June 22, 2025 • 39 mins
Tonight, on Your Health First Dr. Galati focuses on being an advocate for yourself as a patient. He also talks about a new weight loss pill called affarlaprogue.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Initialized Sequeenzy coming to you live from Houston, Texas, home
to the world's largest medical center.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
A bunch of bays, everything looking alive.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
To you. This is your Health First, the most beneficial
health program on radio with doctor Joe Bellotti. During the
next hour you'll learn about health, wellness, and the prevention
of disease. Now here's your host, doctor Joe Bellotti.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
H Well, a wonderful Sunday evening, everybody dot Joe Galotti.
(01:01):
Hope you're doing well. Hope you have a great weekend
and enjoyed some of the hot, humid weather that Houston,
Texas dishes out this time of the year. And if
you're in another part of the country, I know the
Northeast was getting a little bit of a cooler weather
pattern out there. But we are happier all here this
(01:24):
Sunday evening. We're here every Sunday evening between seven and
a pm Central Time, and we are providing you with
unfiltered health and wellness information, strategies to stay healthy, strategies
to stay out of the hospital, and hopefully, with a
(01:45):
little bit of luck, have a long, healthy and healthy life.
Our website is doctor Joegalotti dot com. D R j
O E. G A L A T. I. And when
you get to that website, all of our information is there,
social media links, there's a tab to get in touch
with me, SNA FRAU newsletter which goes out every Saturday
(02:09):
every weekend across the country. And of course, if you
want to pick up a copy of my book Eating
Yourself Sick, which now more than ever makes sense for
you to have, it is available on Amazon. And actually
some good news, I am in the process of writing
another book, so stay tuned on that in the weeks
(02:33):
and months to come. All right, So some talk about
but what I want to really focus on for a
little while tonight is you the patient, You the family member,
(02:54):
being an advocate for yourself. And the reason this is
coming up now. And as I've said many many times,
the content for this radio program is not something that
is necessarily handed to me and they say you've got
to talk about this. It comes from real life experience.
(03:16):
In our clinical practice, we take care of people with
liver disease. I'm a hepatologist by the way, Liver Specialists
of Texas. The website is posted on our doctor Joe
Glotti website, So we take care of a lot of
sick patients, and I have always always stressed the need
(03:41):
for you to be an advocate for yourself. Now, you
cannot advocate for yourself if you don't understand what the
issue is. If you are with your family practitioner and
they say, look, Frank, you now have diabetes and I
(04:05):
am going to put you on this pill, all right,
may seem innocent enough. Oh jeeh, I've got diabetes. But
a well informed consumer, Well, first of all, say why
am I going on this medicine? Number two, what is
(04:29):
the implication of me having diabetes? Am I in a
situation where through lifestyle, diet, weight loss, exercise, I can
turn this around? Doctor, I know, because you should be
(04:49):
a good consumer. You know that diabetes can cause damage
to your kidneys, It can cause damage to your blood vessels,
It can cause damage to your nerves. I like to
say that diabetes takes no prisoner. You want to have
the conversation, say, doctor, what is the state of my kidney?
(05:09):
Am I spilling protein in my kidney? Am I having
problems with high blood pressure? What is my cholesterol and triglyceride?
Am I showing any abnormal EKG findings? Now this would
be advocating for yourself. Now. It is a sad state
(05:33):
of affairs where doctors are not providing this information up front. Frank,
let's sit down and spend ten minutes starting to educate
you on diabetes. No, this is not happening. Why do
I know it's not happening. Patients are telling me because
(05:53):
they're coming uninformed, and so you the informed customer, to
advocate for yourself. You have to ask all these questions
because you don't want to strictly go get the prescription
that Walgreens take your pills as ordered and business as usual.
(06:16):
You want to have that attitude of Okay, maybe I
need these medicines for a short while to correct some
blood sugar issues. But being able to advocate means you
have to understand you need to be schooled. And if
your doctor and his or her nurse and the team
(06:37):
is not going to school you, you have to seek
out information on your own and advocate for yourself. That
is what I am talking about, and you can. You
can substitute a new diagnosis of fatty liver, a new
diagnosis of high cholesterol, a new diagnosis of migraine, a
(06:59):
new diagnosis of really anything, and advocate for yourself now
case and point. I received a call yesterday from a
patient's wife. This is a gentleman that has multiple medical
(07:20):
problems related to his liver disease. We have been seeing
this gentleman for a good number of years and we
have i'd like to think, educated both him and his
wife on the rules of the road. If you get
this problem, call us. If you get this problem, do
(07:41):
not let anybody do this. They have very good boundaries.
And so his wife called our office on Saturday morning
and he had presented with what appears to be a
gastro intestinal bleed. He had rectal bleeding, a fair amount
of it, and he is known to have diverticulosis. And
(08:03):
he went to the hospital and they looked at him
and they said, you know what, go home. So here's
a gentleman that is a bit older, he has underlying
liver disease, and he's bleeding, and the emergency room is
saying go home. And that is a bad move. This
(08:27):
is not somebody you want to send home. This is
a person that is potentially going to rebleed and have
a catastrophic set of complications which may be life threatening.
This is critical. So his wife stood up and said,
you are not sending him home. We are going to stay.
(08:51):
I want you to call a gastroneurologist that is familiar
with him, get evaluated. He may need a colonoscopy, he
may need closer observation. And that is exactly what happened.
A life saved. And so it is this wife's aggressiveness
(09:17):
in advocating for her husband. She has done her homework,
she has listened to me and my team, and I'd
like to think that they were going to have a
far better outcome. But I can tell you everybody, many
times this doesn't happen. Patients will be discharged, things are
not done, and it's a bad outcome, including the loss
(09:41):
of life, and that is horrible. And so the bottom
line here, as we begin to take a break here,
advocate for yourself. But to advocate, you have to know
what you're advocating about. And that's why you need to
be knowledgeable on this whole health and wellness landscape so
(10:06):
that you can advocate. That is the word of the day, advocate.
