71 year old Elizabeth Widmayer has been successful managing her diabetes, but, suddenly, Elizabeth says the disease started attacking her circulation.
“I would experience pain in the back of my legs when I walked and it would be only say maybe three blocks and then I had loss of feeling starting in my toes so I didn’t have any circulation in my toes,” says Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was suffering from chronic total occlusion. It’s one of the most significant health complications diabetics face, putting them at risk for amputation of a lower limb due to blockages in the peripheral arteries of the leg. But, two new FDA approved devices are breaking through these blockages and restoring normal blood flow.

“The front runner catheter uses what I call the pac-man type technology which actually opens and closes the mouth and actually pushes aside the plaque, the plaque being the substance that causes the blockage of the arteries, and when the plaque is pushed aside it provides us a passage way in order to pass a wire and be able to do angioplasty which is using a balloon or stent to open these passages,” explains Dr. Prakash Krishnan of Mount Sinai.

The other device is known as the outback re-entry catheter.
“Previously when a patient had an occluded artery, patients were subjected to medical therapy or bypass surgery, now with the advent of these devices now the outback catheter which allows us to actually enter the artery from the outside in using a needle technology which pokes a whole in the artery and allows us to be able to pass a wire across a blocked artery helps us to open these arteries,” says Dr. Krishnan.

Elizabeth was treated with both devices and has resumed her favorite activity, running after her grandchildren. “I can come and go and not have to rely on anybody to do anything for me, I can go places without using a cane,” says Elizabeth.

?????????????????????????????????THE PROCEDURE TAKES AROUND AN HOUR AND DOESN’T REQUIRE GENERAL ANESTHESIA ???????????????/ PATIENTS ARE USUALLY UP AND AROUND WALKING THE NEXT MORNING.

Symptoms of chronic total occlusion are similar to other types of vessel blockages and may include leg pain, inability to walk, pain in the affected extremities, sores and infections that won’t heal.

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