March 23, 2026 • 41 mins
- Listen Saturday mornings at 8 as Dr. Msonthi Levine discusses medical issues and takes your calls on News Talk 560 KLVI. Dr Levine is board certified in Internal Medicine and Geriatrics. His office is located at 3080 Milam in Beaumont, Texas. He can be reached at 409-347-3621.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome South East Sexist Internet radio listeners. This
is Doctor Levine. You're a weekly host of the Doctor
Levine Medical Hour. Thank you for joining from the edition
of the show. We come to live from the studios
of kov I here in Beaumont, Texas, teaking your phone calls,
helping you answer questions about how to stay alive and healthier,
(00:21):
not necessarily just be alive, but try to be as
healthy as possible. Certainly it can be complicated out there,
confusing and disorienting with all the information that we receive
every day that tells us what to do to try
and stay alive and be healthy. A lot of it
sort of contradictory. So which way should I go? It's
(00:42):
hard to understand. That's the genesis of the show. So
we're here to try and help you figure that out.
Phone lines are open eight nine to six KLV at
one one hundred three three zero Kovia. He'd love to
hear from your two way radio. We have a call
this morning, Danny from Lumberton. Can can we help you?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
I have a unusual question for you today, doctor, and
just a curiosity question more than anything, how important you
feel a bedside manner is when you're seeing a patient,
like in the office or in a hospital setting, how
important is the doctor bedside manner to make a patient
feel better about themselves or better about the situation they're in.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I mean, I think that's yeah, that's critical in my opinion,
that's very, very important. It's something that healthcare professionals work
on all the time just because communication and helping patients
understand what it is is wrong with them and what's
going on with them is certainly a big part of
(01:44):
healthcare delivery these days, and it's something that we talk
about on our side in terms of how to make
it better and if we did not do the right
thing or say the right thing, how can we improve
on that. So it's critical, but well delivera is a
very stressful scene. A lot of times patients are ill.
(02:06):
There's a issue sometimes with not knowing what's wrong with
the patient they're not doing well, and it certainly can
impact the healthcare providers involved with the patient. It be
the doctors, the consultants, the nursing staff, etc. So sometimes
communication does break down and it is not an ideal situation.
A lot of times when talking with family members for
(02:28):
various reasons, So it does break down, I would say,
but certainly it is critical, it's important, it's prioritized on
our side. It just sometimes it doesn't happen for various reasons.
So even though the types of medicines that are being
delivered to test that are being ordered might be correct. Yeah,
(02:51):
you know, messaging is very very important and critical. So
it's something that we prioritize. But I agree it doesn't
always work out for every UH interaction and you know,
every single day.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, thank you for that.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I just wanted to be all to prioritize that or
you didn't, because then I was when I go to
the doctor or go to the hospital, be in the hospital.
It's make a big difference when they're friendly and explain
things to me more so than when they just kind
of or hear the ten to get all the boy
FLEs going on, like well what do you mean?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
What's going on?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Know what's going on?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So yeah, a lot of yeah, a lot of times,
even if sometimes the healthcare providers feel like they're providing
that information for you. But again, communication is so tricky
a lot of times that if you're not getting information
and you need a lot of times you have to
what they call advocate for yourself, and most healthcare institutions
(03:47):
do have what they call patient lia zones, or someone
that outside of the doctor and a nurse, is someone
you can call that represents the institution, the facility of
that you can call and talk to and express your
concerns and maybe if you're not getting information you need
or something's not happening the way you expect, you can
(04:09):
call them and talk with them, and then they can
be a mediator to try and reach a solution in
terms of how to fix that and how to resolve that,
because it doesn't always work out again for various reasons,
even though it is prioritized. So a lot of healthcare
institutions have these personnel that are there available. A lot
(04:32):
of times you call a number or you get online
and you send a message, and then they will sort
of do their own investigation. Maybe sometimes go talk to
the doctor, go talk to the nurse, and figure out
how to fix the solution, because a lot of times
it's not that the doctor's bad the nurse's bad. It's
just again it's a very stressful situation and sometimes doctors
(04:54):
nurses don't even know what they're or how they're coming
across to the patient and the family and sort of
need to have a tap on the shoulders. So all
of us need to work on that as healthcare providers,