All right, we're going to take a break here. I'm
doctor Joe Galotti. You are tuned into your health first,
which when we say your health First, we are saying
please advocate for yourself. We'll be right back to stay tuned.
Welcome back, everybody to your health First. It's always a
(10:26):
great pleasure being here every Sunday evening between seven and
eight Central Time, broadcasting from our home radio station seven
forty k TRH and across the globe on the iHeartRadio app.
Make sure this summer, as you're traveling around you say, hey,
(10:49):
it's Sunday night, doctor Galotti. We may be camping in Sedona,
but you can still get the program seven o'clock Central Time.
And don't forget doctor Joeglotti dot com is our website.
Send me a message. I love, love, love to hear
from everybody, and also all of our social media is there.
Pick up a copy of my book Eating Yourself Sick
(11:12):
and Again. In that book, I talked about how to
be an advocate for yourself. It is really really the
most important thing we can do, all right, So to
follow up on this personal advocacy, which really is very key.
So we talked about this wife yesterday Saturday who called
(11:37):
us to get really confirmation that she was right that
her husband needed to stay in the emergency room after
he came in with a gastro intestinal bleed. Please please,
please please. If that isn't grounds to admit somebody, an
older gentleman with multiple organ problems, then I don't know
(12:01):
what does. So she advocated happy outcome. Second thing is
we received a rather circuitous set of phone calls text messages.
It started off with a friend of a patient who
(12:21):
knows a doctor who knows me, and then we got involved.
So this was a gentleman with advanced livid disease. And
when I say advanced livid disease, I am talking about
life threatening livid disease. This is not ingrown toenail type material.
(12:44):
We're talking If you are not careful, this person probably
will not live another thirty to forty five days. There
is the risk of going into kidney failure, respiratory failure,
cardiac failure. You're already in liver failure lights out. So
(13:06):
now this person is in a let's just say a
secondary hospital in San Antonio. Now San Antonio is simply
a stone's throw from Houston, Texas, the Texas Medical Center,
largest complex in the world, and our liver transplant team
(13:31):
practically number one in the country. So within within site
is the place that you want your loved one to go.
And so originally the the the information came through this
very convoluted set of of of communic case. Get to
(13:55):
doctor Galotti. This guy will help you out and his
team of course, and so he you know, the problem
is trying to get patients from outside facilities into the
medical center can take several days. It's the nature of
the beast here. And so my recommendation was there are
(14:18):
physicians in the San Antonio area that can really take
care of this issue at a higher level than where
he was at. We gave names, we gave numbers, we
gave websites to to make this happen, because literally it's
(14:38):
easier to try to move latterly in the neighborhood rather
than pick up and drive across the state. So we
gave them all this information and they that the team
at this other program was unwilling or incapable of evaluating
this patient. And so this patient was stock languishing, dying
(15:00):
in this other hospital. So the advocating part was this
gentleman's family was unrelenting. They stayed in touch with us,
They were giving us updates hour by hour, giving us
the information we need. We had already tried to get
the person transferred into Houston Methodist, and again I am
(15:26):
at the mercy of availability of beds, though we can
certainly work to make the system be a little bit
more efficient. But this family was advocating for their family
member and because of their unrelenting pressure in a very
(15:48):
very loving way with us, with the doctors at the
other hospital. Good news. This person arrived last evening to
the place, the location this person needs to be, and
I would say there is a much higher probability, much
higher percentage that this person is going to do well
(16:11):
and get the care they need. This family advocated for
their loved one. And so many times we cannot advocate
for ourselves. You're sick, you're you know, you're out of
the loop, you're incapable of making all of these high
level decisions and communications. But here again, and I could
(16:34):
write a book about this. Patients and family members, loved ones,
BFFs that have advocated for somebody else, And it is
so so so important. And when you talk about a
good outcome, you talk about a lousy outcome. At the
(16:56):
center of all this, it is people advocating for themselves.
And not taking no for an answer, but again advocating
realizing that they understand what livered. You know, end stage
liver disease means they understand when the kidneys start going bad,
that that's going to have a bad out come. If
(17:17):
you are sort of neutral and you say, well, I
don't know what the hell's going on, and that's like
why did dad die? Well, I don't know. Nobody told me. No,
I would say, yes, nobody told you, but you did
not take the effort to learn and editate yourself.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
So that is it?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
All right? We're going to take a break right now,
doctor Joe Galotti every Sunday between seven and APM on
your Health First. Don't forget doctor Joegalotti dot com. Stay tuned,
we will go it back. Welcome back everybody, doctor Joe Galotti.
You're tuned into your Health First every Sunday between seven
and a PM, trying to raise your health IQ, one
(17:57):
listener at a time. We want to I guess, as
we've been talking about earlier, raising your advocacy IQ, advocate
for yourself. Don't just be a cow and take every
prescription you're given and not saying what the hell is this?
(18:20):
Why do I need to take it now. I am
not anti drug. I'm not telling you to drink an
oxtail soup to cure your diabetes. Okay, But you have
to be a good consumer. And I've been saying this
for twenty three years, to make you a better consumer,
(18:42):
in other words, to advocate for yourself. All right, And look,
I could get as ridiculous as you want here on
the radio tonight. Remember the days when we would go
to a department store or how many out there, remember Sears,
(19:04):
and you would go and you would say, hey, honey,
we need a new refrigerator. And you will go and
you will read the labels. You will go to consumer
Report and you will talk to the salesperson to say
ice maker, no ice maker, front load, whatever the feature is. Capacity,
(19:31):
you're being a good consumer. You don't want to buy
something and just take it home and have buyers remorse.
