufts Medical Center in Boston. “And one thing that you can certainly say is that the sooner you close them, the better the patients do.”
Instead of Open Heart Operation-in 2016, the FDA approved an ASD closing device to close the gap to a fast, outpatient procedure.
“And we were as the leading center in terms of registering those tests and the implantation of devices in a study that believes that it was whether or not it continued for nine years and it turned out to be the incidence of recurring stroke,” Dr. ir. Kimmelstiel.
Dr. Kimmelstiel implanted the small metal device that an Abbott Amplatzer device is called to help the holes in the heart of Heather closing but he knew little he was not the only strong family member he had to treat.
“He was like having them checked,” said Heather. “And I took that a bit while I let them check and you are doing it now.”
From Heather's three adult daughters, it heard the Tufts team that two of them also had holes in their hearts. Both Emma and Molly also decided to get the same procedure as their mother.
“So we went on the same day and our procedure was back,” said Emma Strong. “I went first and she was looking. It was pretty nice. Yes, as if it were a small outing to Boston.”
And they also left Dr. Kimmelstiel supervision of it all.
“It was very fast, I didn't feel any pain,” said Molly Strong.
Just as rare as the condition, is the same doctor who carries out the procedure for three family members …
“I've done this for a while, long, and you know, you can count on one hand,” said Dr. Kimmelstiel.
The strong family hopes that their ASD devices will prevent future strokes – and keep their hearts strong after learning a valuable lesson.
“I would just say that it is better to know then not to know, like you are going to check when you worry and find out, look up instead of worrying about what it could be,” Emma said.
ASD is twice as often for women as in men and there is perhaps a genetic component, but Dr. Kimmelstiel says that more studies must be done. By filling holes in the heart, the device also prevents heart failure and lung hypertension.
This is a developing story. Come back for updates as more information becomes available.
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