and it is something that we try to prioritize every
single day. Absolutely, well, thank you, Doug. Appreciate you, all right, brother,
(05:14):
We appreciate that. And good questions. We don't get that
question often. It's a issue that has been prioritized. More so,
even when I graduated from medical school, you didn't hear
a whole lot about that. Just a little bit. But
certainly now that hospitals, even doctors' offices, and the involvement
(05:37):
of the insurance companies, they certainly are paying the bill,
and they certainly want a certain experience to happen when
they go to the hospital, they go to the er,
they go to their primary care physician's office, or any
sort of medical institution where there's an interaction between a
patient and a health care provider. They want a certain
(05:59):
interaction to happen. Are they're sort of expecting a certain
interaction to happen, and if it falls through or it
breaks down, you know, how do we fix that or
how do we repair that? And again, most of the time,
there are avenues that patients families can exercise that can
(06:19):
allow them to try and figure out what went wrong
or try and rectify or resolve the situation, because it
does come up more often than you think. And again,
these environments are very stressful, they're high risks. There's a
lot of emotion a lot of times, especially in the hospital,
not so much in the doctor's office, but sometimes there
(06:42):
can be stressful situations in the doctor's office. But a
lot of times, yes, the monor caares ers hospitals. There
are just questions that need to be answered. Patient's life
is at risk, and that just puts stress on everyone,
the doctor, the nurses, the hospital itself, the patients of families,
and a lot of times these or people that have
(07:06):
never worked together, they don't know each other, and just
a lot of unknowns, a lot of fear, and so
it's a powder kay to be honest with you, But again,
the healthcare world has really tried to work on this
relationship and it is important to all healthcare providers and
(07:27):
hospitals to prioritize that aspect of healthcare delivery, not just
getting the labs right or making the right diagnosis, which
is also a critical part of that interaction and certainly
a huge priority for healthcare providers. They've introduced again trying
to make sure that families and patients are getting the
information that they need. This is one reason why the
(07:50):
electronic medical record world has helped out. You get all
this information handed to you now, because there is the
awareness that, again, sometimes it's not communicated very well by
the healthcare provider, again for various reasons, not necessarily the
doctor's fault, the nurse's fault, or the patient's fault. Again,
just a very powder keg, tight, stressful, fast paced interaction.
(08:15):
A lot of times that will interact and make communicating
very very difficult. Sometimes there's a language barrier. If you're
not from this country or you don't speak English, that
can be a huge language barrier. So there are ways
that we deal with that interaction. But that is the
one big reason why you get all this information handed
(08:37):
to you, especially at the time of discharge. Again, this
was not happening when I became a physician. It wasn't
really even talked about, to be honest with you, the
electronic medical record world was just sort of getting started
when I became a physician. I remember the days where
we would just sort of tell the family, tell the
patient what we expected or what change this we need
(09:00):
to mate, and then kind of walk out the door.
Maybe if there was some new prescriptions, we would write
that on a prescription pad and handed to them and
that was it. But there's sort of a lot of
suggestions and recommendations that happened during healthcare interactions that is
a lot of times not document especially if you don't
have electronic medical records. But most doctors now and just
(09:24):
about all healthcare institutions have electronic medical records. There is
a platform that most of them have or that they're
exposed to, where a lot of that communication can be
documented fairly well and then handed to you so you
can take it home and read it and just review it.
Just because when you're sick and you're scared and you're
(09:45):
by yourself and you're getting all these new medicines, you
don't remember everything. I mean, it's just hard to do
that in those situations. So that's why a lot of
time it's written down and it's handed to you so that, yes,
you can go over it and look at it later
and maybe even again. The idea is to have a
conversation with the healthcare provider about what it is is
(10:09):
wrong with you and what the medicine's for as much
as possible, right sometimes time does not allow the situations. Again,
like I said, is not always perfect, but we certainly
try and achieve that, even like we try to achieve
giving the patient the right medicine on the first interaction
and making the right diagnosis on the first interaction. But
(10:31):
after being a physician for over twenty years, man, that's
tough a lot of times, just because these diseases are very,
very tricky and don't necessarily present themselves in a very nice,
easy packaged manner so that the darknesses can be made
on the first go at it. A lot of times
(10:52):
you need a second, or third, or even a fourth
interaction with your healthcare provider to get the right diagnosis.