And we spend more time researching out the refrigerator we're
going to buy than researching out our medical conditions, or
our medical maladies, or the medicine we are taking. People
(19:53):
come in with zip lock bags full of pills and
they don't know what the hell they are. All they
know is that this is a blue one, this is
a pink capsule, this is a small white tablet. What
is it for? They don't know. And many times they
go to multiple doctors, they go to different specialists, and
(20:16):
they're get any prescriptions from everybody, and they may go
to different pharmacies. Now the pharmacy regulation is far better
today where there is cross talking. But if you go
to a Sam's Club to get a prescription and then
you go to Costco and they may not talk to
(20:37):
each other. But many drugs are generic or brand name,
and they're taking two of the same medicines. One is
generic and one is brand name, and all they know
is that I take one of these at eight o'clock
and I take this at eight o'clock or in the
(20:59):
morning as well. It is the same damn drug. And
you wonder why people don't feel good. So again, advocating
for yourself, do your research now and do if you
get doctor Joeglotti dot com is our website. So last
thing I'll talk about, and this is not so much
(21:19):
a rant. I get very passionate about this, and don't
take my passionate tone here, as you know, being angry.
I'm not an angry guy. I love what I do.
I love to take care of patients. I love to
see that they do well. I love to see when
patients come and their families come and they are really
(21:39):
informed and they're advocating for themselves. So here's another one.
So lady comes mid forties. I would say with her husband,
she is a professional. Her husband is a professional, well educated,
But that really doesn't that's not the whole story here.
(22:03):
And I would say that they or she has a
rather serious, potentially life threatening problem with her liver. Okay,
And so because of that problem, she self advocated for herself.
She saw local experts where she lives. She came to
(22:26):
Euston to seek out other expert opinion, but really was
not getting the detailed answers that she and her husband
were looking for. The care was not bad, it was
not malpractice, but it it was that sort of deeply
(22:50):
understood description that they were not getting. It was sort
of superficial, Yes you have this and you have to
do that well at forty three years old. That doesn't
usually settle well with people. They want to know what
are the next steps, what can happen? Really, they're advocating
for themselves, and so what they do is they pick
(23:12):
up and head to the male clinic in Rochester, Minnesota,
which is not a bad idea. The male clinic for
this particular liver disease, they are I would say, world renowned.
So they go there and they sort of get a direction,
(23:37):
but they still are not quite settled, and so they
let their fingers do the walking. They get on the
internet and my name pops up and they come and
see me earlier last week, and we go through our
head to toe evaluation. We look at about I think
(24:01):
it was three hundred and eighty pages worth of medical records.
Myself and my nurse practitioner. We looked through every single page.
We got her into a gown, we examined her, tried
to see what extent her liver disease was, and we
went from there. And then we sat down, the two
of us, and really the first thing I said is, look,
(24:25):
you've been to several different centers, you've been to a
world famous center at the Mail Clinic. You've come and
seen me now. And the question I had for her
is how how does she feel about the conversation we're
having so far? And is anything that I am saying
(24:47):
or doing or thinking different than what has already taken
place over the past four years. This has been a
four year journey for this lady. And you know what
she said, She said, in all these years, all the specialists,
all the expert locations, you are the first person that
(25:10):
got me into a gown and examined me. All I
did was a physical examination, an old fashioned physical examination.
And I said, now, wait, wait, you're telling me this
team that you saw did not examine you. No, they
(25:30):
did not. Okay, you went to the male clinic, the
world famous male clinic. They never got you into a
gown to even feel your abdomen and your liver and
your spleen which are enlarged. No, didn't listen to your
heart or lungs. No. And she said, and the husband said,
for this reason, we are staying with you now here Again,
(25:54):
I'm not here to give accolades to myself. That is
not the point here. I have been doing this with
or without accolades for thirty five years. It was just
the way I was trained, and it was partially the
way I was brought up, that we really really take
care of patients. But this lady advocated for herself and
(26:14):
her husband. They were trapesing all over the place to
get answers, and they were right, there was something that
was not right with this case. And many others just
basically said, this is your diagnosis, this is the therapy,
(26:37):
don't smoke, don't drink, and that was it. And so
for tonight, three illustrative cases of people advocating for themselves.
And all I would say is that it is so
sad when we see cases that get to us late
(27:00):
and there are bad outcomes, and families will sit there
and say, if we had only known, if I had
only done this sooner, if I had only sought out
a second opinion sooner, we would not be sitting here,
really in a pre morbid situation where literally nothing can
(27:24):
be done. So advocate for yourselves, advocate for each other.
If you know, maybe you're not the patient, but you
have a relative, a friend, a coworker, somebody within your
circle of influence, and you know that they are struggling,
and look everybody, at least everybody. A lot of people
(27:48):
I talk to, they talk about their medical conditions. That's
sort of the water cooler discussion. Ugh went to a
gynecologist and I got fibroids, or I have a murmur
in my heart, or I have some COPD from smoking
for thirty five years. Whatever it is. People like to
talk about that medical problems. And if you pick up
(28:10):
and hear that something ain't right, that they're struggling being
that bff, you should guide them to advocate for themselves.
That is the message. All right, Final segment for this
week's Your Health First. I have some miscellaneous items in
(28:32):
the news we're going to chat about, and don't forget
Eating Yourself Sick. Amazon bestseller available on our website, Doctor
Joegalotti dot com. New book coming out sometime later this year.
I don't know what the title will be, but it's
going to be a smash. Stay tuned, we'll brite down. Okay.
(28:53):
Final segment for this week's Your Health First. Every Sunday
we're here between seven and eight. Tell your friends and
relatives about us, and of course, go to our website
doctor Joeglotti dot com center for a newsletter. All of
our social media is there. Pick up a copy of
my book, Eating Yourself Sick. It is a guideline. We've
(29:17):
been talking about advocacy for yourself. The book really does
that very well, giving you the tools to understand you
have to understand what the heck is going on. We
don't have an owner's manual for the human body.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
And so.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
My sense is that eating yourself sick is the groundwork
that you need to understand how the body works and
what you need to know. Again, it goes along with
raising your health at Q, making you better consumers. That's
what it is all about. But go to doctor Joglotti
dot com. Uh and of course if you have any
(29:54):
liver or digestive issues, our practice Specialists of Texas is available.
We see patients coast to coast. Now, in the world
of telemedicine, we are able to see anybody from anywhere.
But certainly reach out to us and one of our
(30:15):
team members will get back with you that I promise.
