Reversing Heart Disease with 10 Steps to Resilience
I keep telling everyone that heart disease is frightening. If you have been diagnosed with some form of heart disease you now have a choice, a choice to be resilient or defeated. You may have heart disease but heart disease will never have you.
There is always going to be someone worse than you and someone better than you. Here are the keys to bouncing back.
There are going to be peaks and valleys in your mood. The idea is to capitalise on your highs. There is going to be a little voice in your head pushing you down. You have to give yourself that pep talk.
Taking control. You have to focus on what you have control over. You may not have control over your arterial disease, but you do have control on how you manage it. Set your goals.
Find a team. Resist the urge to isolate yourself. Surround yourself and educate yourself with a good team. It could even mean finding a support group or an online forum.
Show some gratitude. I know this may be difficult but count your blessings. Find 3 things at the beginning or end of the day in which you are thankful for.
Keep a journal and keep track of your thoughts and progress.
Think about your character’s greatest strengths.
Find things you love to do. It could be some hobbies or favorite pastime.
Stop saying “why me?” and start asking “Why not me? How am I going to handle this?”
Keep your mind occupied. Don’t make time to feel sorry about yourself. Helping others is a great way to boost your resilience.
Forgive, Accept and Adapt. It is easy to get angry and bitter. The best thing you can do to have resilience is to make the decision to forgive and then have the willingness to reinvent yourself.
What is the Bleeding Risk with Cardiovascular Disease?
What is the bleeding risk with patients with cardiovascular disease? When patients end up in the cath lab cardiologists have to make a choice between cardiovascular risk and gasto-intestinal (GI) risk. This post does talk about more so patients who have to go in the cath lab (angiogram) and get a stent.Cardiologists are challenged with ischemic risk (lack of oxygen) vs bleeding burden to their patients having to balance optimal medical therapy such as anticoagulants or antiplatelets (asprin, plavix, warfarin etc).
Coming from a cardiovascular perspective they look at a few things.
1. Prior history of bleeding such as ulcers.
2. Older age
3. What other medications are being taken. Anticoagulants, steroids, NSAIDS including Asprin.
4. Potential drug interactions.
When patients are presented in the cath lab. Cardiologists will determine how concerned are they about the stent. Is it at a critical point. Are they concerned about stent thrombosis (blood clot inside blood vessel)? If they are concerned about GI bleeding they will probably introduce a drug PPI (Proton-pump Inhibitors) which reduces gastric acid production. Cardiologists in the cath lab should implement a good scoring system to determine cardiovascular (CV) and GI risk to determine to good course of action. The fact is that it is more frequently easy to fix GI bleeding with possible drugs or treatment vs CV risk which is much harder to fix.
If patients are taking these drugs longer term it is benefiting your cardiovascular risk but also putting your GI system at risk. It is important to look at your GI risk because it can be fixed when caught early but stopping your drugs early after an intervention is not advisable. Always talk to your healthcare team about your medications.
Heart disease is frightening and yes medical intervention can help after a heart attack. But what if you are stable (what is stable? meaning no angina, probably a big debate within the community) ?
A new analysis of eight trials states that putting a stent in someone with stable coronary artery disease does not lower the risk of death, nor does a stent reduce to risk of nonfatal heart attacks vs medical therapy alone. Based on this data the researchers support that stable coronary artery disease patients should be treated with medical therapy vs going right into surgery with a stent.
I know that this can be hard to believe. Conventional thinking may think that opening up the artery is a good thing. Well if medical therapy is a better option for stable patients imagine the type of benefit that occurs when you really get into the nuts and bolts of a full lifestyle intervention.
I keep on telling you the benefits of exercise. It is in my opinion part of “medical therapy” yet no studies want to implement this aspect of it although we know the benefits. A strong heart health diet is important. What we put in our mouths can have an anti-inflammatory effect on our arteries. Your body is amazing at healing itself when provided with the right tools. We know that natural bypasses occur in our body.
Above all we have to set the right mind set. Starting with cardiologists who truly believe that patients heart health can get better. I know it is a business but caring about the patients heart health and talking about the importance of lifestyle intervention will prolong patient’s lives. Yes I know time is of the essence. But it only takes one minute to nail down the key message.
Cardiac rehabilitation is important. Understand your full heart health profile and truly implementing the changes to prevent and reverse heart disease.
Yes it was five years ago we opened our doors at the Trico Centre (formerly the Family Leisure Centre) and we were featured by Global TV. It has been an amazing learning curve with our clinic. It has been so much fun living our passion I look forward to growing this company to the next level, but first I would like to thank you, from the bottom of our heart. Everything that we have accomplished so far helping you prevent and reverse heart disease would never happen if it were not for you.
I believe the next 5 years is going to be so much fun and I look forward to taking you on this journey with us. Heart disease is frightening, but we are here to help you prevent and reverse heart disease. Heart disease is the number one cause of death and the #1 preventable disease. Our goal is to reduce heart disease worldwide and help people truly understand their risk so they can take the necessary steps to prevent and reverse heart disease.
