June 9, 2005

Q- Seven years ago I had heart bypass surgery. Two years ago I had stents put in my heart arteries, and I had to have the procedure repeated two months ago. The doctor says there is nothing more he can do for me. He wants me to take the EECP treatment. Many people never have heard of it. Would it help me to take it? What does it do, and how good is it?

A- EECP — enhanced external counterpulsation — is a nondrug treatment for people who have obstructed heart arteries and for whom medicines are not working and surgery is not an option. You appear to fit the picture.

Inflatable cuffs, somewhat like the cuffs used to take blood pressure, are wrapped around the legs at the calves and at the lower and upper thighs. A computer-guided device inflates them sequentially at a very specific point in the heart pumping cycle. That sends a wave of blood surging to the heart muscle and provides it with an increased supply of oxygen.

Sessions last about an hour. Five sessions are given weekly for two months.

The procedure has been shown to help clean the inside of heart arteries, enhance the health of heart muscle and possibly generate new blood vessels. You should also know that there are those who are skeptical of this treatment. Every medical treatment has its skeptics.

If your doctor thinks you are a good candidate for EECP, why not go for it? It won’t hurt you, and it could help. The Food and Drug Administration has approved it.

Q-Some medical newsletters for seniors recommend chewing a plain 325mg aspirin within minutes of a threatened heart attack. Some friends say their lives were saved by doing this. Druggists tell me that the plain 325mg aspirin is no longer manufactured. Does taking a coated aspirin give the same results?

A- If by coated you mean the aspirin that’s coated for easier swallowing, that’s the kind the articles mean when they say plain aspirin. It’s all over the place. The coated aspirin that is not as good for an imminent heart attack is the kind that’s coated to lessen the possibility of stomach irritation as it passes through. That kind is plainly marked as being less irritating to the stomach.

Chewing the ordinary kind of aspirin — the kind that says coated for easier swallowing — makes it available for direct absorption through the membranes lining the mouth. It gets to work rapidly.

Aspirin stops blood platelets from sticking to the obstructing material in a heart artery and thereby increasing the size of the obstruction, the basis of a heart attack.

Q -A friend told me that you can catch only one viral infection at a time. Is this true? If so, why?

A -It’s not true. A person can have two viral, two bacterial or two parasitic illnesses at the same time. It’s possible to have more than two.

A viral infection engenders the production of anti-viral substances, so that might be the reason why your friend thinks viral infections cannot coexist. At one time, it was the vogue to give smallpox vaccinations to prevent warts. The vaccine contains a live virus, and warts are a viral infection. It didn’t work.

People with AIDS are susceptible to other serious viral infections, and AIDS, itself, is a viral infection. Do you want other examples?

Dr Donohue regrets that he is unable to answer individual letters, but he will incorporate them in his column whenever possible. Readers may write to him or request an order form of available health newsletters at PO Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475

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