Heart disese

[Ruby2012]

My husband has congestive heart failure with 15% heart function. His is caused from a heart attack that he was unaware of, & was not discovered until so much of his heart was damaged, that the only thing they could do was insert a defib. with 3 leads. He also got a bacteria infection in his blood stream, but unable to find source. Is there anything elso that can be done for him. He is 68 & his fluid is getting worse.

[erijon]

I agree about the age limits, however they are based on a 70% life expectancy at 10 years after which the life expectancy drops off sharply with the average being 12.5 years. It seems that as the life expectancy improves, it may hurt the age limits in place. Seems a little backwards to me.

[ed34]

Personally I think age limits are ridiculous. A study of 40 transplant patients were compared to those much younger and the results were too similar to make any distinctions. Each patient should simply be tested individually for a good likely result. I think it would be better for a donor heart to go to a 70 year   old that is more likely to survive, than someone much younger with much higher risks of failure. I think they should also look more closely at donor rules. Here in the UK they were thinking of changing it so everyone was a donor unless they carried a card to say otherwise. I have had a donor card since I was 18, but I doubt if anyone would want a heart with 10 stents and a triple bypass.

[vienna13]

Maybe you know all that..:)..if not here...

His sodium intake cannot be more then 2000mg per day. Less is better, can go down to 1600mg 400mg per serving. Also must limit fluid intake to 1.5 -2 liters from all sources.  
If he is a strong person he will improve soon.  I had no heart attach only heart failure with 20% EF. Few months later it went up and then normal on medication doing exercise as much as I was able to handle.  For many people even for those had 10% EF the numbers went up to 35-40%. Never give up! Better days to come!

Heart transplant? I dont know. Please let us know if his age would be ok to get to the list and if he would need it at all?

  Best wishes!

[Ruby2012]

Thanks so much for answering. They are keeping a watch, but he will probably go on heart transplant, (if he qualifies), when he gets to 10%. He has a defib. with 3 leads, which keeps his heart going, & we are going to ask about the    stem cell therapy. Thanks again.

[ed34]

Well, to answer this question, I will assume that his heart is too damaged to recover any further. I have no idea if this is the case.
There are two main avenues of option with such situations. First is transplant. The patient is fitted with a LVAD which is a pump inside the chest, attached to the heart to assist it, take on a lot of the work load. A tube passes through the skin to a power pack which has to be recharged. If your husband doesn't have one of these, then he must be doing better than one would expect with a 15% EF. This is a stop gap until a donor heart match is found, or now they sometimes keep the pump in place instead.
Second is stem cell therapy. I would speak to your cardiologist about research centres dealing with this, and have good results. I feel there are too many places claiming to be getting good results but are simply after money. Some places are legitimate so I would inquire.