Tim A. Fischell, MD
Cardiologist | Interventional Cardiology
1722 Shaffer St Suite 1 Kalamazoo MI, 49048Rating
4/5
About
Dr. Tim Fischell is an interventional cardiologist practicing in Kalamazoo, MI. Dr. Fischell specializes in diagnosing, monitoring, and treating diseases or conditions of the heart and blood vessels and the cardiovascular system. These conditions include heart attacks, heart murmurs, coronary heart disease, and hypertension. Dr. Fischell also practices preventative medicine, helping patients maintain a heart-healthy life.
Board Certification
Cardiovascular Disease (Internal Medicine)
Interventional Cardiology (Internal Medicine)
Internal MedicineAmerican Board of Internal MedicineABIM
Provider Details
Tim A. Fischell, MD's Expert Contributions
Does lemon juice clean your arteries?
Lemon juice definitely will not clear the blockage in your heart arteries. Very prudent diet that addresses things like high cholesterol can help to slow the progression, but rarely reverse coronary artery blockage. READ MORE
Causes of an irregular heartbeat?
By far the most common cause of irregular heartbeats are premature beats either from the atrium or the ventricle. We call these APCs and VPCs. You do not feel the extra beat but you feel the next beat after the extra beat causes a pause. The heart fills with more blood and you feel a thump. There are other causes that are more serious including atrial fibrillation. If you’re having this frequently I would recommend you see your doctor and they can perform monitoring either with a Holter or an event monitor. READ MORE
How long after a heart attack can you exercise?
I guess it depends how you define exercise. In general, after a heart attack my recommendation would be that you should be active including walking possibly bike riding, and other activities like golf etc. I would recommend keeping your activities such that the heart rate does not exceed 120 bpm for the first three months. After three months you can begin to accelerate that and eventually at 6 to 12 months resume full exercise activities other than heavy weightlifting. READ MORE
Vaccine safety?
Those conditions would not be a contra indication for the vaccine. I would strongly recommend that you receive the vaccine. READ MORE
Should I be concerned about my heart rate?
In general if your heart rate is dropping to 36 bpm that is quite abnormal in people your age. That is occasionally seen in world-class athletes like NBA players but that should not be seen in someone like yourself. I would ask whether you are on a beta blocker such as metoprolol which can definitely slow your heart rate. If not you should definitely talk to your doctor and have this monitored to make sure that you are not going into heart block and potentially require a pacemaker. READ MORE
Blood pressure?
Hypertension is a very serious issue. The current guidelines target a systolic blood pressure of less than or equal to 130 mmHg. The lower number or diastolic blood pressure should be less than 90. Blood pressures above 150 or 160 would be considered somewhat dangerous, and certainly if they are persistent and can lead to a much higher risk of heart attack, stroke and eventually kidney disease. If your blood pressure has consistently above 140 I would definitely recommend seeing your primary care doctor or a cardiologist. READ MORE
How can I naturally lower cholesterol?
It is great if one can do non-medical intervention to reduce your cholesterol. Unfortunately the number of interventions that you can do are somewhat limited in terms of the impact on cholesterol. It would start with eating a very healthy diet. As I tell my patients the closer you are to eating like a rabbit the better your cholesterol will be. Avoiding carbohydrates and saturated fats will help to reduce cholesterol. Very active exercise and in particular strenuous weightlifting or strenuous aerobics can also help to lower the bad cholesterol and raise the good cholesterol. Obtaining an ideal weight is also part of this formula. If those maneuvers are not adequate the statins are extremely safe and very effective at lowering cholesterol and they should be considered if you are not achieving target cholesterol lowering with these diet and lifestyle manipulations . READ MORE
Chest pain?
The symptom that you were describing might be angina pectoris. That should be a sign of a severely blocked coronary artery which is the blood vessel that brings oxygen to the heart muscle. This is a very common problem. If the symptoms are of recent onset this might be called unstable angina and could lead to a much higher risk of impending heart attack. I would definitely recommend that you immediately see your internist or better yet a cardiologist for further evaluation . READ MORE
What is the cause of high blood pressure?