All right. So in the news, how how can we
have a program without talking about obesity? So this week
the American Diabetes Association Heather Annual meeting, and as you
can expect, the buzz about weight loss and the ozepics
(30:41):
and the w Goovis of the world were there. But
drum roll, there is now a pill. Isn't that what
we have always shot for? A pill? Part of the
pill mentality that I talked about in Eating Yourself Sick.
(31:02):
But anyway, there is a new drug called Ready for this.
It's a tongue twister or fog leapron or fog lepron.
Even my New York accent sort of stumbles over it.
But anyway, it's an oral medicine that works similar to ozempic,
the GLP one agonist type drug, and the amount of
(31:27):
weight loss is very similar to ozempic over a nine
month period based on the preliminary research, and they are
thinking that sometime later this year it may be FDA approved. Now,
at one end, you could say, hey, it's good because
we could ditch ditch the shot, right, nobody likes taking injections,
(31:54):
and because it is a pill, it is much easier
and much cheaper, less expensive to make pills rather than
syringes and that whole delivery system just it takes more time,
a little more specialized, more labor, and it's more expensive
(32:15):
rather than a pill that they could just run off
the assembly line. And I would say, look, that is
good considering the millions upon millions of Americans and people
around the world that are obese and having trouble with
metabolic syndrome, which is the killer. Eighty five percent of
(32:35):
chronic disease is related to lifestyle changes or lifestyle choices.
This sounds like it's a good idea, but I will
still bring up my pet peeve. With all this, we
are not teaching people or I should look. Look, I
could stand here with a megaphone as big as man
(32:59):
could make. People won't listen. You are going to have
to make the decision to advocate for yourself. Advocating for
yourself is not necessarily taking a pill. It is taking
a pill learning how to eat better. That is, we
got here by eating ourselves into a corner, eating ourselves sick.
(33:25):
It's a good book. We have to get ourselves out
by not eating ourselves sick, by learning how to look
at food and realize what is nutritious, being able to
look at a a processed food product and say, you
(33:49):
know what. First of all, the ad is a bit
of a come on. I don't really care that it
has more protein than an egg. I really don't care
that it is low fat because they probably added sugar
and salt to it to make it taste better. And
so that is the first level understanding the consumerism, Understanding
(34:11):
different foods and their nutritional content, Understanding the role of
dietary fiber. Where do you get fiber from. It's not
from just taking a cup of metamucil, It's from getting
beans and nuts and fruits and vegetables. Understanding portion control,
Understanding how to prepare food. That is what is going
(34:32):
to change the needle. And instead of a country addicted
to their pills, we get people addicted to the foods
they eat and create a certain ground swell of enthusiasm.
So there is a lot of new data, a lot
of new technology on the rise. But at the end
of the day, doctor Galotti, here my voice, we have
(34:56):
to change behavior and become better consumers and understand food
got us into the problem. Food can get us out
of this big hole.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
All right.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Another sort of final thought here, it's summertime, it's travel time.
And there were a couple of articles that I came
across over the last couple of weeks about when you're traveling,
traveling yourself, traveling with your significant other, traveling with your kids,
the whole idea of what to bring in a little
mini first aid kit. And I really should get my wife,
(35:31):
Geraldine on here because she is really the planner for
the first aid stuff that we take. She happens to
be a nurse, but I think she would have done
this anyway. So the main thing if you're traveling, if
you're traveling for a long weekend, or you're traveling on
a two week trip, even if you go into Disneyland,
or if you're going overseas somewhere or somewhere more exotic.
(35:54):
First of all, make sure you have enough medicine, your
own prescription medicine. Plan on flights being delayed, getting detoured,
and so don't say, look, we're going to be gone
fourteen days. I'm going to take fourteen days of medicine
and then I run out. You probably need at least
another week or ten days of backup medicine. Number two,
(36:18):
here is a chance to make sure you understand all
of the medicines you're taking. What are they? Number three,
bring a print out of all of your medications, the name,
the dose, and the frequency. You should be able to
do this. Pharmacies will do this for you. Make sure
(36:38):
you carry some over the counter medicine, so a little
bit of a pseudo metafine, some ibuprofen in case you
get a sprain or a headache or something hurts, bring
some allergy medicine in case you have some sort of reaction.
Make sure you bring some GI products, be it something
as simple as toms may milanta, things like that. Maybe
(37:02):
a little bit of zantac pepsid over the counter if
you get some GI distress, and a little bit of
amodium in case you get some traveler's diarrhea. Talk with
your doctors about taking any antibiotics with you in case
you get hit with some traveler's diarrhea. Also, make sure
you take a thermometer. I cannot tell you how many
(37:24):
people travel without a thermometer. That is really important. If
you have trouble with high blood pressure or cardiac issues,
take your blood pressure cuff with you. That would be important.
The other is the usual band aids, bandages, gauze pads,
(37:45):
some antibiotic ointment, things like that in case you get sprains, cuts,
at least something to tide you over until you could
get to a hospital, urgent care center, or see a
doctor in town with out of doubt. If you're traveling
into more exotic places, you want to make sure you
have appropriate repellent against mosquitoes. And other little things that
(38:11):
you may run into the wild. Here again, I would say,
make sure you check in with a travel medicine physician.
We did it when we went to Africa last year.
It was amazing. They have maps of the world different diseases,
be it anything from hepatitis A to various water born problems, ticks, fleas, bugs,
(38:38):
all kinds of things. So travel medicine is a good idea,
So stay up to date on that. You want to
be able to go on vacation and have it stress
free and not worry about somebody getting sick. All right,
That is it for this Sunday evening. I hope you
have a great rest of the evening, a powerful week.
(38:58):
Take a look what you're eating, Take a look at
how much you're sleeping. Take a look at the food
you're eating. Stay away from junk food and to drive throughs.
It's better if you could cook it at home. Put
your health first. That's what we're all about.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
All right.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Until next Sunday evening, I'm doctor Joe Galotti. God bless everybody.
Stay well, be an advocate for yourself. That's all I'll say.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
You've been listening to your health first. With doctor Joe Glotti.
