MIAMI – According to the most recent report from the American Heart Association, nearly half of Americans over the age of 20 have high blood pressure which adds up to more than 122 million people.
Now there’s a new treatment option for those who struggle to manage their hypertension.
Norman Bradley has battled hypertension for most of his life
Even with medications, his blood pressure remained uncontrolled.
“It was always in the 130′s, 130′s over 90, 140, low ‘40′s but it would never get down to the 20′s, it was just always high,” he said.
Dr. Yiannis Chatzizisis, Professor and Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine at UM Miller School of Medicine says controlling blood pressure can be complicated.
“You have medications that are made for hypertension however the patients experience side effects and then the hypertension is not well controlled and then the patients are exposed to this high risk for stroke heart attack and so on,” he said.
Chatzizisis suggested Bradley consider a procedure called renal denervation.
With the minimally invasive procedure the patient is given mild sedation and a small catheter is inserted through the groin and directed to the kidney arteries.
“Around the kidney artery there are lots of nerves anatomically and we go there and we deliver locally and deliver energy and this energy disrupts those nerves around the kidney artery there’s no damage to the kidney artery or the kidney itself the procedure is very, very safe,” Chatzizisis said.
After undergoing the procedure earlier this year Bradley said his blood pressure is finally under control and he notices he also no longer suffers from migraine headaches.
“I just notice a difference in everything about my body it’s just feeling great man. The doctor said that this procedure would drop your percentage points by ten points. But it did even better so I’m telling you, ‘yeah’, it worked,” he said.
UHealth is the first center in Florida and among the very few centers in the US to offer this procedure to help patients with uncontrolled hypertension.