Once again thank you for allowing us to be a part of your heart health. Have a happy heart month and remember we are here to help you live happier, healthier and longer.
Shaw TV features the Heart Fit Clinic Talking about Atrial Fibrillation Exercise Programs
Heart disease is frightening and it can happen to anyone. One of our patients is featured with Shaw TV discussing how important it is to get screened and start a clinically supervised exercise program.
Global TV features the Heart Fit Clinic for the New Year
Heart disease is the number one cause of death and the number one preventable disease. You have to understand your risk as many people are unaware.
Check out Global TV featuring the Heart Fit Clinic last month.
Young Women with Heart Attacks most likely to have NO Chest Pains
Women under 55 are more likely to have no chest pain when having a heart attack and also are more likely to have the highest risk of death from any heart attack group. Dr John Canto (Lakeland Regional Medical Center, FL) is the head author of the recently published data in the Journal of the American Medical Association. They found that women are more likely to present without chest pain than men (42% vs 30%), but that this difference is more pronounced in younger women (under 55). The difference in symptoms at presentation between men and women declined with age, and in the older patients (over 75) there was little difference between the genders.
The second major finding of the study this February was that younger women having a heart attack have a higher death rate. “Younger women are not supposed to have an heart attack, but when do, they are at higher risk of death than the rest of the population,” Canto commented.
I think this goes to say that if young women are having heart attacks they just don’t know they are having a heart attack because of atypical symptoms. Therefore, this is the reason for higher death rates… they just don’t know!
It becomes so important to understand your risk of heart disease. The alternative is not fun to go through. Especially if you have high risk factors to heart disease which include family history of heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, physically inactive, or overweight. This is where a carotid IMT would help people understand their risk of heart disease and stroke.
Heart Attack while eating at the Heart Attack Grill
True news and headline in yesterday’s paper. Well let’s put it this way, I am NOT surprised. If you are heading for a heart attack you can stop it but not by going to a place that calls itself the Heart Attack Grill. This place has skimpy nurses as waitresses and call their clients patients. They put a patient robe on them and “patients” order a single, double, or triple bypass burger signifying the number of patties.
Many people who have heart attacks are then motivated to make a change to their heart health. Unfortunately, I see people who fall off track, which is normal, but again you can stop this heart attack. Heart disease is frightening and for this person, who I understand is recovering well, I hope this is enough to start to turn his life around.
Regrow Blood Vessels Could be the Next Treatment for Heart Disease
Heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in the western world. Is there really a treatment for heart disease or is it a band-aid. Researcher in University of Texas demonstrated a new and more effective method for regrowing blood vessels in the heart and limbs. This research has just been successful in rats but could this be the new form of treatment in humans with heart disease. Doctors could bypass surgery all together and instead repair damaged blood vessels simply by injecting a lipid-incased substance into a patient. Once inside the body, the substance stimulates cell growth and spurs the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing ones. Pretty cool.
This form of treatment has been tried before. “Others have tried using growth factors to stimulate vessel growth in clinical trials and have not been successful,” said Baker, a faculty member in the school’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. “We think that a major reason for this is that previous methods assumed that the diseased tissues retained the ability to respond to a growth stimulus. Our method basically delivers extra components that can restore growth factor responsiveness to the tissue of patients with long-standing clinical disease.”
Doctors have typically treated heart disease by physically opening the closed artery with a stent or bypass surgery rerouting blood flow to the poorly perfused tissue. Both these methods have limitations, however, and are not effective long-term as we do see many people with recurrent heart events. I know this can be reversed with lifestyle intervention and living heart healthy, however it would be great to see the University of Texas team be successful with regrowing blood vessels. I think we might be a little ways from this but it looks promising. I definitely see a political agenda to possibly stay as is. That is another story.
Chocolates, candy, indulgence in food and lots of love are what February is all about. But is all this good for the heart? February is Heart month, and heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death of men and women, yet it is the number one preventable disease. Neglect is responsible for cardiovascular disease being the number one killer.
It is six weeks in from our New Year’s resolutions. Somehow, Valentine’s Day seems to an excuse to forget about those previous goals of a heart healthy lifestyle. People may stray from their goals of a heart healthy lifestyle to indulge is extravagant meals and sweet treats. It can give a lot of people license to disregard their goals completely and resort back to old habits. There’s nothing like a gentle nudge or reminder at this point in the year to put you back on track. What better month than Heart month to do that.
Too many times individuals may be given a clean bill of health yet their risk of heart disease is still high. They visit thier family doctor’s office and and are told everything is ok. We can detect sub clinically what is going on inside the arterial walls. Too many times people leave their health in their doctor’s hands. People have to take responsibility for their health as the best heart attack is the one that never happens.
Take this time of the year to reassess where you are. What is working and what is not working. Then discuss why not or why it is. If you don’t have these check points in the year pretty soon it is months or years that go by where we neglect. Don’t worry what we did in the past or yesterday. Today is a new day and let’s get back on track.
I would like to wish everyone a happy heart month.
To your heart health success.