There's only so many physical symptoms that a person has
in order to make that diagnosis. So all sort of
diseases have similar presentations, and it sometimes will take several
X rays, labs, and even several days of just monitoring
(11:16):
your patient to see how they respond to certain medications
or don't respond to certain medications, to try and narrow
down exactly what it is that is wrong with them?
And yes, super frustrating situation where yeah, okay, I've spent
five days in the hospital, I've spent all this money,
I've seen all these doctors. What's wrong with me? Well,
we don't know, man, Super super frustrating, but it does
(11:38):
happen periodically. Phone lines are opened eight nine to six
kov I won one hundred and three and three zero
O kov I be back in two minutes. All right,
(12:01):
welcome back to the doctor the medical Our phone lines
are open eight nine to six kV I one one
hundred and three to three zero kov I. So if
you're attack talking about Yes, when things don't go as
well with your interaction with the healthcare provider, what can
you do? Communication breaks down, maybe not getting the information
that you need. Again, most institutions do have a process
(12:24):
where you can call a number and talk with someone
and try and figure out the best way to resolve
that issue. Just doesn't work out as well a lot
of times. Just like with any human interaction, I think
both parties typically have a desire to try and resolve
the issue as well as make sure everything is growing well.
(12:46):
And communication is so critical in healthcare delivery to get
the information that you need, and we have gotten a
lot better with that with the use of electronic medical
records helps resolve a lot of those situations times and
you know that a lot of now when you get
just one prescription given to you, there's all this information
(13:07):
give from the doctor's visit, doctor's office, and then you
get to the farms you get more information. It can
be very overwhelming getting all this information to you. Again,
it's in order for you to engage and understand why
this stuff is happening, but very complicated, very confusing. But
the idea is there is to try and improve outcomes,
(13:29):
meaning that the docnosis is correct and patients sectory medication,
and then certainly try and figure out the best way
to communicate with your healthcare providers. So huge, huge priority
in healthcare delivery at this time, and certainly it's something
we talk about in ari end all the time when
we meet and gather and discuss the issues of the day,
(13:51):
that always comes up and how to get better, how
to make it easier for that to happen, just because
sometimes again things get in the way. When you're talking
about someone who's sick during the hospital you're trying to
figure things out, and again the communication does break down,
so something we work on and if there's something that
(14:13):
you've experienced, like I said, reach out to someone and
try to resolve the issue so that you can get
the answers that you need, which is all we're trying
to do, whether it be in the office or the hospital,
just trying to get you some answers and trying to
make you feel better. So we appreciate that phone call. Certainly.
We had our taping of our acid doct yesterday. There
(14:33):
were a couple of questions that I thought were pretty interesting,
and one of them that came up was just sort
of the issue with adverse reaction to a medication. This
patient was taking medications for I think hormone replacement therapies
and progesterone, which is sort of a female hormone that
(14:55):
sometimes ladies take when they become in a puzzle wondering
if a physical symptom that developed after taking that was
related to the medication. And if you listen to my show,
you I try to make it clear that with any
medication that you take for any disease process, even if
you've been taking it for several years, can at some
(15:18):
point cause an adverse reaction anything. Again, I just talked
about the information being handed to you. The medications normally
have all of them, any of them, whether it be benadrill, talanol,
motor and advil. Leave all this stuff you have over
the counter. The assumption that because it's not a prescription,
that's not as strong, it cannot do harm. We talk
(15:41):
about all these nutraceuticals or these dietary supplements that patients
are consuming now to improve their health just because it's
readily available to them. They don't need a prescription, they
don't need the involvement of a healthcare provider. There's this
assumption that it cannot do anything to me. It's not
that strong, I don't have to worry about it is untrue.
