Dr. William Lee Cowden, MD, a cardiologist serves as the chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Academy of Comprehensive Integrative Medicine. In addition to medical education at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, he has medical board certification and licensure and has a vast array of medical experience. He founded many organizations, sat on various boards, and has contributed numerous publications, abstracts, and articles.
In 1990 a man came into my office as a new patient. He was age 55 and his wife was already a patient. She called his office early and asked, can I bring my husband in to see you this morning. He said just bring him in now before the other patients. They arrived and he was sitting in a wheelchair in the waiting room. Dr. Cowden’s nurse came to get him to come to the waiting room immediately. He went to the waiting room and the man was leaning over clutching his chest, profusely perspiring, breathing in apparent agony, and said he felt like he had an elephant sitting on his chest. His fingertips and nails were blue, and lips were blue. Dr. Cowden said to himself, this is not a good sign. They wheeled him into the room where he had an electrocardiogram, and echocardiogram.
They lifted him onto the gurney and immediately looked for nitroglycerin and gave it to him. In the process of starting an IV and providing oxygen to him, they started the electrocardiogram immediately. The electrocardiogram tech was present, and Dr. Cowden said to get a quick picture so he can see what the heart function looks like. The echocardiogram showed about 60% of the left ventricle, the main pumping chamber, was just quivering and not contracting.
The electrocardiogram showed that he had ST segment elevation and T wave inversion in nine of the 12 leads. So he was definitely having a massive heart attack at that moment. Dr. Cowden said to do the TKM procedure on him now.
In about 5 minutes, which by then the IV was started, although nothing given in the IV,
oxygen on him and Nitroglycerin provided,
the chest pain subsided completely.
Dr. Cowden said let’s get another electrocardiogram to look at his heart.
The ST segments were down to almost normal and the T wave were starting to normalize, turning upright again. The echocardiogram Tech took another picture of the heart and his ventricle was now contracting. This was very encouraging to Dr. Cowden. Although it was not fully normal.
Dr. Cowden said we need to call an ambulance and get you to the hospital now as quickly as we can. Which was across the street. But the man said - no I’m not going.
Dr. Cowden said don’t you understand you just experienced a massive heart attack and almost died a few moments ago. The man repeated, I’m not going. Dr. Cowden said you don’t have a choice; you need to get to the emergency room now.
The man refused again, and Dr. Cowden asked him: Why do you not want to go?
The man said I don’t have any insurance, I don’t have any money, I’m not old enough for government aid and I watched both of my parents suffer and die in a hospital.
Dr. Cowden recognized the difficulty this man was having with going to the hospital. The man asked him - I want to know what you would do if you went home in my condition?
Dr. Cowden replied: I wouldn’t do that. I would go to the emergency room. He said, but what would you do if you did go home, because I’m not going anywhere else? Dr. Cowden finally said, this is what I would do.
I want you to do TKM with no more than 4 to 6 hours between, while awake. If you awake during the night and have any discomfort, apply TKM. I know your wife is working, though while she is home, she can apply the TKM procedure for you.
The self-procedure Dr. Cowden advised was holding the entire left little finger as long and often as possible, not letting 4 to 6 hours go between applying it. And if you have any chest pain to call me immediately, then we’ll decide what to do.
You need to clean up your diet, take vitamin C in gradually increasing doses up to bowel tolerance, take magnesium, coenzyme Q10, and a couple more things. The man interrupted saying, I’m not going to take too many things because I just don’t have the money.
Dr. Cowden requested the wife to call him at 7:45 AM in the morning before he starts seeing patients, and provide a progress report. Dr. Cowden placed him in a wheelchair and helped him get to and in the car. Because he didn’t want him to exert himself trying to get into the car.
Dr. Cowden asked, do you have any neighbors to help you get in the house from the car. He said yes. Dr. Cowden replied, because I do not want you to exert yourself in any way. Dr. Cowden asked if he had a wheelchair, he said no. Dr. Cowden replied, take mine and your wife can bring it back tomorrow.
And I want you to go from the car straight to your bed. How far is the bed from the bathroom? His wife said about five steps. Dr. Cowden said that’s good. Dr. Cowden asked how many bowel movements does he usually have? He replied usually one. Dr. Cowden said that’s good - so you won’t exert yourself more than one time daily. Be sure not to overdo the vitamin C. Only go to the bathroom for a bowel movement, get and use a urinal in the bed. Limit your movement. Be careful on the vitamin C, not to create repeating diarrhea.
The next morning the man’s wife called and said she got the nutritional supplements and he started them. He was doing the TKM and I was doing TKM as much as I could when there.
She said this morning he got up and went to the bathroom and came back without going into chest pains.
The second morning the wife called and said he had gone in and out of the bathroom without any chest pain and decided to come and sit in the kitchen, ate some food and went back to bed without any chest pains. She said he seemed okay. Dr. Cowden said - really! Because the electrocardiogram and echocardiogram showed that he certainly had a left coronary, main artery, equivalent.
You don’t get 60% loss of your heart muscle with just a single coronary artery, or two vessels coming off the left main - both being blocked at the same time - highly stenosis at the same time.
She called the third morning and said no problem. He had a bowel movement and came to the kitchen to eat, and about an hour later he decided he wanted to walk around inside the house. He walked all the way around the house without chest pain and then went back to bed.
Dr. Cowden replied, Amazing!
The next day she called again. He went through a similar routine except he walked around the outside of the house that day and still didn’t experience chest pain. Dr. Cowden astounded said, that’s really amazing!
The next day when she called: she said he wanted to walk further, and she walked with him and took a cell phone with them just in case there was a need. They walked slowly around the entire block. They are still applying TKM steadily, some better nutrients, a few supplements, but nothing that would account for the rapid level of changes. Except the possibility of consistently applying the TKM procedure.
The next day was on a Friday and he called Dr. Cowden and said, Doc I have to go back to work!
Dr. Cowden said, I don’t think that’s a good idea. You have a manual labor job.
Why don’t you come to my office and I’ll evaluate you and we’ll talk about it.
The man said, is it going to cost me anything? Dr. Cowden replied, No I’m not going to charge you anything, just come in and let me examine you.
On Monday, the man came to Dr. Cowden’s office on the second floor and when he saw Dr. Cowden in the exam room, he said: I just want to let you know, I ran up your stairs out there and I have no chest pain.
Dr. Cowden said - You did what? What did you do? You ran up my stairs? He said yes, I wanted to see if I could do it. And if I could not, I knew I was in a good place in case something happened.
Dr. Cowden said, that is really hard to believe. I would like to do a stress test on you today before we can talk anything about going back to work. The man said, is that going to cost me anything?
Dr. Cowden replied, no this is on me, I really want to see how your heart is before I give you a clearance to go back to work.
So, he went on the treadmill and did 12 minutes on the Bruce protocol, electrocardiographic testing. He sailed through the stress test with zero chest pain and zero symptoms, normal blood pressure response, and no electrocardiographic abnormalities. Dr. Cowden said, I’m having a hard time believing what I’m seeing.
It appears that in nine days you have completely reversed an advanced Left main coronary artery equivalent.
I’m not sure what did it, whether it was the TKM therapy, or the diet change, or the supplemental nutrients, or a combination. But I’m going to release you to go back to work.
Dr. Cowden was seeing his wife for chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. For several months, each time he would see her, he asked, how is your husband doing? He is doing fine! He is still working, and has not had any chest pains.
Even though his job was heavy manual labor.
His wife kept reporting that he was fine, and Dr. Cowden never saw the man again.
Dr. Cowden had seen him a total of two times.