From red flags to diagnosis: Discover golf legend Jack Nicklaus’ ATTR-CM journey

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Video transcript

Jack: Well my name is Jack Nicklaus and I used to be a professional golfer. I’ve won a couple of golf tournaments and I’ve designed a few golf courses. Well, I’m 86 years old. My wife Barbara and I, we’ve been married 65 years. We have 5 children, we have 24 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren. All my life, I've played sports and, you know, particularly golf. And if I happened to have a problem, I fixed it. And if I happen to have an injury from golf, I fixed it. I had a problem, nobody could figure out what it was, nor could I figure out what it was. Close to 10 years ago, first thing I really experienced was shortness of breath.

Nan: He really could walk maybe, you know, 10 to 15 feet and he'd have to stop to catch his breath and we're all like, “Come on, Dad. You’re in good shape!” You know?

Gary: Sometimes you can just attribute it to age, and as you’re kids, you know, when you're growing up, your dad's Superman. So, when you see, you know, your idol starting to kind of slow down, it's hard to watch.

Jack: My hands started to hurt at times. And back pain that you can't explain. I wanted to find out what the answer was. It didn't make any sense to me. I was going to get to the bottom of it.

Gary: He went to specialists all over the country. I mean, you can imagine that Jack Nicklaus has access to the best doctors in the world, and it wasn't until he had a routine endoscopy and his GI doctor said, “you have amyloids.”

Jack: And so my heart doctor contacted an amyloid specialist, we ran some more tests, and he says, “You have what we call ATTR-CM.” It turned out it's a rare progressive disease. But I finally found out what in the world I had. I never gave up in any event, whatever I played in, and certainly wasn't going to give up on life.

Gary: And now we have the diagnosis, we know what he has to do.

Jack: Well, I was diagnosed about six years ago. My cardiologist recommended that I take VYNDAMAX. So, a little over five years ago I started VYNDAMAX. Haven't missed a day, shouldn't miss a day and I’ve had no side effects.

Voice over: VYNDAMAX is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with the cardiomyopathy of wild type or hereditary transthyretin mediated amyloidosis (ATTR-CM) to reduce death and hospitalization related to heart problems. It is not known if VYNDAMAX is safe and effective in children.

Gary: Since my dad has been taking VYNDAMAX, his progression has slowed down.

Jack: It won't cure this situation, but it will slow it down. Thank goodness for VYNDAMAX. I see my kids quite often. I work with them in business. I designed golf courses and still very active in doing that. If I had to live the rest of my life the way I am, I have no problem with that.

Gary: He just played golf with all of his kids and grandkids and the great grandkids aren't playing golf yet, but they will be soon.

Nan: The grandkids are just starting with T-ball.

Jack: Now, they're starting T-ball.

Jack Jr.: I think he's always considered his real majors to be family. Publicly, it's the golf events, but I think if you really talk to mom and dad, they would emphasize family.

Jack: We love watching them participate and play and love being part of our grandkids’ life. The neat part about being part of their life is that they make us part of their life.

Gary: We hope my dad's message encourages people that are experiencing red flags to go to their cardiologist and rule out ATTR-CM.

Jack: If you have any of the symptoms that I've had, which was the shortness of breath, or AFib, or carpal tunnel, or back pain, you know, go see your cardiologist. If that happens to be your problem, you want to find out about it sooner rather than later. I am quite happy with what’s going on with my life today. I’m enjoying it, I’m living it, and thanks to VYNDAMAX, I’m able to do that.

Voice over: Before taking VYNDAMAX, tell your healthcare provider about all your medical conditions, including if you have liver problems, are pregnant, or plan to become pregnant, are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed. Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take, including any prescription or over-the-counter medicines, vitamins and herbal supplements. There were no known side effects that happened during treatment with VYNDAMAX.