For more information on this program or the content of
this program, go to your health first dot com
Initialized Sequeenzy coming to you live from Houston, Texas, home
to the world's largest medical center.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
A bunch of bays, everything looking alive.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
To you. This is your Health First, the most beneficial
health program on radio with doctor Joe Bellotti. During the
next hour you'll learn about health, wellness, and the prevention
of disease. Now here's your host, doctor Joe Bellotti.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
H Well, a wonderful Sunday evening, everybody dot Joe Galotti.
(01:01):
Hope you're doing well. Hope you have a great weekend
and enjoyed some of the hot, humid weather that Houston,
Texas dishes out this time of the year. And if
you're in another part of the country, I know the
Northeast was getting a little bit of a cooler weather
pattern out there. But we are happier all here this
(01:24):
Sunday evening. We're here every Sunday evening between seven and
a pm Central Time, and we are providing you with
unfiltered health and wellness information, strategies to stay healthy, strategies
to stay out of the hospital, and hopefully, with a
(01:45):
little bit of luck, have a long, healthy and healthy life.
Our website is doctor Joegalotti dot com. D R j
O E. G A L A T. I. And when
you get to that website, all of our information is there,
social media links, there's a tab to get in touch
with me, SNA FRAU newsletter which goes out every Saturday
(02:09):
every weekend across the country. And of course, if you
want to pick up a copy of my book Eating
Yourself Sick, which now more than ever makes sense for
you to have, it is available on Amazon. And actually
some good news, I am in the process of writing
another book, so stay tuned on that in the weeks
(02:33):
and months to come. All right, So some talk about
but what I want to really focus on for a
little while tonight is you the patient, You the family member,
(02:54):
being an advocate for yourself. And the reason this is
coming up now. And as I've said many many times,
the content for this radio program is not something that
is necessarily handed to me and they say you've got
to talk about this. It comes from real life experience.
(03:16):
In our clinical practice, we take care of people with
liver disease. I'm a hepatologist by the way, Liver Specialists
of Texas. The website is posted on our doctor Joe
Glotti website, So we take care of a lot of
sick patients, and I have always always stressed the need
(03:41):
for you to be an advocate for yourself. Now, you
cannot advocate for yourself if you don't understand what the
issue is. If you are with your family practitioner and
they say, look, Frank, you now have diabetes and I
(04:05):
am going to put you on this pill, all right,
may seem innocent enough. Oh jeeh, I've got diabetes. But
a well informed consumer, Well, first of all, say why
am I going on this medicine? Number two, what is
(04:29):
the implication of me having diabetes? Am I in a
situation where through lifestyle, diet, weight loss, exercise, I can
turn this around? Doctor, I know, because you should be
(04:49):
a good consumer. You know that diabetes can cause damage
to your kidneys, It can cause damage to your blood vessels,
It can cause damage to your nerves. I like to
say that diabetes takes no prisoner. You want to have
the conversation, say, doctor, what is the state of my kidney?
(05:09):
Am I spilling protein in my kidney? Am I having
problems with high blood pressure? What is my cholesterol and triglyceride?
Am I showing any abnormal EKG findings? Now this would
be advocating for yourself. Now. It is a sad state
(05:33):
of affairs where doctors are not providing this information up front. Frank,
let's sit down and spend ten minutes starting to educate
you on diabetes. No, this is not happening. Why do
I know it's not happening. Patients are telling me because
(05:53):
they're coming uninformed, and so you the informed customer, to
advocate for yourself. You have to ask all these questions
because you don't want to strictly go get the prescription
that Walgreens take your pills as ordered and business as usual.
(06:16):
You want to have that attitude of Okay, maybe I
need these medicines for a short while to correct some
blood sugar issues. But being able to advocate means you
have to understand you need to be schooled. And if
your doctor and his or her nurse and the team
(06:37):
is not going to school you, you have to seek
out information on your own and advocate for yourself. That
is what I am talking about, and you can. You
can substitute a new diagnosis of fatty liver, a new
diagnosis of high cholesterol, a new diagnosis of migraine, a
(06:59):
new diagnosis of really anything, and advocate for yourself now
case and point. I received a call yesterday from a
patient's wife. This is a gentleman that has multiple medical
(07:20):
problems related to his liver disease. We have been seeing
this gentleman for a good number of years and we
have i'd like to think, educated both him and his
wife on the rules of the road. If you get
this problem, call us. If you get this problem, do
(07:41):
not let anybody do this. They have very good boundaries.
And so his wife called our office on Saturday morning
and he had presented with what appears to be a
gastro intestinal bleed. He had rectal bleeding, a fair amount
of it, and he is known to have diverticulosis. And
(08:03):
he went to the hospital and they looked at him
and they said, you know what, go home. So here's
a gentleman that is a bit older, he has underlying
liver disease, and he's bleeding, and the emergency room is
saying go home. And that is a bad move. This
(08:27):
is not somebody you want to send home. This is
a person that is potentially going to rebleed and have
a catastrophic set of complications which may be life threatening.
This is critical. So his wife stood up and said,
you are not sending him home. We are going to stay.
(08:51):
I want you to call a gastroneurologist that is familiar
with him, get evaluated. He may need a colonoscopy, he
may need closer observation. And that is exactly what happened.
A life saved. And so it is this wife's aggressiveness
(09:17):
in advocating for her husband. She has done her homework,
she has listened to me and my team, and I'd
like to think that they were going to have a
far better outcome. But I can tell you everybody, many
times this doesn't happen. Patients will be discharged, things are
not done, and it's a bad outcome, including the loss
(09:41):
of life, and that is horrible. And so the bottom
line here, as we begin to take a break here,
advocate for yourself. But to advocate, you have to know
what you're advocating about. And that's why you need to
be knowledgeable on this whole health and wellness landscape so
(10:06):
that you can advocate. That is the word of the day, advocate.
All right, we're going to take a break here. I'm
doctor Joe Galotti. You are tuned into your health first,
which when we say your health First, we are saying
please advocate for yourself. We'll be right back to stay tuned.
