The heart has four chambers. The top two chambers are the atria — there's a right and a left atrium.
The bottom chambers are the ventricles — there's a right and a left ventricle.
Traditionally, pacemaker leads are placed one in the top chamber on the right and one
in the bottom chamber on the right.
When you stimulate the bottom chamber on the right for a long period of time, it can lead
to the bottom chambers not beating in synchrony, which we call dyssynchrony.
And that can in turn lead to, at worst, clinical outcomes which include heart failure or cardiomyopathy,
which is weakening of the heart muscle, atrial fibrillation, which is a common arrhythmia
that we see in the United States.
With His bundle pacing, we are actually trying to place one of the pacemaker leads that we
place in the right ventricle at the bundle of His in an area that is beyond the region
of disease or block, thereby overcoming that disease process.
And activating both of the bottom chambers in a synchronized fashion, thereby preventing
some of the adverse effects of right ventricular pacing.
The bundle of His was named after Wilhelm His, who was a famous cardiologist who originally
described the structure within the heart.
Back in the mid-90s I was bicycle racing, and I found myself lagging behind the group even
though I was in pretty good shape, and so I knew at that time that something was going on.
My heart rate monitor would only go up to 137, and things were going OK but I started
to experience more and more of these atrial arrhythmias.
And then soon it turned into atrial fibrillation.
He also developed electrical disease where impulses would not make it from the top chambers
to the bottom chambers, which resulted in a very slow heartbeat, as slow as 35 to 40
beats per minute.
And that's the reason he needed his pacemaker.
My electrophysiologist in Austin, Texas, said "We were not an early adopter to
His bundle pacing.
We're familiar with it, but you know, if I were you Allen, I would seek out a doctor
that has done a lot of these."
And so through my research, I found Dr. Sharma.
Our success rate is over 95 percent for this.
We are considered one of the few centers across the United States that not only performs His
bundle pacing but is a proctorship site where physicians from all over the U.S. and some
from around different parts of the globe come and train on this technique.
We're fortunate enough to share our experiences with them.
Good to see you.
How have you been?
I'm good.
You look good.
I feel good.
First I came in on a Friday and met Dr. Sharma at his office, and we had a 30-minute consultation,
and then we had it scheduled for first thing Monday morning.
I came to the hospital, and it was amazing.
Everybody was boom, boom, boom, boom, on time.
After a procedure like this, patients stay in the hospital for an overnight stay.
They're checked the next morning where we do an X-ray to make sure the leads are exactly
where we left them.
We check the parameters on these leads to make sure everything is stable.
I sleep throughout the night now.
Sometimes I would wake kind of in the middle of the night.
I don't worry about — hey I get up to go walk down the street — whether or not I'm going to
fall over.
I don't worry about passing out in the car, and I'm not going to have heart failure, because
what good is it if I'm only comfortable for a year or two and then I have to go to the
hospital when I'm 69 years old and I've got heart failure?
The checkup today, we were testing to make sure that everything from a technology perspective
is working, and it is.
It's working fine.
So I'm leaving with kind of a pep in my step.