(16:05):
I mean, anything that you're swallowing or taking every single
day can at some point cause an adverse reaction. You
have to be on the lookout for, which is specifically
why they give you all that paperwork when you get
a prescription, so that you can educate yourself. And even
if you don't get it from the pharmacy, you can
probably go on line and look up more information in
(16:27):
terms of these products and what other patients other people
have experience when they take these medications, and the bottom
line is anything can happen. Really if you read this list,
I mean, it can impact every system of the human body.
So for healthcare providers, it's pretty easy to understand if
(16:48):
I take this medication and then a week later, a
minute later, something happens to me physically, that's sort of easy.
But a lot of times you start taking medicine, nothing
happens initially, and then maybe six months later, you start
having issues as it pertains to maybe take in the medication.
We hear a lot about certain categories of medications. This
(17:11):
one was about hormones, but certainly we hear a lot
about the injectable medications for diabetes. Now there's been a
lot of talk about that, the cholesterol medicines, the statins,
we hear a lot of talk about that, as well
as the GI medicines for acid reflux. And the reason
we hear a lot about these medications because a lot
of people are taking these medications every single day, and
(17:35):
even though it's properly researched and it went through all
the checks and balances before it hit the market, when
it hits the open market, it's always inevitable that some
persons somewhere will experience some low percentage adverse reaction issue
(17:55):
that that particular individual person experiences. Were still trying to
figure out this whole issue with how one particular body
interacts with a certain chemical composition chemical product. And again,
even though it's researched properly, you just can't get to
everyone's system. I think they try and get to the
(18:18):
meat of the situation before they let it out on
the open market. And even though when it maybe some
product is out in the open market, there is constant
surveillance of all these drugs that are out there, and
I'm sure that most of these drugs again have some
sort of number you can call if you have an
adverse reaction to report the fact that you had this reaction.
(18:42):
And I'm sure that the pharmaceutical company would like this information. Again,
because there's surveillance a lot of times, especially if it's
a new product. They're sort of waiting and watching and
seeing what's happening, just because they understand as well that
even though they studied it, just things can happen. So
if there's any sort of physical complaint, physical problem you have,
(19:05):
medications is always a possibility when you go into your
doctor's office and you said, you know, I'm tired or
have this rash, or I'm nauseated, or I have diarrhea
or stomach upset. You always have to look at the
medications to try and figure out if those medicines are
caused net especially if you're taking more than two or
(19:27):
three meds. But even one medication can really generate that,
and that's sort of an easy fix, right You just
kind of stop the medicine for several days and you
see what happens. I'm a lot of times very proud
of patients just because they intuitively understand that relationship, and
a lot of times before even talking with the health
(19:49):
care provider, they'll just sort of experiment by themselves. A
lot of times when patients come back to the office,
that's one of the things I ask them in my cadence.
And if you're a one of my patients, you kind
of know that I have a certain box of questions
that I just ask routinely, repetitively every patient that comes through,
(20:11):
just so I feel like I'm doing my due diligence
to get to the bottom of what I want to
get to there's a certain core group of questions I
asked just about every patient, and one of them is
have you been to an er or a monecare have
you been hospitalized? And it's certainly a task that healthcare
providers and like myself or in a position to chronicle
(20:31):
your primary care position is sort of the ch chronicle
or if that's a word, of your health care to
sort of put down on paper your trajectory of what
has happened or what is happening to you. So that's
always a big question, is hey, did you have a
medical crisis? Did you have any physical problems since we
(20:53):
last saw you? And invariably it always comes up, yeah,
that medicine you gave me, did this or did that?
Or it made me sick or I had to go
to the er, which again we tried to when we're
prescribing medicines kind of go over potential issues that might
pop up or common issues that might pop up. But again,
(21:14):
I could prescribe this medication, or any healthcare provider can
prescribe this medication A thousand times nothing happens, and so
we get good record with it, and we don't really
prioritize saying I think it's nothing really happens. But then
you might have one patient too, patients that they get sick,
they have to go to the er and maybe get
(21:35):
some fluids, get some lab and get checked out and
maybe even get sort of an antidote to the medication
that was prescribed to them for the particular reason. Again,
even though it's a medication you've prescribed for a long time.