Welcome back, everybody to your health First. It's always a
(10:26):
great pleasure being here every Sunday evening between seven and
eight Central Time, broadcasting from our home radio station seven
forty k TRH and across the globe on the iHeartRadio app.
Make sure this summer, as you're traveling around you say, hey,
(10:49):
it's Sunday night, doctor Galotti. We may be camping in Sedona,
but you can still get the program seven o'clock Central Time.
And don't forget doctor Joeglotti dot com is our website.
Send me a message. I love, love, love to hear
from everybody, and also all of our social media is there.
Pick up a copy of my book Eating Yourself Sick
(11:12):
and Again. In that book, I talked about how to
be an advocate for yourself. It is really really the
most important thing we can do, all right, So to
follow up on this personal advocacy, which really is very key.
So we talked about this wife yesterday Saturday who called
(11:37):
us to get really confirmation that she was right that
her husband needed to stay in the emergency room after
he came in with a gastro intestinal bleed. Please please,
please please. If that isn't grounds to admit somebody, an
older gentleman with multiple organ problems, then I don't know
(12:01):
what does. So she advocated happy outcome. Second thing is
we received a rather circuitous set of phone calls text messages.
It started off with a friend of a patient who
(12:21):
knows a doctor who knows me, and then we got involved.
So this was a gentleman with advanced livid disease. And
when I say advanced livid disease, I am talking about
life threatening livid disease. This is not ingrown toenail type material.
(12:44):
We're talking If you are not careful, this person probably
will not live another thirty to forty five days. There
is the risk of going into kidney failure, respiratory failure,
cardiac failure. You're already in liver failure lights out. So
(13:06):
now this person is in a let's just say a
secondary hospital in San Antonio. Now San Antonio is simply
a stone's throw from Houston, Texas, the Texas Medical Center,
largest complex in the world, and our liver transplant team
(13:31):
practically number one in the country. So within within site
is the place that you want your loved one to go.
And so originally the the the information came through this
very convoluted set of of of communic case. Get to
(13:55):
doctor Galotti. This guy will help you out and his
team of course, and so he you know, the problem
is trying to get patients from outside facilities into the
medical center can take several days. It's the nature of
the beast here. And so my recommendation was there are
(14:18):
physicians in the San Antonio area that can really take
care of this issue at a higher level than where
he was at. We gave names, we gave numbers, we
gave websites to to make this happen, because literally it's
(14:38):
easier to try to move latterly in the neighborhood rather
than pick up and drive across the state. So we
gave them all this information and they that the team
at this other program was unwilling or incapable of evaluating
this patient. And so this patient was stock languishing, dying
(15:00):
in this other hospital. So the advocating part was this
gentleman's family was unrelenting. They stayed in touch with us,
They were giving us updates hour by hour, giving us
the information we need. We had already tried to get
the person transferred into Houston Methodist, and again I am
(15:26):
at the mercy of availability of beds, though we can
certainly work to make the system be a little bit
more efficient. But this family was advocating for their family
member and because of their unrelenting pressure in a very
(15:48):
very loving way with us, with the doctors at the
other hospital. Good news. This person arrived last evening to
the place, the location this person needs to be, and
I would say there is a much higher probability, much
higher percentage that this person is going to do well
(16:11):
and get the care they need. This family advocated for
their loved one. And so many times we cannot advocate
for ourselves. You're sick, you're you know, you're out of
the loop, you're incapable of making all of these high
level decisions and communications. But here again, and I could
(16:34):
write a book about this. Patients and family members, loved ones,
BFFs that have advocated for somebody else, And it is
so so so important. And when you talk about a
good outcome, you talk about a lousy outcome. At the
(16:56):
center of all this, it is people advocating for themselves.
And not taking no for an answer, but again advocating
realizing that they understand what livered. You know, end stage
liver disease means they understand when the kidneys start going bad,
that that's going to have a bad out come. If
(17:17):
you are sort of neutral and you say, well, I
don't know what the hell's going on, and that's like
why did dad die? Well, I don't know. Nobody told me. No,
I would say, yes, nobody told you, but you did
not take the effort to learn and editate yourself.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
So that is it?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
All right? We're going to take a break right now,
doctor Joe Galotti every Sunday between seven and APM on
your Health First. Don't forget doctor Joegalotti dot com. Stay tuned,
we will go it back. Welcome back everybody, doctor Joe Galotti.
You're tuned into your Health First every Sunday between seven
and a PM, trying to raise your health IQ, one
(17:57):
listener at a time. We want to I guess, as
we've been talking about earlier, raising your advocacy IQ, advocate
for yourself. Don't just be a cow and take every
prescription you're given and not saying what the hell is this?
(18:20):
Why do I need to take it now. I am
not anti drug. I'm not telling you to drink an
oxtail soup to cure your diabetes. Okay, But you have
to be a good consumer. And I've been saying this
for twenty three years, to make you a better consumer,
(18:42):
in other words, to advocate for yourself. All right, And look,
I could get as ridiculous as you want here on
the radio tonight. Remember the days when we would go
to a department store or how many out there, remember Sears,
(19:04):
and you would go and you would say, hey, honey,
we need a new refrigerator. And you will go and
you will read the labels. You will go to consumer
Report and you will talk to the salesperson to say
ice maker, no ice maker, front load, whatever the feature is. Capacity,
(19:31):
you're being a good consumer. You don't want to buy
something and just take it home and have buyers remorse.
