Read your Own Medical Reports!

Doctors and hospitals don’t always make it easy to take control of your health. Last week, I had a CT scan of my heart. It was harder to get a heart scan than a mammogram, even though nobody in my family has ever had a breast condition more serious than a pimple. This effective, inexpensive but under-used tool in cardiac medicine takes pictures of your heart that show how much calcium is there (i.e., a calcium score). The more calcium you have in your arteries, the more likely you are to have a heart attack or stroke. In many cases, the calcium buildup, or plaque, can be reduced or prevented. Since my biological mother died of a massive stroke at 54, and many members of her family have or had heart disease, I thought it would be wise to have a scan before my own heart attack or stroke. That’s just good planning.

Everybody I talked to at the hospital wanted to know which doctor ordered the test and seemed confused because I ordered it myself; today I had to sign a release form to get a copy of my own heart scan report. It’s a good thing I did.

Yesterday, after I left a message at my doctor’s office to find out the results, the doctor’s assistant left a message that the doctor hadn’t ordered a CAT scan and she couldn’t find anything in my file. Ten minutes later, she left another message that my CT scan (not CAT scan) was okay, but since I had a small nodule on my heart that was consistent with smoking, the doctor wanted me to have another CT scan in a year.

In contrast, here’s what the report actually said:

Coronary calcium score of 0….[There is a soft-tissue] 2-mm nodule….Based on current internationally recognized recommendations, no specific imaging followup is recommended for nodules of this size, unless there is a history of smoking, in which case a 1-year…followup CT is suggested.

Since I’ve never had a cigarette in my mouth, I won’t be getting the one-year follow-up. I also know now that if I’m careful, I might be able to avoid any calcium in my heart and arteries.

The report also stated that there may be a small hiatal hernia, which the doctor’s office didn’t mention. That would explain my stomach problems.

I may keep this report on me. In case I ever have chest pains, I can show the doctors that it isn’t my heart, and avoid a $40,000 medical bill for indigestion or a pinched nerve.

Comments

Dana Carpender's Podcast; Dr. Davis on YouTube; Labor Day Sales

Dana Carpender, who's written several recipe books and other works on low-carb, has a podcast and is still writing articles at carbsmart.com. She's a terrific writer and amateur researcher (otherwise known as reading , as Jimmy Dore jokes ). I use her book 500 Low-Carb Recipes all the time and I'm looking forward to hearing more from her. I've embedded her podcast on my blog (click on the three lines at the top right if you don't see it, or go to Spotify or other podcast source if you're getting this by email). Carbsmart.com doesn't seem to have a blog feed, so if you want to see the latest posts there, you can sign up for notifications at their site. Dr. Davis has been putting a lot more videos on YouTube, so I've added his channel to the lineup. Click on the three lines on my blog if you don't see it, or go to his channel here . * * * * * Primal Kitchen is having a Labor Day sale-- 20% off everything. They sell high quality collagen powder, con...

Fermented bread and butter pickle recipe ft. L. Plantarum

After Dr. Davis said the other night that L. plantarum may reduce some of the effects of the herbicide glyphosate (which is everywhere), I'm re-running my recipe for fermented bread and butter pickles. Pickling cucumbers naturally have L. plantarum bacteria on them, and fermenting them with some brown sugar multiplies these bacteria. (Just don't use chlorinated water to wash them.) And if you're growing your own cucumbers, avoid spraying the fruits with Bacillus thuringiensis , or Bt (leaves and vines are OK). It's unclear what effect a big dose of Bt would have on humans. Another benefit of DIY pickles: no emulsifiers like polysorbate 80, which is a common ingredient in pickles. If you have GI problems, it could be from emulsifiers. These sweet-and-sour pickles are the tastiest I've ever made. There's just a little added sugar (some of which the bacteria will consume) and turmeric that gives the pickles their bright color. Special equipment Quar...

Cardio: A Waste of Valuable Dance Time

"I'd rather hold a girl in my arms than a football." -Joe DeCicco, friend and dancing fanatic Have you heard that it takes a woman 77 hours of exercise to lose a kilogram of fat? (For us Americans, that's half a pound.) That's according to a study cited by Dr. John Briffa .(1) The women who huffed and puffed three hours a week for a year ended up 4.4 pounds lighter than the sedentary women. That doesn't surprise me: my own weight loss involved a lot less exercise than what I'd been doing. I did no cardio workouts, just strength training . I had more time and energy for dancing, which is a stress reliever, helps keep me in shape, and it's a ton of fun. It's not expensive to dance (as long as you stay away from the studios). I've found excellent lessons at clubs where the teachers really care about the students getting it. Here in Denver, there are dancing clubs that are run by nonprofit organizations, where the prices are reasonable and...

Avoiding a Nightmare by Using Math

The answer lies in trigonometry. -Sherlock Holmes Don't worry if you never learned trigonometry--the answers here lie in arithmetic. Medical test results often come back positive or negative, as if the result were a certainty. Of course, there is the accuracy, but if the accuracy is 99% or so, what does that really mean? That you should get your affairs in order? Before you call your probate attorney, let's take an example from the book Calculated Risks by Gerd Gigerenzer. Let's say you're a 40-something year old woman with no symptoms of breast cancer. You have a positive mammogram. What are the odds you have breast cancer? Using some assumptions about test accuracy and rates of disease based on real data, the odds that you'd have breast cancer are one in eleven according to Gigerenzer. (If you were way off, don't feel bad--most of the physicians Gigerenzer tested were way off, too--and they had the data in front of them. Not that that's comforting in every...

Lousy Mood? It Could be the Food

Here's a funny AMV(1) on what it's like to be depressed, apathetic and overly sensitive. Note: explicit (but funny) lyrics in the video. Hearing this song brought a startling realization: I used to be emo, but with normal clothes. Sulking, sobbing and writing poetry were my hobbies. When I was a kid, my mother said that she wouldn't know what to do to punish me if I had done something wrong. And yet things got worse. Over a two-week period in 1996, my best friend moved away, I lost my job and broke up with my boyfriend. I lost my appetite and lived on a daily bagel, cream cheese and a Coke for the next few months. I had tried counseling, and didn't find it helpful; in fact, I found reviving painful memories was pointless. Not thinking about them, on the other hand, worked wonders. Later on, so did studying philosophy and learning to think through emotions instead of just riding through them. But what's blown away all the techniques is diet. Since I s...

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Search This Blog