And that's really how we decide which medication we're going
to prescribe. A lot of times the patients is which
medicine gives me the least amount of problems, the least
(21:58):
amount of headaches, but has effective Again, because we're sort
of out in the open market, your health care provider
that you see all the time, this is the open market, right,
it's not a controlled medical research study like a lot
of pharmaceutical companies have to do with these medicines before
they hit the open market, if you will. We are
(22:18):
in the open market, and again that's how we figure
out which medicines we're going to use. And that's why
if you go to one doctor, you typically get one medicine.
If you go to another one, you get a different medicine.
Just because it all boils down to what our experience
has taught us works and which medicines give us the
(22:39):
most headache but doesn't work. That's how we figure that
stuff out, and that's why there's sort of variability in
terms of what you will receive when you go to
one healthcare provider over another. Not that we're wrong, but
there's just a lot of times, a lot of options
to one particular problem. The pharmaceutical company has really given
(23:00):
us the power to prescribe, and these medicines, for the
most part, are very very good. They've been well studied,
especially medicines that have been out in the open market
for many years. Again because of the surveillance and the
constant research. They're sort of fine tuning the medications all
the time, trying to just make it as best as possible,
to make it neutral as possible, meaning you take the medicine,
(23:23):
just does what it's supposed to do, and then it
gets out of there. Just like the chemotherapy world with cancer,
they have really really made some strides in making the
medications more tolerable. A lot of times, back in the day,
when I was a young physician, or even before I
was a physician, chemotherapy was very very harsh, and there
(23:44):
was a price to pay a lot of times to
receive chemo therapy, which stroke which strikes fear in the
minds of most patients because they saw what happened to
other patients that received chemotherapy, things like losing your hair,
weight loss, and vomiting, confusion, rashes, I mean, all sorts
of things that could come infections, I forgot about that,
(24:07):
all sorts of things that come up when you're receiving
these strong products. They have worked diligently to reduce that. So, yes,
unfortunately you do get diagnosed with the cancer, but you
start taking medication. A lot of times it's a tablet
or maybe a weekly infusion that maybe takes thirty minutes,
maybe an hour, and you're out of there. And they
(24:29):
have these really beautiful infusion centers now where just like
you go to your doctor's office, you just go to
your appointment, you sit down in comfortable environment, you get
your drug, nothing happens, you walk out of there, you
go to work, you go back to your house. I mean,
everything is gravy. So they've worked very, very diligently to
(24:51):
provide these sort of medications chemotherapy. Same thing with medications
like for diabetes or hypertension, cholesterol very potent, very strong,
sort of a more convenient way to take it. It's effective.
That's what they work on constantly, and these medications have
again achieved a lot of that. So most healthcare providers
(25:14):
have the power of prescription, meaning the ability to help
patients with a certain prescription drug to resolve an issue.
But we always have to be on the lookout for
some problem and some adverse fractions, So always be aware
of that. Talk to your health care provider and see
if you can figure that out. Phone lines are open
eight nine to six kV at one hundred three three
(25:35):
zero kV. I'll be back in two minutes. All right,
(25:55):
welcome back to the Doctor p Metical. Our phone line
to open eight nine to six kV at one hundred
three read zero ko V. I sitting here chatting about
various topics. We had our acid Doc segment taping yesterday,
so I thought i'd bring up some of those. One
was just about all of the monitoring equipment that we
do have out there, now that I've mentioned that already
(26:17):
on this show, how it's allowing patients to sort of
quote know your numbers, on the fly very easy every
single day, so that you can sort of monitor your situation. Again,
it's getting easier and easier to sort of know how
your body is functioning so that you can preemptively avoid
maybe a major medical catastrophe or crises. I did mention
(26:41):
this sort of doing their Christmas time where maybe get
a little stocking stuff or But all of these devices
now that you can wear on your wrist are I
think one of the phone companies, I think Samsung has
a ring ring ring that you can wear on your
finger that again is sort of a monitoring device in
terms of monitoring your heart rate and how fast your
(27:05):
heart is beating, if it's beating irregularly or slow or fast.
