My latest Cardiologist...

[TXMOM]

I went to my first appointment with Dr. Mammen yesterday. I don't think it went very well. He told me the same thing my original Cardiologist told me, 40-50% chance of death. I told him about you, Dr. Fett, and your research and that you recommended I talk to Dr. Markham because you have worked with him. Dr. Mammen kept telling me to read the research of Dr. Uri Elyakim and that I should base my knowledge off of what he says. I gave him your website and told him to ask Dr. Markham about you. He said he would look you up. I hope he does. Anyway, the real news is that I gave him the paper that my last cardiologist wrote up for my records of what his thoughts were. Dr. Mammen said that the paper says I have a calculated ef of 46% but that the dr. is guessing it is more like 50-55%! He said that if my echo is actually 46% I need to go back on Coreg or my life span will be much shorter. Dr. Mammen did another echo, and a EKG, and took blood to test lots of stuff, but he would not do a stress echo, even though I asked him to. He didn't believe it was necessary. I am supposed to find out today or tomorrow what my results are. I am hoping my last echo was wrong. I don't think my cardiologist had much faith in those results, if he was willing to put a guess to it. Also, previous echo's showed an ef of 60%.

[JAMESFETT]

It will be good to know precisely the level of your current LVEF. I only advise the exercise stress echo for those who are considering a post-PPCM pregnancy and who are at LVEF of 55 % or more. Dr. Uri Elkayam is also a very fine source of information about PPCM. He and I are working together on the Peripartum Cardiomyopathy Network (PCN) Steering Committee, bringing together 25 USA medical centers (including Dr. Markham's) in a PPCM study under the direction of Principal Investigator Dennis McNamara, MD, U Pittsburgh Medical Center. The PCN study just received a large grant from the National Institute of Health to study PPCM in the USA. We are making progress, it all takes time. My article about monitoring post-PPCM pregnancies will soon appear in Critical Pathways in Cardiology, 2009. I will be glad to send your cardiologist a pdf copy of that article, and he is welcome to contact me at the e-mail address below. Best wishes.

JD