Dr. Oz device allows quick and effective mitral valve repair
Imagine that you are chronically fatigued and short of breath even when lying down.
Your legs and ankles are swollen, and you have an increased heart rate. These are symptoms that almost 6 million Americans may contend with because they have heart failure — the inability of the heart to pump enough blood throughout the body to keep organs and tissue healthy and happy.
If you have this condition, it can cause the heart muscle to weaken and stretch out like an overblown balloon. That pulls apart the mitral valve — its job is to open and close the door between the heart’s upper left-hand chamber (the atrium) and the lower chamber (the ventricle). When that happens, the flow of oxygen-rich blood out of your heart to the rest of your body backs up, and you develop what’s called mitral regurgitation. Your symptoms worsen and your risk of death from heart failure increases.
But if a surgeon can fix the valve, even if the heart cannot be replaced, your well-being will improve greatly. Unfortunately, until now, heart failure with mitral valve regurgitation often made mitral valve repair or replacement necessary, complete with cracking open your ribcage and stopping your heart so that surgeons can go deep inside it. These are risky procedures, especially for people who have heart failure.