High blood pressure has many potential causes. At age 34 it may be related to increased activity of the sympathetic nervous system. This can be genetic or sometimes related to things like obesity. As one gets older blood pressure tends to increase in large part related to increased stiffening of the main blood vessels of the body such as the aorta. There is also a big contribution if one has decreased kidney function as hormones from kidneys are important in blood pressure regulation. It is important to treat high blood pressure early and aggressively. The current target blood pressure is to have a systolic blood pressure of less than 130. One of the more interesting technologies that is coming to possible approval is renal denervation which allows one to modulate and decrease the amount of sympathetic nervous activity eventually improve blood pressure with a single outpatient procedure. More to come on that if and when it gets FDA approved. READ MORE
What is the life expectancy of a person with a pacemaker?
Obviously, the life expectancy with a pacemaker is largely related to the age of the person who receives the pacemaker. A pacemaker, per se would not necessarily lead to a significantly shortened life expectancy although there are occasional and very rare serious complications from surgical implantation of a pacemaker. Since the batteries do wear out every 5 to 7 years when you’re 12 years old you will end up with a lot of surgeries. However, the 80-year-old who gets a pacemaker for heart block has a much shorter life expectancy, of course, than a 12-year-old. Overall my guess is a 12-year-old with a pacemaker might only have a one or two year shortening of his life expectancy unless there are other significant underlying conditions that lead to the need for the pacemaker. READ MORE
Can heavy drinking negatively affect my heart?
Heavy alcohol consumption can definitely cause heart injury that is sometimes severe and permanent. Alcohol is known to cause arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation and frequent premature beats from the atrium and ventricle. If you drink enough alcohol for long enough you can develop what is called alcoholic cardiomyopathy. This is a potentially serious or even life-threatening condition related to alcohol toxicity leading to damage to the heart muscle itself . Although alcohol in moderation is probably OK, heavy drinking can definitely lead to serious heart problems. READ MORE
Is it possible to have a small heart attack?
It is very possible to have a small or even a moderate or large heart attack without necessarily having that confirmed by doctors or in a hospital at the time of the heart attack. Approximately 25% of all heart attacks are “silent,” meaning that the patient was not aware enough of it to seek medical attention either due to minimal or no symptoms or potentially ignored symptoms. The episode that you had especially with the association with shortness of breath could have been a heart attack. It would be best to seek medical attention to have this evaluate it with an EKG and a heart echo and cardiology consultation. The cardiologist can also review all of your risk factors to potentially reduce the chance of having future heart attacks and or treat the condition that you have from an initial heart attack. READ MORE
Is atrial septal defect a heart disease?
In atrial subtlety fact is a form of heart disease. This will be classified as “congenital“ heart disease. In other words, a disease that you were born with. In some cases the atrial septal defect is very small and has very little clinical consequence. In other conditions, if the ASD is large it can lead to right heart overload and failure, and predispose to paradoxical emboli where a clot in the veins can ass th right the ASD and cause a stroke. Large ASDs should be closed either surgically or with catheter treatment. READ MORE
Tightness in the calf of legs?
This is a complex question. There are a number of things that could be causing these problems. The calf pain when you walk could be a condition called intermittent claudication caused by blockage in the leg arteries. There are some pretty simple screening tests that could be done either by your internist or cardiologist to evaluate the blood flow in your legs. In addition, some of the sensations that you’re describing in your feet could be a neuropathy. Typically, that is seen in diabetics, but it can happen even if you’re not diabetic. Once again, best evaluated by your doctor. READ MORE
Can you live a long life after a heart transplant?
As you probably know heart transplants are reserved for the sickest of heart patients. Typically the patients who receive a heart transplant would have at least a 50% mortality in one year without the transplant. Heart transplant patients generally do pretty well. It is a very serious operation and requires lifelong immunosuppression therapy. I believe the average heart transplant patient today lives about 8 to 12 years. Obviously, things like infections because of the immunosuppressive therapy or early heart reach transplant rejection can cause earlier death. Some heart transplant patients can live more than 20 years. READ MORE
Is this an emergency?
Chest pain like you’re having, especially when you have known coronary artery disease, is very serious. You should definitely be seen immediately either in the ER or by a cardiologist. Just because the rusty electrocardiogram does not look too bad does not mean you’re not having an acute coronary syndrome. Whether you need a stress test or possibly a coronary angiogram will be left up to you and your cardiologist. You need a workup. Blood pressure is definitely too high and that is a tremendous risk to you for a stroke and heart attack and death. Once again, that blood pressure is not a medical emergency, but needs immediate or urgent attention. READ MORE
Can too much anesthesia cause cardiac arrest?
