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Thank you, Cleveland Clinic, for producing this moving 4 1/2 minute little film, Empathy: The Human Connection to Patient Care ♥
When routine tasks trigger heart symptoms
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
Heart disease is a strange animal indeed. Our very first symptoms can range from mild shortness of breath on exertion to sudden death – and almost every possible symptom in between. My own were those of the textbook Hollywood Heart Attack (crushing central chest pain, nausea, sweating, and pain down my left arm) – yet I was sent home by Emergency Department staff with a misdiagnosis of indigestion – feeling very, very embarrassed for having made such a fuss over nothing. It took two weeks to be finally correctly diagnosed with myocardial infarction (heart attack) caused by a 95% blockage of my Left Anterior Descending Coronary artery. And it took several more months – and another trip back to hospital – to figure out what was causing ongoing distressing symptoms that were ultimately diagnosed as Inoperable Coronary Microvascular Disease (MVD) or dysfunction of the smaller coronary arteries.
But MVD is very tricky to diagnose because most standard coronary artery disease diagnostic tests – the kind that work so well at identifying big fat blockages in our larger arteries – may not be capable of catching it. Continue reading “When routine tasks trigger heart symptoms”
What your cardiologist (should have) learned last month
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
After a bunch of top cardiologists got together in San Francisco recently for the annual American College of Cardiology scientific meetings, Debra Sherman and her team did a fine job summing up highlights for Reuters.* One of their first take-home messages: some cardiologists believe that drug prescribing has gotten out of hand. Continue reading “What your cardiologist (should have) learned last month”
Stressed: who, me?
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
Are you feeling particularly stressed these days? Chances are your answer to this question might be highly influenced by both your age and your gender (not to mention what the heck is also going on in your day-to-day life).
A national survey on how daily stress affects our personal health issues, for example, found that respondents’ answers appeared divided according to these four main age groups: Continue reading “Stressed: who, me?”
Heart Sisters 