Tag: WPLongform

Living with the “burden of treatment”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 16 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

Endocrinologist Dr. Victor Montori of Mayo Clinic describes two types of patients living with chronic illness who don’t follow their physicians’ advice when it comes to implementing recommended treatments or therapies. The first group may just not want to take the pills, or they want to try natural remedies instead, or they want to get better on their own, or they can’t afford their meds, or they just don’t trust that these recommendations will work for them.

But the second group of patients, Dr. Montori explains, may be working very hard to do everything their doctors have suggested (like taking prescribed meds, monitoring their vital signs, coming to all appointments – not only with doctors but with nurses or dieticians or other health care providers). Doing all that takes so much time and effort – on top of feeling sick a lot, juggling family, work and social life – that it can get to be too much.

So they just stop doing it.

Dr. Montori and his like-minded colleagues call this scenario the “burden of treatment” for patients.  Continue reading “Living with the “burden of treatment”” →

When are cardiologists going to start talking about depression?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 46 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥  @HeartSisters

I can vividly remember those early days and weeks at home after surviving a heart attack, especially that cold creeping anxiety around how I “should” be feeling. I had just survived what many do not: what doctors still call the “widow maker” heart attack. (By the way, note the gender semantics there, please: doctors are not calling this the “widower maker”).

I was now resting comfortably, both of my darling kidlets had flown back home to be with their Mum, our home was filled with flowers, get-well cards and casseroles delivered by the daily line-up of concerned friends, family, neighbours and co-workers.

So why was I feeling so bleak inside, and even worse, now feeling guilty for all that bleakness?  Continue reading “When are cardiologists going to start talking about depression?” →

Listen up, ladies: 16 things I’ve been meaning to tell you

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 16 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas

I always ask women in my Heart-Smart Women presentation audiences what they imagine I would have done had it been my daughter Larissa suffering the same heart attack symptoms that I’d been doing my best to ignore while on that cross-country flight from Ottawa.

Would I have patted her nicely on the head and urged her to just hang in there for nine more hours?  No, my heart sisters, you can rest assured that I would have been screaming blue murder to get immediate help for her.  Yes, even if it meant turning the damned airplane around during this medical emergency.

I was lucky. I managed to survive a heart attack that night on that plane – despite my very foolish determination to “not make a fuss”.  Ever since, I’ve been trying my best to bonk women on the head with reminders to put themselves first on their priority lists, and to be their own best health advocates. But this is an uphill battle that is being waged throughout all levels of women’s health care. Apparently, not even surviving a cardiac crisis is enough to convince some women that they need to start carving out “me-time” every day for the sake of their physical and mental health.   Continue reading “Listen up, ladies: 16 things I’ve been meaning to tell you” →

If I’d had my heart attack decades ago . . .

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 10 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

“When I first became a GP in England well over 30 years ago, the early diagnosis of myocardial infarction (heart attack) was a matter of slight importance, since there was no intervention which made any difference to survival.

“You tried to reach patients in their homes quickly to relieve their pain with heroin, but only sent them to hospital if their pain was not controlled, or they were going into shock.  Studies at the time indicated that patients with heart attacks survived better at home, where they were less likely to be killed with injections of lidocaine.”

Quite a difference, according to Dr. Richard Lehman, writing this in the British Medical Journal last month, compared to modern cardiac care options like clot-busting thrombolytic drugs or invasive coronary angioplasty procedures that are now routinely available to patients presenting with heart attack symptoms these days. (Unless, of course, you happen to be a woman under the age of 55 presenting to the E.R in mid-heart attack, in which case, as reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, you are seven times more likely to be misdiagnosed and sent home compared to your male counterparts with the same symptoms).*  But I digress . . .      Continue reading “If I’d had my heart attack decades ago . . .” →