These are really really neat devices that certainly, if you're
sixty five and above, it is certainly something that I
would recommend that you look into and purchase just because, unfortunately,
as the aging process gets accelerated as you get older,
(27:25):
cardiovascular irregularity and cardiovascular chaos is just one of those
things that normally frequents all of us at some point,
just because that's how our lifestyle tends to lead our
disease process into maybe causing some of these things to happen,
(27:45):
and so these devices like these watches and the phones
and the risk watches that can monitor that are very
very good items that you can purchase for yourself. And
a lot of patients have even come to my office saying,
the phone is saying this, the risk watch is saying that.
And I think one of the risk watches can even
(28:06):
do blood pressure readings or blood pressure recordings, which is
phenomenal just because this white coat hypertension issue that we've
been battling ever since I've been a doctor, Meaning you
go to your doctor's office and your blood pressures through
the roof and then you go home and it's normal.
These devices, which again I think the risk watch segment
(28:29):
or sector is working on that feverishly to try and
produce some of the I think there's one out now.
But certainly, as you know, with new technology, once it
hits the market, it just gets better and better. It
gets more proficient in terms of accuracy and giving the
right diagnosis and can maybe check your blood pressure every
few hours. I mean, that is great, great news for
(28:53):
a lot of Americans who may have high pertension. A
lot of times you don't even have to go into
the doctor's office something and you can purchase over the
counter with how to prescription these devices and bring this
information to your healthcare provider so that they can review it.
Information is everything so that we can make the best
(29:13):
decision for you, because it was kind of trickery before.
Blood pressure hid in the office, but better at home.
Do I pull the trigger and give the medicine? Do
I not? So the more information you have, then the
easier you can make that decision on whether or not
to pull the trigger and get medication a game. We're
trying to be as aggressive as possible a lot of
(29:34):
times with these factors that raise your chance of getting
a cardiovascal disease, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol,
and the high sugar, which again with the continuous glucose
monitor that is now there, that is the sugar sensor
that you can kind of put in your arm that
(29:55):
allows you to monitor your sugar all day long with
the ease of just looking at your So it is
theoretically possible that you could have your continuous glucose monitor
on your arm, and then you can have your blood
pressure wrist watch on your wrist monitoring the heart and
the pulse and how fast and how regular or irregular
(30:15):
it is. Maybe even have that ring as well. Again,
I think Samsung has that. I'm not completely familiar with it,
but I think it's sort of similar to the watches
in terms of how it monitors your cardiovascar system. Again,
it's just information that you can look at to try
and determine if everything is going well, and if it's not,
(30:38):
then again call someone, go in and get checked out,
get a more thorough examination, you know, maybe get an
EKG or what they call a whole ter monitor where you,
you know, wear this equipment on you for twenty fo
hours and it monitors the heart rate and all that,
just like the watch and the ring does, but a
(30:59):
more in depth evaluation that maybe get echo, maybe even
get a consultation with the local heart doctor and sort
of get on top of that sooner rather than later.
Because again, as we all get older, we know that
our chances and our risk of having CARDIOVASCASESE starts to escalate,
you know, because of the risk factors that I mentioned
(31:19):
and the sort of the foods that we get exposed to,
the beverages that we get exposed to. Again, it's not
like you're trying to be a bad person. It's just
that these are the medicines, I'm sorry, food items and
beverage items that are out there that you purchase and
you eat and you drink that you're feeding to your family.
A lot of the experts are just claiming that a
(31:40):
lot of these food items, a lot of these beverage
items can generate number one inflammation. Then it generates the
issues that we see, and it does sort of take
some effort to try and eat and drink differently than
what is sort of being suggested to you just by
(32:01):
the messaging that you're exposed to. So that again that
watch that is available, it might be a good item
to have, and certainly if you have dobbies getting these
continuous glucose monitors the insurance companies. Initially we're a little
bit hesitant on these devices, but that's getting easier and
(32:21):
easier to get you one so that you can decide
if that certain food item that you love to eat
spikes or sugar, or that beverage you love to eat spikes,
because that's normally a lot of times what happens. I
think most diabetic patients wake up, check sugar, see what
it is. But that's it they don't check throughout today
because that's normally when a lot of that spiking of
(32:44):
sugar happens. It's when you start eating and drinking things
that's normally when the spikes start happening. So having that
information will allow you to avoid the items that you
know with spiked or sugar. And we've talked about these
diet beverages that are out there, the diet this and
the diet that that you know they have no sugar
(33:07):
in them and zero calories. And the sugar free ice
cream is sugar free. This is sugar free. That how
a lot of times when patients think they're doing something good,
they consume these food items and then they check their
sugar and there is a spike in your blood sugar
profile when you're consuming these products that apparently have no
(33:30):
sugar in Then what is causing that? What is going wrong?