It is unlikely for anesthesia to cause a cardiac arrest although at high enough doses you can get arrhythmias or bradycardia. More likely, anesthesia of course inhibits respiration. If you’re not intubated on a ventilator and you get anesthesia you will have a respiratory arrest. READ MORE
How is high blood pressure diagnosed?
Blood pressure can be easily measured using a cuff applied either to the arm or occasionally to the leg or the wrist. You inflate this to pressure above the arterial blood pressure and then slowly it is deflated and measures when blood flow returns to the hand or arm or foot. The device to measure this is called a sphygmomanometer so one can easily measure blood pressure. There are automated ones from places like Walgreens that can do this at home without having to go to a doctors office. READ MORE
What are the first signs of a heart attack in a woman?
Like men, women often have typical symptoms when they have a heart attack, which would be severe chest pressure or tightness often associated with shortness of breath, swelling, and occasionally nausea. The challenging thing about women, especially with older women, is that they often have more atypical symptoms which may be things like just arm aching or neck aching, or fatigue, or dizziness... READ MORE
Does walking help an irregular heartbeat?
In general, exercise is very good for your cardiovascular system and your heart. If you are having an irregular heartbeat this is often caused by what is called atrial premature beats or ventricular premature beats. Sometimes these occur more often when your heart rate is slow. By exercising or walking and increasing your heart rate that could suppress some of the premature beats. It is also likely that when you were walking you’ll be less aware of some of these premature beats. READ MORE
Expert Publications
Data provided by the National Library of Medicine- Radioactive stents.
- Adenosine for reversal of "no reflow".
- The impact of stent design and delivery upon the long-term efficacy of
- Stent design favorably influences the vascular response in normal porcine coronary arteries.
- Cleaning up the mess: new approaches to the old problem of thrombus in coronary interventions.
- Ultrasound thrombolysis for the treatment of thrombotic occlusion of degenerated saphenous vein grafts.
- Visible stents: all that glitters...is it gold?
- Dose and dose rate effects of beta-particle emitting radioactive stents in a porcine model of restenosis.
- Overestimation of stent delivery balloon diameters by manufacturers' compliance tables: a quantitative coronary analysis of Duet and NIR stent implantation.
- Failure of a novel balloon-expandable gamma-emitting ((103)Pd) stent to prevent edge effects.
- Intracoronary brachytherapy in the porcine model: a different animal.
- Role of the "dogbone" effect of balloon-expandable stents: quantitative coronary analysis of DUET and NIR stent implantation introducing a novel indexing system.
- Long balloon angioplasty with focal stenting for the treatment of diffuse coronary artery disease.
- Clinical demonstration that catheter-delivered ultrasound energy reverses arterial vasoconstriction.
- Reduction of subacute stent thrombosis (SAT) using heparin-coated stents in a large-scale, real world registry.
Areas of expertise and specialization
Faculty Titles & Positions
- Professor of Medicine Michigan State University 1997 - 2024
- Clinical Professor of Medicine Western Michigan University 2015 - Present
Awards
- Master of SCAI 2026 Society of cardiac and angiography and intervention
- Andreas Gruntzig Award 2026 Thoraxcenter
- Fellow NAI 2026 National Academy of inventors
Professional Memberships
- American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, SCAI
Tim A. Fischell, MD's Practice location
Ascension Healthcare
1722 Shaffer St Suite 1 -Kalamazoo, MI 49048Get Direction
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Nearby Providers
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Santhosh Koshy MD1722 SHAFFER ST STE 1 KALAMAZOO MI 49048![]()
Alicia M Williams Other1722 Shaffer St Kalamazoo MI 49048![]()
Christopher T. Ombrello M.D.601 JOHN ST KALAMAZOO MI 49007![]()
Soundos K Moualla MD1722 Shaffer St Kalamazoo MI 49048![]()
Christopher Rogers D.O.601 John St Kalamazoo MI 49007![]()
Chandramouli Madala MD363 Fremont St Battle Creek MI 49017
Nearest Hospitals
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