Heart Cipher

Say you’ve got a son or daughter who just got married and the happy couple comes over to tell you the great news about their new house search. They explain that they have a great real estate broker who has recommended a particular loan broker to help with some great financing. They met with the loan broker who then gave them some great news.

The loan broker could get them ARM financing (an ACTUAL Rate Mortgage) for 2 points under the current standard rate and that rate would be the Actual Rate rate for the life of the Mortgage. It’s ARM financing. Your kids are really excited about this. After all, if they don’t get the ARM mortgage, they’ll have to get a FIXED Rate Mortgage and face changing and rising interest rates all the time because the interest rate on this sort of loan would change by a FIXED amount higher than the current standard interest rate.

What would you tell them?

(image courtest of TonyWatson.net)

Read the rest of this entry »

Once in a while, you hear or read some cardiologist make a set of statements that are so astonishing that they merit special comment and to be called out.

And there’s even more of a need to highlight the statement when that cardiologist’s professional colleagues fail to do so.

Such is the case in a recently begun thread at the “ClubwebMD” forum at TheHeart.org.

A cardiologist in that thread (who I won’t name but can be found by the diligent using Google) uttered something that boils down to the title of this post.

“My patients are too poor or too stupid to get the best cardiac care.”

At the outset, let’s grant that this cardiologist deserves at least some credit for being honest. Or maybe you think I’m exaggerating. No doctor, not even a FACCer, would make this point so baldly, right? (I use the designation “FACCer” as shorthand for describing a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology with whom I am particularly taken.)

Well, how about we do this? I’ll provide the verifiable online quotations and commentary and then you decide whether my interpretation of his remarks in this post’s title is a fair one.

Deal? Ok then, follow me after the jump for more…

(image courtesy of thechaly.wordpress.com)

Read the rest of this entry »

A reader, Jim, was kind enough to provide a comment on my last post that I hope will be as useful to you to hear as it was to me to hear.

I had written that a strategy of presenting numbers demonstrating improvement in blood lipids went a long way in my getting taken more seriously within my HMO when asking for assistance in implementing the Track Your Plaque program.

Jim’s comment gives me even more hope that there are some shared lessons that we might learn together in our fight against Coronary Artery Disease and, well, you know, our doctors.

I’m going to quote from Jim’s comment in full because I think his story is a great one that shows how it’s done.

Enjoy.

And thanks Jim!

(image courtesy of tuxpaint.com)

Your experience dovetails with mine. My primary care Doc, whom I’d been fighting with for years about my cholesterol, is now very much onboard and helpful once he saw the results from my blood work and serial heartscans. He is now willing to authorize NMR, Vit D, Lp(a) tests now that my numbers have shown such a tremendous response with minimal drugs (10 mg simvastatin, 2 g niacin). Originally, he didn’t even want to do Lp(a) because he said it was so hard to change. After dropping it to 1/4 of what it was before, he is getting very supportive. He is a great source of information about the drugs and a good sounding board for what I want to do. In contrast, my wife’s primary doc simply won’t get on board, Her LDL is way down so he has no interests in looking at Lp(a), Vit D or anything else. Says its not necessary. We’ll soon be looking for another primary care Dr.

I have consulted a couple of local cardiologists and looked at the profiles of others at my HMO. The one I talked to just said that one just had to learn to live with heart disease. I went to one outside who was known for being different, but though she has a non-surgical orientation she isn’t at all aggressive about dealing with things and knew less than I did about the lipid class issues. So I passed on her as well.

I have recently become convinced that finding a “cardiologist” isn’t necessarily the key to success for integrating Track Your Plaque program (TYP) practice with your HMO or other types of medical care.

I lucked out and am now well on my way to 100% integration. I’m not exaggerating: If I continue to prove myself worthy, I can easily see continuous and permanent 100% integration.

I can’t go into detail at this time. At some point, I believe I’ll be able to describe the incredible support for TYP and my more general health that I worked to establish and that I’ve found within my HMO.

In short, I have found a local TYP program Jedi Master to assist me under the tutelage of Dr. William “Yoda” Davis.

For now, what I can say is that I believe getting help from ANY medical professional who is already familiar with TYP or is open to new ideas is more important than that they be a cardiologist or even a doctor. I DID luck out. I lucked out incredibly. But I also followed a particular path, without understanding the full implications of what I was doing, that made the odds of things going well much higher. Let me explain…

(image courtesy of msn.com)

Read the rest of this entry »

I want and need to get myself on the record about the fact that, from here on out, I’m going to have to pull my punches. I hadn’t intended to do that at the time I started this blog, but I can’t think of a way not to have to do it.

The problem is that I haven’t quite figured out how to treat recent appointments with doctors about my own health here at this blog.

The problem is that it would not be fair for me to write about these appointments without letting the doctors know in advance that I am doing a blog about my own heart health care in real time. And I’m not going to tell them that I’m writing this blog and fairness is an important principle for me.

So, I’m going to have to pull my punches some.

I’m still going to write about issues that I see as real problems in heart health medical care. But I’m going to have to speak more generally about those problems.

Truth be told, I’ve been told some incredibly stupid things by doctors who I think should know better.

More importantly, suppose I found a medical professional who turned out to be supportive of my Track Your Plaque related effort but yet, for various understandable reasons, didn’t want me to write too much about it. To respect his request, I’d have to “pull my punches” about how terrific he was and how great the whole experience could be.

Does that sound vague? Great! I’ve succeeded.