And a lot of experts don't quite understand it either.
But again, these are typically sort of synthesized, synthetic, man
made chemicals and products again that they're having to put
in the food to make it so that it doesn't spoil,
so that it's available for human consumption at the time
(33:55):
of purchase, even though it's been sitting there on the
shelf for several weeks waiting for you to purchase it again.
That's why our supermarkets are so huge now. It's just
all of this processed food, ultra processed food experts or
raising the awareness that these food items. Eating them every
single day is just unhealthy. It generates typically poor health,
(34:19):
and it's super hard to avoid, right, just because a
lot of times it's readily available, the packaging, it's ease
of use, ease of eating it. Right, you just normally
throw it in your air fryer in five ten minutes.
Almost like reminds me of the Jetsons. I don't know
if you guys remember that cartoon program years ago, jets
(34:40):
and the Jetsons. I used to watch that growing up,
and I remember the time where you would put like
a pill a capsule right in this device and you
would close the door, press the button, and then the
bell would go off and then you'd open the device
up and you had a full mel I mean, you
(35:02):
had a turkey, you had dress, you had all this
stuff just came in a capsule, right, and yeah, we're
kind of almost there, right, just boom, take the package out,
throw it in the heater presco and boom you have
this ready to eat full meal. Just again. You get
the idea right. Phone lines are opened eight nine six
(35:22):
kV I one one hundred three three zero kale v I.
All right, welcome back to doctor Vin metac Our phone
lines are opened eight nine six kV I one one
hundred and three three zero kal v I. At the
end of the show, I want to thank all the callers,
all the listeners. Remember, if there's a topic that you'd
(35:44):
like me to discuss, either call the radio station or
you can call my office and jot that down and
we can talk about that topic. We did spend some
time talking about your interaction with your healthcare provider and
when it doesn't go as well as planned. Again, just
like going to any service industry, the expectations are there
(36:07):
and sometimes expectations are not met for various reasons. That
is important to the healthcare world at this point. Not necessarily.
Partis when I was a young physician, wasn't talked about
a lot, but certainly now it's huge, huge, huge, big
in terms of patient satisfaction and whether or not the
patient is getting the information that they need. And getting
(36:30):
the care that they need, and there are now more
avenues for you to discuss that with personnel other than
your healthcare provider, but certainly can always start with them first,
just having an open conversation with their healthcare provider about
maybe questions that you have or answers that are not
getting answered, So always start with them first. But certainly
(36:51):
if that doesn't work or the communication is just broken
down for various reasons, there typically is a process that
a patient or our family can utilize in order to
try and rectify the situation. Normally, a person that represents
the hospital or the healthcare facility that you can call
(37:12):
discuss the situation and try to figure out what happened
and how to rectify that. So that does happen every
single day. Unfortunately, all these interactions that are happening and
all the questions and answering that has to happen a
lot of times to get the message across that in
these stressful, tense, high paced situations, a lot of times
(37:35):
it just doesn't go the way it's supposed to. But
just so that you know, it is important to us
and we want to get that right, but it just
doesn't always work. Out the way we want it to.
But there are processes now in place that you can
utilize to try and fix that situation. Let the provider
knows a lot of times healthcare providers don't even know
(37:56):
what a patient are, a family member is thinking. It
would sometimes be helpful to have that information so that, yes,
you can maybe communicate this way or that way or
provide the information that they're looking for. So just so
you know, yes, that is important and it is your
right to try and get those answers, because that's really
(38:16):
all we're trying to do anytime you interact with the
health care provider is what is wrong with you, why
did it happen, and what can we do to try
and get you that information so that when you leave
you understand why you feel the way you do. Or
if we didn't figure it out, where can you go
next to a different provider to try and figure out
what's wrong with you and get that information. It can
(38:40):
be very cumbersome interacting with the healthcare world, and a
lot of times if you cannot advocate for yourself, having
someone else to advocate for you. I do see that
a lot, especially with elderly patients that may not be
in a position to ask questions, remember things. They normally
have a loved one there, daughter, a son, or even
a husband or life that has all their faculties with them.
