Category: Cardiology 101

posts here focus on a variety of topics all about the heart and how it works

“Doing Harm”: Maya Dusenbery’s new book

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 67 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters 

Author Maya Dusenbery interviewed me while I was neck-deep in final copy edits of the book I was writing for Johns Hopkins University Press, A Woman’s Guide to Living with Heart Disease.  She wanted to talk about why I thought female heart patients are more likely to be under-diagnosed than men, and then – worse! – more likely to be under-treated even when appropriately diagnosed. Maya was writing her own book at the time, and it’s finally out this week. Its pithy title sums up the focus pretty succinctly: Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick. Here’s a 10-word summary of her book:

My own review of Dusenbery’s book starts with this warning to my heart sisters: “Do NOT start reading ‘Doing Harm’ unless you have first taken your blood pressure meds!”    Continue reading ““Doing Harm”: Maya Dusenbery’s new book” →

But what about the men?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 8 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

The irreverent Laura Haywood-Cory of North Carolina is, like me, a heart attack survivor and, also like me, a graduate of Mayo Clinic’s annual WomenHeart Science & Leadership Symposium for Women With Heart Disease in Rochester, Minnesota (where she’s also attended the Mayo Clinic Social Media Summit, too!)

Her own dramatic heart story is that of a terrifying condition usually seen in young, healthy women with few if any known cardiac risk factors: Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection or SCAD. I’m happy to say she has been making a heroic effort to beat this sucker into the ground; after surviving her heart attack at age 40, Laura completed the Chapel Hill Ramblin’ Rose Triathlon. But it’s her unique take on a surprisingly frequent response to women’s heart disease that I want to share with you today.  Laura wrote: Continue reading “But what about the men?” →

Do women need different treatment of coronary artery disease?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 9 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

Cardiologist Dr. William Bestermann, in reviewing his own 40+ year career as a physician, now concludes that, in all of medicine, “there is no better example of the disconnect between what we know and what we do than in the case of women with coronary artery disease.” I’m a woman who has survived a widowmaker heart attack, and now lives with coronary microvascular disease, and I’ve only been writing about such sentiment for eight years. As Dr. B. explains bluntly:

“Every other week, I see a woman who has had symptoms of coronary artery disease and has been told that the problem is her esophagus – or worse – depression or anxiety.  She is told in effect: ‘Go home, take your anti-anxiety drugs, you will be fine!’  What she has been told is often wrong – too often, dead wrong!” Continue reading “Do women need different treatment of coronary artery disease?” →

Premenopausal women and cardiac symptoms

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 14 Comments
by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

Most of you throughout your adolescent and adult lives have no doubt observed that hormone fluctuations during a menstrual cycle can affect certain body parts on certain days of that cycle. These fluctuations cause symptoms ranging from bloating to cramps, vivid dreams, fatigue, acne breakouts, food cravings, or irritability. (That word ‘irritability’ is doctor-speak to describe the act of threatening spouses with strangulation if they leave that freakin’ toilet seat up one more time…)

For decades, scientists have also observed that women’s risk of heart attack increases after menopause. One theory for this age-related delay (compared to male heart patients, who generally tend to have their heart attacks a decade or so before we do) was the drop in female hormones at menopause, particularly estrogen. That timing seemed to intuitively make sense. Estrogen levels go down, heart attack rates go up. It’s why physicians believed for a long time that hormone replacement therapy in postmenopausal women could actually prevent heart attacks. (PLEASE NOTE: it doesn’t.*) Continue reading “Premenopausal women and cardiac symptoms” →