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.