Medical Establishment
My wife and I have had two
separate medical issues recently and have confronted the medical community with
them. In some cases it involves 6 to 7 different "specialties". With
all due respect to all of these individual medical professionals it is important
that we state that we understand that for the most part medical professionals
treat present symptoms and considering that in some cases there is an urgency
involved, we fully agree with this path. The last thing a Doctor
concerns themselves with is the source of a problem initially when there is an urgency.
I don't want a Doctor taking time and
practicing trial and error to locate a source of my problem when he/she
can implement immediate treatment that will stabilize me and perhaps save my
life.
In fact in some cases
correcting a symptom can alleviate the original source symptoms and in some
cases eliminate the original problem. Of course if a condition does not
improve after addressing a symptom, then further studies and tests have to be
made by someone. Of course in this case you can't help to feel that you
could be getting the run around by a specialist that does not want to let you
off of the hook. They may feel in time with a varied amount of medications
that they can stumble upon an eventual cure so to speak.
We had an experience with a superb squad of cardiology people at the hospital referred
to us by a cardiologist who was referred to us by our Gp. We are presently
contacting an endocrinologist to see if there are any thyroid implications
in our problem by comparing tests taken 6 months ago with the new test to
determine if there were any dramatic changes in the values, as the thyroid can be tied into the cardiovascular system when things are
out of whack.
On a visit to the Chiropractor for a persisting back problem this morning, lo
and behold the Dr. Doctor targeted a specific area in the back where we
have the problem, the T 1, 2, 3, and 4 vertebras in the thoracic area of the spine.
The thoracic area is where the cardiovascular connection of the body
resides although we have been informed that the more prominent heart related
issues can be traced directly to the cervical vertebras in the neck areas
especially where the key vagus nerves come down from the brain and exit through
upper parts of the cervical area and back and forth communications takes place
between the heart and the brain and regulates many functions of the
cardiovascular network.
Every
part of your body is controlled by the brain where the stem running down the spine
sends out nerve endings (between the vertebras to all parts of the body ) and if
these nerves are disturbed like pinching them, the parts that they control will
suffer. With the critical electrical timing dynamics within the heart you can
really appreciate how these nerves can be relevant to an abnormal heart beat
along with a fibrillation issue.
O.K. So what do you do?
You take control of your medical problems, study it, ask a lot of questions and
don't rely on any one of the specialists to burn the midnight oil for you
because if you do you could be "whistling in the cemetery" and the cemetery
could very well be where you are heading if you don't step up regardless of how
little you know about the subject matter.
It is very important to read all of the information that is provided with prescriptions. Go on the Internet and continually keeping in touch with all of the people that are involved in the case. I prefer faxing to the professionals my inquiries and perhaps input from other sources. Most medical people do not mind interacting with other specialties. They just don't go out of their way to do so.
You will find that most specialties that are worth their salt will rely on your GP for general information, especially the meds you are on for other issues that could conflict with the meds they are prescribing. You will have to encourage this interaction though, trust me.
Keep in mind again that for you to rely on any one of these individuals to coordinate your affairs, could prove fatal.
Just this morning I asked a Chiropractor to send our GP a fax of what his diagnosis was of my wife's back condition so that the GP could recommend a suitable pain killer that would not conflict with other meds.
Don't be shy of telling any professional that you are interacting with other specialties, they will respect you for it and if they don't, fire them.
There are limited but vital at home testing procedures that can be accomplished, but it is important that they are done accurately so the information that is passed on to the Doctor/Doctors you are working with do not misconstrue your case. Some of the Doctors diagnosis and perhaps write high powered prescriptions that could be instigated by some of the home data you will provide.
In
particular you could obtain a blood pressure and pulse kit from the local
pharmacy.
Our understanding is that the blood pressure readings are derived
from one sensory component of the kit and the pulse from another component of
the kit. In our particular case we believe we were receiving accurate
blood pressure readings, but inaccurate pulse readings and in the case of
my wife's issue pulse rate recordings were critical over the months time we were
given to record them.
We
learned after questioning two medical people that in the case of the pulse the
preferred method by both was the conventional hand/wrist reading and in
particular the wrist pulse using a clock with a second timer or in our case we
have a pendulum clock in a comfortable area. I personally wait until
I detect a strong pulse and start counting it and alert my wife to
count the pendulum swings at the same time. In fact in both
recommendations we were told to do a full minute (60 seconds) instead of the
abbreviated 15 seconds, multiply by 4 method we were using. If you
do this alone you will have to have a watch with a second hand to watch the 60
seconds take place and have counted the heart beats per minute. You may
have a wall clock with a second hand to accomplish this is as well if you are
doing it alone.
In some cases you may find the kit
you are using will correlate closely with the hand method so you will have to do
both for awhile. In some cases patients with what they refer to as an
innocent heart murmur could disrupt pulse readings in a kit. This is what
appears to be happening with our process as my wife has an innocent heart murmur
from birth. In our case this does not occur with the wrist pulse and clock
method that is the gold standard in obtaining an accurate pulse reading.
The kits have a sensitivity factor where the human touch does not, at
least in our case. Doctors and nurses should invite you to bring your kit
to their office and correlate the two processes with their equipment and your
kit. I am not sure what type of a reaction you will receive if you ask
them to do an old fashion hand/wrist procedure, but I would make them aware that
is what you have been relying on.