Hypertension 

 It's a disease that was linked to the drug combo Phen Fen, but now there could be a life saving treatment for this lung disease,
and that treatment is a gas that's also used for welding!

Pat Klecha, has primary pulmonary hypertension (p-p-h) - "I probably had maybe a year to live at that time. i was getting like I could barely walk.  Now I can walk two miles." 

Thanks to a revolutionary discovery by scientists, Nitric Oxide, the gas used in arc welding, can help people breathe. 

Pat Klecha - "All you do is you breathe it in, inhale it.  it can change your life, actually gives you your life back.  It's... it amazes me." 

48-year-old Pat Klecha suffers from primary pulmonary hypertension or p-p-h.  The pressure is too high in the pulmonary artery or vessels that go to the lungs.  People die because, the heart is unable to push blood through the
lungs. Symptoms of p-p-h include: shortness of breath, fatigue, fainting, and chest pain.  A lung transplant is often a patient's only alternative. But Pat's part of a study on nitric oxide here at University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio. 

Dr. Kingman Strohl, MD/pulmonologist, University Hospitals of Cleveland - "We think that nitric oxide when you inhale it dilates the arteries in the lung and makes it easier for blood to go through the lungs." 

In people, the gas was first studied in newborns with constricted pulmonary blood vessels.  Now, it's helping adults like Pat breathe easier and walk farther. 

Kingman Strohl, MD - "probably about 15 to 20 percent farther now than she could two years ago. Suggesting to me that we've pushed her back in this illness." 

 Pat's been on Nitric Oxide almost two years and says she's had no side effects. She has this advice for the 300 people a year diagnosed with p-p-h. 

Pat Klecha - "if it worked for me, it may work for you." 

It was a gamble that paid off for Pat. 
If you'd like more information on p-p-h you can visit the Pulmonary Hypertension Association's website at www.phassociation.org. or call 1-800-748-7274. 
For general information on primary pulmonary hypertension, contact the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, 
   P.O. box 24733 
   Speedway, IN 46224-0733
   (800) 748-7274. 

the association has a web site at -- http://www.phassociation.org 

you can also access information about primary pulmonary hypertension from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, a division of the National
Institutes of Health at -- http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/lung/other/gp/pph.htm
 

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