During the summer of 2018, Rebecca Ring’s cardiologist determined that she needed to have open heart surgery to have a valve replaced. Due to Ring’s religious beliefs, surgeons were reluctant to do the surgery because she does not accept blood transfusions.
When Leota Schlesier started experiencing symptoms that were out of the ordinary, she knew she needed to visit her primary care physician.
“My heart was racing, I had chest pains and shortness of breath,” said Schlesier. “I visited my primary care physician and he had me wear a heart monitor for 30 days. It didn’t show anything significant but he knew there was something going on because of my symptoms.”
Oklahoma Heart Institute provides comprehensive endocrinology care. By focusing on the needs of the patients, endocrinologists can develop individualized treatment plans. Dr. Cristin Bruns, endocrinologist at Oklahoma Heart Institute, is telling us more about the types of diseases that fall under the umbrella of endocrinology care and how she approaches diabetes care.
For most of her life, Susan Apker has had cardiovascular issues.
“When I was three years old, I had open heart surgery to repair a ventricular septal defect (VSD),” said Apker. “I had a complete heart block during that surgery and have had pacemakers since, so I am consistently seeing a cardiologist.”
Heart attacks in younger people are becoming increasingly more common, especially in women. This could likely be due to the increase in the prevalence of the risks factor for heart attack and stroke in young adults, according to Wayne Leimbach, M.D., medical director of Oklahoma Heart Institute.
“This was predicted to happen more than 15 years ago due to the obesity epidemic in our country,” Leimbach said.
Please join us in welcoming Wendell Williams, M.D., our new cardiologist at Oklahoma Heart Institute. He is now seeing patients at our Muskogee clinic. Williams, who is originally from St. Louis, is a third generation doctor and led a cardiology practice in St. Louis for more than 20 years before moving to Jefferson City. For the last six years, Williams has called Muskogee home and he is now looking forward to his future with Oklahoma Heart Institute.
