Question to be answered

Does any one know what External Counter Pulsation treatments are. I just came across it and have never heard of it before. So this is more to solve my curiosity
Mona

3 Comments

EECP

by SMITTY - 2009-05-11 06:05:47

Hi Mona,

Yep I have experience with the External Counter Pulsation treatment. You can get lots of reading material on this by going to Google and entering EECP Treatment.

In a nutshell what they do is put a big cuff - just like a blood pressure cuff - around each leg from the ankle to the knees, then one from the knee to the top of the thigh and then one around the abdomen. Then they put 4 electrodes - just like ECG electrodes - on the upper body. These monitor the heart beat and send a signal to a big machine - about half the size of a household refrigerator - which contains an air pump.

This machine receives the signal from the heart and when the contracts it inflates all of these cuffs in sequence starting at the ankles. As soon as the ventricle relaxes the pressure is released and the entire thing starts over at the next heart beat. The inflation is to about 250 to 280 mm Hg, which is about 5 PSI.

I'm told the theory behind this treatment is that each time the ventricle contracts this thing will compress these cuffs forcing the blood backup through the body under pressure to the heart. This expands blood vessels and may even cause the growth of new blood vessels.

If your heart rate is 60 beats per min. then this thing is squeezing you 60 times a minute, or if it is 80 of 90 - BPM you get squeezed 80 or 90 times a minute. All of this goes on for one hour and is done five days a week for 35 weeks. As bad as it sounds the squeezing and releasing of the cuffs is not all that uncomfortable if you have a regular heart beat.. It gets very tiring and boring and I can guarantee you will have to stop one or more times to go to bathroom.

Now the ringer is if you have a fairly regular heart beat with a minimum number of PVC or skip beats the treatment is not bad. But the apparatus I was on interpreted a PVC as a ventricular contraction and pressurized the cuffs, or if you are having skip beats it will skips pressurizing the cuffs when these happen. There were times I would have 4 or 5 PVC in a row and that thing was compressing and releasing at a rate - if it had gone for a full minute - of about 200 BPM.

During my treatments I was having PVCs like you wouldn't believe and from 2 to 6 or 8 skip beats per minute. My skip beats would come in a chain long enough to stop the apparatus from working as it apparently thought I had straight lined. But as soon as I had my next heart beat it would restart with a vengeance. I mean it would hit me hard and fast enough to lift me off the table. I'm not lieing and I have a moving picture clip nade by my wife showing daylight under me on the restart and I would on some days have these restarts 20 or 30 times (maybe more, I didn't try to count I to busy trying to hold on) during an hour.

I would come home each day so exhausted that it meant sitting in a recliner for several hours. I can cut my grass and not get that tired and it was all because of my arrhythmia.

I talked to several people that have been through the treatment and some were like me, because of their irregular heart beats they had to pitch in the towel after a few weeks, but for those that had a stable heart rhythm it was not all that bad, although not all of them said they felt like they benefitted from the treatment.

My advice to any one considering this treatment is if you are having several PVCs or skip beats each minute, proceed carefully. If you have a stable heart rate, it may helpandcan possibly stave off the necessity of bypass surgery in the future.

Smitty

EECP

by jessame - 2009-05-11 07:05:11

This does not sound like any party that I would want to be invited to.UGH!!! How long did you last if you don't mind me asking.

EECP

by SMITTY - 2009-05-12 10:05:42

Hi Mona,

I lasted 2 weeks and 3 days before the doctor agreed that was enough. I see that I said the treatment was to go 35 weeks That should have been 35 hours. It is 5 days a week for 7 weeks. Although I did hear of a couple of people doubling up and getting two a day to shorten the time. I don't know how anyone can tolerate that twice a day under the best of conditions.

But, again it may not so bad if a person has a very stable heart beat I do know that the few time I got a steady heart beat for 3 to 5 minutes, the squeezing is not all that bad, just gets monotonous as the devil.

Smitty

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