Tag: health

Why don’t patients listen to doctors’ heart-healthy advice?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 6 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

Imagine that your daughter is preparing for a junior ski race. It’s five minutes before the start of the race. You want to give her some meaningful advice. Which one of these two messages are you going to use?

1. “Honey, remember to do XYZ – it will help you avoid losing!”
2. “Honey, remember to do XYZ – it will make you faster and you will have more fun!”

Austrian physician Dr. Franz Wiesbauer, writing to his fellow doctors in a Medcrunch article called Why Your Health Message Does Not Work, has asked this question many times in an informal little experiment. His results?  Continue reading “Why don’t patients listen to doctors’ heart-healthy advice?” →

How many times has your heart beaten so far?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 5 Comments

As I write this, my heart has beaten 2,382,051,24 times since the day I was born.

I also have taken 496,260,675 breaths since that day.

I know this because of a nifty little Beats & Breaths calculator tracker tool that I found online.   Continue reading “How many times has your heart beaten so far?” →

Surprising trends in women’s heart disease

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

During the 1980s, the American Heart Association launched an advertising campaign that asked: “If your husband had a heart attack in bed tonight, would you know what to do?” Even the AHA thought heart disease was strictly a man’s problem back then.

Offering this valuable historical perspective, Kansas City cardiologist Dr. Tracy Stevens reminds us that physicians are still practicing medicine based on cardiac studies performed mostly on white, middle-aged men.
Continue reading “Surprising trends in women’s heart disease” →

Seven ways to misdiagnose a heart attack

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 6 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

I’ve had a keen – some might say obsessive – interest in the subject of medical misdiagnosis ever since a man with the letters M.D. after his name sent me home from the Emergency Department in mid-heart attack. I had just been misdiagnosed with acid reflux – despite presenting with textbook cardiac symptoms.

These included crushing central chest pain, nausea, sweating, and pain radiating down my left arm. How can modern medicine still be making such potentially deadly misdiagnoses like this? Continue reading “Seven ways to misdiagnose a heart attack” →