Category: Living with heart disease

posts here focus on the “new normal” you’ll discover once you get home from hospital and the reality starts to sink in

Pill splitting: which ones are safe to divide?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 30 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

pills-1173656_1280Physicians and other prescribers are often frustrated by their non-compliant patients. (Full disclosure: as I’ve written about here and here, for example, even the word non-compliant makes me cranky, as it sounds so much like it has punishment at the end of it). These frustrating patients are generally described as those who are not following doctor’s orders (there’s another patronizing term for you) or more specifically, are not taking the medications prescribed for them.

A Consumer Reports Health prescription drugs survey reported that many people are splitting their pills in half to save money on high-priced prescription drugs. The bad news, however, is that many have also learned to save even more money by taking half-doses of half-a-pill every other day. Continue reading “Pill splitting: which ones are safe to divide?” →

“Can’t go to my support group meeting because my husband’s expecting dinner”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 5 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

screen-shot-2016-11-09-at-1-45-37-pmI opened an email recently from one of my Mayo heart sisters. She had dropped me a note because she was concerned about a woman (a recent heart attack survivor) who had told her she really wanted to attend their community’s next support group meeting for women living with heart disease (this one was a monthly meeting held from 3-4:30 p.m.). But this woman claimed that she couldn’t go to the meeting – because she “had to be home to cook dinner for her husband.” Although her hubby was retired and at home all day long, the heart attack survivor explained that “he expects to have dinner ready at the regular time that I have had it for him all the years he was working.”

My initial reaction (after checking the calendar just to make sure it’s not still 1950): I need to go have a wee lie-down to recuperate from reading this story. Continue reading ““Can’t go to my support group meeting because my husband’s expecting dinner”” →

Does your hospital have a Women’s Heart Clinic yet? If not, why not?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 13 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥   @HeartSisters

teacup-heartFocused Cardiovascular Care for Women is the name of an important report about women’s heart health published in February of this year. One of the report’s highlights (or lowlights!) was that very few if any hospitals actually offered focused cardiac care specifically for women before the year 2000.(1) One reason for this may have been that, as the report’s authors explained, “the concept of Women’s Heart Clinics was met with hesitation from many cardiologists.”

Yes, you read that right, ladies. Until recently, even the very idea of establishing a heart clinic devoted to the unique realities of the female body was not warmly welcomed by the very physicians you’d think would be most supportive.  Continue reading “Does your hospital have a Women’s Heart Clinic yet? If not, why not?” →

If you get ill, will you follow these “Medicine Sick Day Rules”?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 5 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

screen-shot-2016-09-22-at-10-33-57-am

Earlier this year, I spent a few days collapsed in bed, fighting off the death grip of some kind of horrible flu-like symptoms that included a high fever, chills, drenching sweats and uncontrollable shivers. I was miserable. But I didn’t call my family doctor because:

  • (a)  I felt too sick to leave home, never mind sit in a crowded waiting room infecting other patients, and
  • (b)  I already knew that this virus was making the rounds and, like all viral infections, there was very little my doc could order to make it better while this bug ran its course. (Antibiotics, for example, fight bacteria, not viruses – so please stop asking your doctor for an antibiotic prescription to treat a cold or other viral conditions). See also: Do Bugs Need Drugs?

Like a good little heart patient, I continued taking my regular fistful of daily prescribed cardiac medications day after day while I was deathly ill. I did this because nobody had ever told me that, while suffering the dehydrating symptoms mentioned here, many patients should consider taking a temporary holiday from certain drugs that can make dehydration worse. Dehydration means the body lacks enough fluid to function properly, and if it worsens over time, can lead to potentially serious side effects, including kidney injury.  Continue reading “If you get ill, will you follow these “Medicine Sick Day Rules”?” →