And we spend more time researching out the refrigerator we're
going to buy than researching out our medical conditions, or
our medical maladies, or the medicine we are taking. People
(19:53):
come in with zip lock bags full of pills and
they don't know what the hell they are. All they
know is that this is a blue one, this is
a pink capsule, this is a small white tablet. What
is it for? They don't know. And many times they
go to multiple doctors, they go to different specialists, and
(20:16):
they're get any prescriptions from everybody, and they may go
to different pharmacies. Now the pharmacy regulation is far better
today where there is cross talking. But if you go
to a Sam's Club to get a prescription and then
you go to Costco and they may not talk to
(20:37):
each other. But many drugs are generic or brand name,
and they're taking two of the same medicines. One is
generic and one is brand name, and all they know
is that I take one of these at eight o'clock
and I take this at eight o'clock or in the
(20:59):
morning as well. It is the same damn drug. And
you wonder why people don't feel good. So again, advocating
for yourself, do your research now and do if you
get doctor Joeglotti dot com is our website. So last
thing I'll talk about, and this is not so much
(21:19):
a rant. I get very passionate about this, and don't
take my passionate tone here, as you know, being angry.
I'm not an angry guy. I love what I do.
I love to take care of patients. I love to
see that they do well. I love to see when
patients come and their families come and they are really
(21:39):
informed and they're advocating for themselves. So here's another one.
So lady comes mid forties. I would say with her husband,
she is a professional. Her husband is a professional, well educated,
But that really doesn't that's not the whole story here.
(22:03):
And I would say that they or she has a
rather serious, potentially life threatening problem with her liver. Okay,
And so because of that problem, she self advocated for herself.
She saw local experts where she lives. She came to
(22:26):
Euston to seek out other expert opinion, but really was
not getting the detailed answers that she and her husband
were looking for. The care was not bad, it was
not malpractice, but it it was that sort of deeply
(22:50):
understood description that they were not getting. It was sort
of superficial, Yes you have this and you have to
do that well at forty three years old. That doesn't
usually settle well with people. They want to know what
are the next steps, what can happen? Really, they're advocating
for themselves, and so what they do is they pick
(23:12):
up and head to the male clinic in Rochester, Minnesota,
which is not a bad idea. The male clinic for
this particular liver disease, they are I would say, world renowned.
So they go there and they sort of get a direction,
(23:37):
but they still are not quite settled, and so they
let their fingers do the walking. They get on the
internet and my name pops up and they come and
see me earlier last week, and we go through our
head to toe evaluation. We look at about I think
(24:01):
it was three hundred and eighty pages worth of medical records.
Myself and my nurse practitioner. We looked through every single page.
We got her into a gown, we examined her, tried
to see what extent her liver disease was, and we
went from there. And then we sat down, the two
of us, and really the first thing I said is, look,
(24:25):
you've been to several different centers, you've been to a
world famous center at the Mail Clinic. You've come and
seen me now. And the question I had for her
is how how does she feel about the conversation we're
having so far? And is anything that I am saying
(24:47):
or doing or thinking different than what has already taken
place over the past four years. This has been a
four year journey for this lady. And you know what
she said, She said, in all these years, all the specialists,
all the expert locations, you are the first person that
(25:10):
got me into a gown and examined me. All I
did was a physical examination, an old fashioned physical examination.
And I said, now, wait, wait, you're telling me this
team that you saw did not examine you. No, they
(25:30):
did not. Okay, you went to the male clinic, the
world famous male clinic. They never got you into a
gown to even feel your abdomen and your liver and
your spleen which are enlarged. No, didn't listen to your
heart or lungs. No. And she said, and the husband said,
for this reason, we are staying with you now here Again,
(25:54):
I'm not here to give accolades to myself. That is
not the point here. I have been doing this with
or without accolades for thirty five years. It was just
the way I was trained, and it was partially the
way I was brought up, that we really really take
care of patients. But this lady advocated for herself and
(26:14):
her husband. They were trapesing all over the place to
get answers, and they were right, there was something that
was not right with this case. And many others just
basically said, this is your diagnosis, this is the therapy,
(26:37):
don't smoke, don't drink, and that was it. And so
for tonight, three illustrative cases of people advocating for themselves.
And all I would say is that it is so
sad when we see cases that get to us late
(27:00):
and there are bad outcomes, and families will sit there
and say, if we had only known, if I had
only done this sooner, if I had only sought out
a second opinion sooner, we would not be sitting here,
really in a pre morbid situation where literally nothing can
(27:24):
be done. So advocate for yourselves, advocate for each other.
If you know, maybe you're not the patient, but you
have a relative, a friend, a coworker, somebody within your
circle of influence, and you know that they are struggling,
and look everybody, at least everybody. A lot of people
(27:48):
I talk to, they talk about their medical conditions. That's
sort of the water cooler discussion. Ugh went to a
gynecologist and I got fibroids, or I have a murmur
in my heart, or I have some COPD from smoking
for thirty five years. Whatever it is. People like to
talk about that medical problems. And if you pick up
(28:10):
and hear that something ain't right, that they're struggling being
that bff, you should guide them to advocate for themselves.
That is the message. All right, Final segment for this
week's Your Health First. I have some miscellaneous items in
(28:32):
the news we're going to chat about, and don't forget
Eating Yourself Sick. Amazon bestseller available on our website, Doctor
Joegalotti dot com. New book coming out sometime later this year.
I don't know what the title will be, but it's
going to be a smash. Stay tuned, we'll brite down. Okay.
(28:53):
Final segment for this week's Your Health First. Every Sunday
we're here between seven and eight. Tell your friends and
relatives about us, and of course, go to our website
doctor Joeglotti dot com center for a newsletter. All of
our social media is there. Pick up a copy of
my book, Eating Yourself Sick. It is a guideline. We've
(29:17):
been talking about advocacy for yourself. The book really does
that very well, giving you the tools to understand you
have to understand what the heck is going on. We
don't have an owner's manual for the human body.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
And so.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
My sense is that eating yourself sick is the groundwork
that you need to understand how the body works and
what you need to know. Again, it goes along with
raising your health at Q, making you better consumers. That's
what it is all about. But go to doctor Joglotti
dot com. Uh and of course if you have any
(29:54):
liver or digestive issues, our practice Specialists of Texas is available.
We see patients coast to coast. Now, in the world
of telemedicine, we are able to see anybody from anywhere.
But certainly reach out to us and one of our
(30:15):
team members will get back with you that I promise.
