Mom in New Hampshire suffered two shots at a young age. After checking her heart, she decided to check her entire family.
What the Tufts team found was incredibly rare.
“I feel that all the work has happened so I can check them out,” said Heather Silent from New Boston, New Hampshire.
Now she feels healthy and grateful-but that’s how Mom feels in New Hampshire, even before she struck her first shot at the age of 47.
“My hand was just swinging in front of me, and when I grabbed it, everything was numb and I was like, you know what was happening and as I tried to calculate what was happening, my right leg was also giving away, so I just fell to the floor and I was just there with my whole right side it was just tingling.”
Fortunately for Heather, after a few minutes she returned. The nurse herself, Heather, knew something was wrong, even though she lived a healthy lifestyle and was a former three athletes and a keen tourist.
“You always know that you really put your heart to the test all your life,” Heather said. “So I didn’t suspect anything with my heart. Like it was the last place I would look at.”
Although there are none of the classic risk factors for stroke, Dr. Kerry Kimmelstill of the Tufts Medical Center found that Heather had several holes in his heart – a rare condition known as an atrial septal defect.
“One in every 2000 living births, you know that the greater part of them will be taken in childhood,” says Dr. Kerry Kimmelstel with interventional cardiology at the Tufts Medical Center in Boston. “And one thing you can say for sure is that the earlier you close them, the better the patients do.”
Instead of opening heart-in 2016, the FDA approved an ASD closing device to close the hole in a quick, outpatient procedure.
“And we were like the leading center regarding the recording of these trials and implantation devices in a study that believes or does not last for nine years, and it was ultimately shown to reduce the incidence of recurrent stroke,” Dr. Kimmelstil.
Dr. Kimmelstal implanted the tiny metal device to help close the holes in the heart of Heather-but little knew-she was not the only strong member of the family she had to cure.
Heather strong
“He was like you could check them,” Heather said. “And I somehow took it as I check them, and you do it now.”
From the three elderly daughters of Heather, the Tufts team learned that two of them also had holes in their hearts. Both Emma and Molly also decided to receive the same procedure as their mother.
“So, we continued the same day and the procedure went back,” said Emma Strong. “I went first and she was after that. It was fun. Yes, it was a little trip to Boston.”
And they also made Dr. Kimmelstel watch all this.
“It was very fast, I didn’t feel any pain,” said Molly Silent.
Just as rarely as the condition is the same doctor who performs the procedure of three family members …
“I have been doing this for a long time, and you know that you can count on one hand,” said Dr. Kimmelstal.
The strong family hopes their ASDs will prevent future blows – and keep their hearts strong from here on after learning a valuable lesson.
“I would just say that it is better to know than not knowing, when you go to check if something you have anxiety and understanding it, you are confronted, instead of worrying about what it can be,” Emma said.
ASD is twice as common in women than in men, and may have some genetic component to it, but D -Kimelstell says more studies need to be done. By filling holes in the heart, the device also prevents heart failure and pulmonary hypertension.
This is a developing story. Check again for updates as it becomes more information.
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