JOPLIN, Mo. – A new procedure is giving heart patients a second lease on life with an incredible recovery rate.

“I’ve had two heart attacks and a five-way bypass, two stints, so with a weakened heart, I wasn’t a candidate for another bout of open heart surgery,” explained TAVR patient John Tescher.

For patients like John Tescher, who’s aortic valve doesn’t work like it’s supposed to, there was no hope at all.

“These folks have no other option and in the past, before this procedure was available, they would be treated medically as best we could to keep the symptoms at bay and then they would pass away,” said Freeman cardiologist Dr. John Cox.

But thanks to the TAVR, or trans catheter aortic valve replacement, he has a new lease on life.

And it didn’t take him long to notice the difference.

“I had it Thursday mid-day and coming out of anesthesia probably Thursday afternoon, Thursday evening I felt great,” Tescher continued. “It was immediate.”

The big advantage to the TAVR is that it doesn’t require open heart surgery to be put in place.

It’s entered in the groin through a catheter and positioned into place at the top of the heart where the aortic valve is supposed to open and close with the heart beat.

But in some patients, it is narrowed and stops working correctly.

Cox says the valve has a ten-year lifespan and if the patient needs a new one, it can be inserted on top of the old one.

“These are tissue valves made from cow parts basically and they’re they’re manufactured, sewn together and they work just like your own native valves. They open during the injection of the blood and close in between,” Cox explained.

Before the TAVR, Tescher couldn’t walk a few feet without stopping.

“You can walk all around Walmart or the mall or whatever and I don’t get tired, so I feel fantastic,” said Tescher.

Cox says 15 other patients have received the new devices and all are doing well.

(Stuart Price, KSN)