All right. So in the news, how how can we
have a program without talking about obesity? So this week
the American Diabetes Association Heather Annual meeting, and as you
can expect, the buzz about weight loss and the ozepics
(30:41):
and the w Goovis of the world were there. But
drum roll, there is now a pill. Isn't that what
we have always shot for? A pill? Part of the
pill mentality that I talked about in Eating Yourself Sick.
(31:02):
But anyway, there is a new drug called Ready for this.
It's a tongue twister or fog leapron or fog lepron.
Even my New York accent sort of stumbles over it.
But anyway, it's an oral medicine that works similar to ozempic,
the GLP one agonist type drug, and the amount of
(31:27):
weight loss is very similar to ozempic over a nine
month period based on the preliminary research, and they are
thinking that sometime later this year it may be FDA approved. Now,
at one end, you could say, hey, it's good because
we could ditch ditch the shot, right, nobody likes taking injections,
(31:54):
and because it is a pill, it is much easier
and much cheaper, less expensive to make pills rather than
syringes and that whole delivery system just it takes more time,
a little more specialized, more labor, and it's more expensive
(32:15):
rather than a pill that they could just run off
the assembly line. And I would say, look, that is
good considering the millions upon millions of Americans and people
around the world that are obese and having trouble with
metabolic syndrome, which is the killer. Eighty five percent of
(32:35):
chronic disease is related to lifestyle changes or lifestyle choices.
This sounds like it's a good idea, but I will
still bring up my pet peeve. With all this, we
are not teaching people or I should look. Look, I
could stand here with a megaphone as big as man
(32:59):
could make. People won't listen. You are going to have
to make the decision to advocate for yourself. Advocating for
yourself is not necessarily taking a pill. It is taking
a pill learning how to eat better. That is, we
got here by eating ourselves into a corner, eating ourselves sick.
(33:25):
It's a good book. We have to get ourselves out
by not eating ourselves sick, by learning how to look
at food and realize what is nutritious, being able to
look at a a processed food product and say, you
(33:49):
know what. First of all, the ad is a bit
of a come on. I don't really care that it
has more protein than an egg. I really don't care
that it is low fat because they probably added sugar
and salt to it to make it taste better. And
so that is the first level understanding the consumerism, Understanding
(34:11):
different foods and their nutritional content, Understanding the role of
dietary fiber. Where do you get fiber from. It's not
from just taking a cup of metamucil, It's from getting
beans and nuts and fruits and vegetables. Understanding portion control,
Understanding how to prepare food. That is what is going
(34:32):
to change the needle. And instead of a country addicted
to their pills, we get people addicted to the foods
they eat and create a certain ground swell of enthusiasm.
So there is a lot of new data, a lot
of new technology on the rise. But at the end
of the day, doctor Galotti, here my voice, we have
(34:56):
to change behavior and become better consumers and understand food
got us into the problem. Food can get us out
of this big hole.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
All right.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Another sort of final thought here, it's summertime, it's travel time.
And there were a couple of articles that I came
across over the last couple of weeks about when you're traveling,
traveling yourself, traveling with your significant other, traveling with your kids,
the whole idea of what to bring in a little
mini first aid kit. And I really should get my wife,
(35:31):
Geraldine on here because she is really the planner for
the first aid stuff that we take. She happens to
be a nurse, but I think she would have done
this anyway. So the main thing if you're traveling, if
you're traveling for a long weekend, or you're traveling on
a two week trip, even if you go into Disneyland,
or if you're going overseas somewhere or somewhere more exotic.
(35:54):
First of all, make sure you have enough medicine, your
own prescription medicine. Plan on flights being delayed, getting detoured,
and so don't say, look, we're going to be gone
fourteen days. I'm going to take fourteen days of medicine
and then I run out. You probably need at least
another week or ten days of backup medicine. Number two,
(36:18):
here is a chance to make sure you understand all
of the medicines you're taking. What are they? Number three,
bring a print out of all of your medications, the name,
the dose, and the frequency. You should be able to
do this. Pharmacies will do this for you. Make sure
(36:38):
you carry some over the counter medicine, so a little
bit of a pseudo metafine, some ibuprofen in case you
get a sprain or a headache or something hurts, bring
some allergy medicine in case you have some sort of reaction.
Make sure you bring some GI products, be it something
as simple as toms may milanta, things like that. Maybe
(37:02):
a little bit of zantac pepsid over the counter if
you get some GI distress, and a little bit of
amodium in case you get some traveler's diarrhea. Talk with
your doctors about taking any antibiotics with you in case
you get hit with some traveler's diarrhea. Also, make sure
you take a thermometer. I cannot tell you how many
(37:24):
people travel without a thermometer. That is really important. If
you have trouble with high blood pressure or cardiac issues,
take your blood pressure cuff with you. That would be important.
The other is the usual band aids, bandages, gauze pads,
(37:45):
some antibiotic ointment, things like that in case you get sprains, cuts,
at least something to tide you over until you could
get to a hospital, urgent care center, or see a
doctor in town with out of doubt. If you're traveling
into more exotic places, you want to make sure you
have appropriate repellent against mosquitoes. And other little things that
(38:11):
you may run into the wild. Here again, I would say,
make sure you check in with a travel medicine physician.
We did it when we went to Africa last year.
It was amazing. They have maps of the world different diseases,
be it anything from hepatitis A to various water born problems, ticks, fleas, bugs,
(38:38):
all kinds of things. So travel medicine is a good idea,
So stay up to date on that. You want to
be able to go on vacation and have it stress
free and not worry about somebody getting sick. All right,
That is it for this Sunday evening. I hope you
have a great rest of the evening, a powerful week.
(38:58):
Take a look what you're eating, Take a look at
how much you're sleeping. Take a look at the food
you're eating. Stay away from junk food and to drive throughs.
It's better if you could cook it at home. Put
your health first. That's what we're all about.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
All right.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Until next Sunday evening, I'm doctor Joe Galotti. God bless everybody.
Stay well, be an advocate for yourself. That's all I'll say.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
You've been listening to your health first. With doctor Joe Glotti.
For more information on this program or the content of
this program, go to your health first dot com
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!