Asthma procedure gives West Dundee trumpeter his second wind

Chris Ides tried as hard as he could — despite his asthma — to keep playing the trumpet, including tweaking it so it could take in more air.

But his lungs just couldn't blow hard enough, so about 10 years ago, the West Dundee resident had to all but abandon the instrument he'd loved since age 11, never imagining one day he'd go through a medical procedure that would allow him to play again.

“It's been night and day,” Ides said of having bronchial thermoplasty in the spring. “I pull more wind out of my horn than I have in a while, which is amazing.”

Dr. Matthew Ivanovich, who performed the procedure on Ides, says it offers new hope for patients with severe asthma. Bronchial thermoplasty uses thermal energy to reduce the muscle responsible for airway constriction in asthma patients.

The procedure has been around for about 15 years but only recently became covered by health insurance plans, said Ivanovich, a pulmonologist at Presence St. Joseph Hospital in Elgin. It is available to patients 18 and older, and is performed in three outpatient visits under moderate sedation or general anesthesia.

“These are the people who usually have a drawer full of meds and are pretty much limited in what they can do,” Ivanovich said. “I don't want to give the impression that you throw away the inhaler. There is not a cure, nothing cures asthma. But it's very, very helpful.”

About 25 million people in the United States, more than 1 in 12, have asthma, and the numbers are increasing every year, costing about $56 billion in medical bills, lost school and work days, and early deaths, according to 2011 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ides was on six medications and used to puff on an inhaler daily to deal with his asthma. He made several trips to emergency rooms each year due to bad attacks. He had trouble sleeping and got winded while working out or biking, the latter crucial for him because he's legally blind and cannot drive, he said. Tasks like shoveling snow were out of the question.

All that has improved tremendously, to the point that sometimes he even has to rein himself in while playing, Ides said. “It's completely different worlds,” he said.

Looking back, Ides said, it was clear he suffered from asthma throughout high school, but the official diagnosis didn't come until 2001, when a bad attack put him on a respirator for 14 hours, he said.

He studied music at Elgin Community College, where he played in the jazz band, but always felt like he was a step behind others.

“My sound was much quieter or I would cough while playing,” said Ides, who also taught beginning trumpet and played occasional gigs with friends. “At one point, because of the problem of not putting in enough air, I felt like I wasn't doing what I should be doing (to play well) — and it drove me nuts.”

Ides, who works as a school custodian, discussed the surgery with Ivanovich for more than a year before deciding to go for it. Ivanovich said he trained for the procedure at the University of Chicago Medical Center and has performed it on one other patient.

“It's very satisfying because there are patients that definitely do suffer, and being able to offer this treatment is a good thing,” he said. “I'm very happy that we at Presence St. Joseph have the training and capability.”