What I can write about, and will write about, are the things I’ve done that have led to more success in dealing with medical professionals about my own heart health.

(image courtesy or ProgressivePunch.com)

One of the dilemmas facing people attempting to implement the Track Your Plaque program (TYP) in their lives is finding a doctor to work with. There’s a need for ordering blood tests, for getting advice, double checking on supplements/medications to try, etc.

I had been thinking that my HMO isn’t particularly a great one for doing TYP within.

But a casual comment from a friend got me to rethink that question and triggered still another thought about how to “shoehorn” the TYP program into a physician/patient relationship.

In this post, I’m going to explain how this shoehorn works in terms of what I’m going to try to do with my HMO. I haven’t actually tried these ideas yet but will in the next few weeks.

Oh… I almost forgot to say thanks to the friend whose comment triggered the idea.

Thanks!

(image courtesy of aidsforarthritis.com)

Read the rest of this entry »

Such is the title of a thread recently begun over at ImmInst.org. Sometime soon, I’ll describe what I understand about ImmInst.org. I like it a lot. Very interesting stuff going on there. You’ll notice it is on my very short blogroll list.

This morning I made a post to that thread that I think might be interesting to readers of this blog. To understand the full context of this post, you’ll need to refer to the ImmInst.org thread. But I think even without taking a peek there, most of what I write should be clear.

A few disclaimers

• I’m not saying that eating a lot of bacon is a good thing. I am saying that, at this point, it seems to me that the suggestion that we ought to eat a lot of bacon is MORE helpful than saying the dietary guidelines of the American Heart Association should be followed.
• Yesterday I wrote about having a feeling of loss and regret. Well, at this moment, I’m a bit more than a little pissed off. So, if my writing appears provocative then I have succeeded in my objective to try to provoke discussion and debate. Presented with scientific evidence and therapies that will work for me, I’m open and willing to change my mind.

In that ImmInst.org thread, a person named velopismo writes favorably about the new Gary Taubes book Good Calories Bad Calories and quotes Taubes as follows:

4. Through their direct effect on insulin and blood sugar, refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are the dietary cause of coronary heart disease and diabetes. They are the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and the other chronic diseases of civilization.

Without further introduction or comment, my post to that ImmInst.org thread follows the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

Give up wheat?

Is Dr. Davis crazy when he insists that, for many people, getting control of their coronary artery disease (CAD) requires that wheat products be driven from their diets? That’s an extreme position on the proper heart healthy diet right? Isn’t an extreme position always a bad thing? Isn’t there always greater benefit in a “moderate” approach?

In 2002, Dr. Mehmet Oz guest-hosted a Charlie Rose Show segment about heart health and low fat vs. low carbohydrate diets. The participants in the discussion were Gary Taubes, a journalist, Dr. Dean Ornish, author of many books about diet and heart disease, and Dr. Barbara Howard of the American Heart Association.

There are a number of interesting things we might discuss about this broadcast. For now, I’d just like to call your attention to a point in the discussion where Dr. Howard inadvertently slips into telling the truth when trying to explain the American Heart Association’s stance on a heart healthy diet…

Read the rest of this entry »

In my last post I wrote about a fracas going on over at a forum site for doctors.

I’ve had to toss my blog content calendar out the window because of what I’ve been reading over at the Club webMD’s TheHeart.org forum.

Drs. William Blanchet and William Davis have been explaining to other cardiologists there how cardiac events have been “reduced by 90%” and “essentially eliminated” among their medical practice patients.

What’s really amazing is the fact that they hadn’t really been aware of each other much before this last week. Dr. Blanchet was vaguely aware of the Track Your Plaque program but hadn’t seen or heard of Dr. Davis’ HeartScan blog (which I think is a must read). Dr. Davis hadn’t heard of Dr. Blanchet and when he first read one of his posts he joked about maybe he had written it himself.

They’re playing the game with their patients lives in the same way.

Following this thread has been incredibly encouraging because what’s clear is that these two doctors, who are more positive about what can be done about coronary artery disease than anyone else, are clearly the masters of the literature and have the most empathy for the risks and plight of their patients.

The best metaphor for the thread content I can think of is the kind of basketball game that the Harlem Globetrotters play. You’ve seen the Harlem Globetrotters right? The team of superior basketball players playing against a team composed of mediocre players. You have to see it to believe it.

(post images courtesy of 24sec.net)

Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry I’ve been away for a couple days.

Without meaning to, I got myself into a bit of a fracas over at Club webMD’s TheHeart.org forum.

You see, I’m that “John Q Public” who made a simple post at that forum about whether dramatic improvements in patient outcomes are possible for cardiovascular disease. Dr. Davis has written some about this whole mess at his blog.

My first post in that forum thread merely said (free registration required for medical professionals including media professionals. Hey, I’m a “medical media personality” aren’t I on account of this blog?):

Fascinating, isn’t it, that there appear to be two doctors, William Blanchet in this forum and Dr. William Davis, FACC, of TrackYourPlaque.com that both claim to have dramatically reduced risk of heart attack among their patients and/or actual calcium plaque score regression and BOTH are ardent proponents of CT Calcium Scoring?

Well, one thing led to another and I was asked never again to post to the forum. So, I won’t.

I must admit though, I’m kinda pissed. Not with the Club. No.

Look, the trouble maker here was Dr. William Blanchet, a doctor of Internal Medicine in Boulder, Colorado. If anyone’s to blame for the trouble, it’s him.

Read the rest of this entry »