(39:03):
They're not sick, because when you're sick, you remember that
you don't really want to hear anything, just want to
lay in bed and kind of curl up. And here's
this sort of doctor of healthcare provider sort of throwing
all this information at you. You got to remember everything
and write everything down. You got to start this and
stop that, and follow up here and follow up there.
And this is the result. And I mean, you're just
(39:23):
not going to remember all that stuff. So again, the
healthcare world and the medical the electronic world has provided
us with a way to try and help that as well.
With all this packet of information you get every time
you go anywhere, you get this packet with all this information,
and again there's websites you can go to to sort
(39:44):
of delineate what all this means. Sometimes it's on the
package that you get, but not always, but there are
websites you can go to to kind of help you
dissolve or digest the information that you're being given to
you so that you can understand everything, so again make
that a priority with that, and again we did discuss
(40:08):
medications and how they can cause adverse reaction to you.
No matter if you've been taking it for a long
time a short period of time. Anything can happen with
anything that you're putting your mouth. So a lot of
times you can sort of self discover and figure that
out yourself and stop the medication, get back with your
healthcare provider. But not always you can take the medicine,
(40:28):
you can kind of push through it, but still something's off,
Like I said, dizzyness, fatigue, maybe a little upset stomach.
Maybe you take ten medications, which one is causing it.
That can be a tough scenario. But certainly get with
your health care provider. They do it for a living
and they see all these scenarios come up more frequently
and can a lot of times more easily try and
(40:50):
figure out if it is a medicine, and if it
is one, which one it is, and stop it. Again,
we get used to prescribing this medicines and we kind
of know typically what can happen and when patients are
on when medicine or a combination of medicines, So we're
pretty good at it. We don't always get it right
the first time. It might take several visits, so be
(41:10):
open to getting reassessed and certainly yeah go get you
a little watch or a ring so you can monitor
your blood pressure and your heart ray.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Well.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Appreciate you listening to this show. We'll see you next week.
All right, welcome South East Sexist Internet radio listeners. This
is Doctor Levine. You're a weekly host of the Doctor
Levine Medical Hour. Thank you for joining from the edition
of the show. We come to live from the studios
of kov I here in Beaumont, Texas, teaking your phone calls,
helping you answer questions about how to stay alive and healthier,
(00:21):
not necessarily just be alive, but try to be as
healthy as possible. Certainly it can be complicated out there,
confusing and disorienting with all the information that we receive
every day that tells us what to do to try
and stay alive and be healthy. A lot of it
sort of contradictory. So which way should I go? It's
(00:42):
hard to understand. That's the genesis of the show. So
we're here to try and help you figure that out.
Phone lines are open eight nine to six KLV at
one one hundred three three zero Kovia. He'd love to
hear from your two way radio. We have a call
this morning, Danny from Lumberton. Can can we help you?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
I have a unusual question for you today, doctor, and
just a curiosity question more than anything, how important you
feel a bedside manner is when you're seeing a patient,
like in the office or in a hospital setting, how
important is the doctor bedside manner to make a patient
feel better about themselves or better about the situation they're in.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I mean, I think that's yeah, that's critical in my opinion,
that's very, very important. It's something that healthcare professionals work
on all the time just because communication and helping patients
understand what it is is wrong with them and what's
going on with them is certainly a big part of
(01:44):
healthcare delivery these days, and it's something that we talk
about on our side in terms of how to make
it better and if we did not do the right
thing or say the right thing, how can we improve
on that. So it's critical, but well delivera is a
very stressful scene. A lot of times patients are ill.
(02:06):
There's a issue sometimes with not knowing what's wrong with
the patient they're not doing well, and it certainly can
impact the healthcare providers involved with the patient. It be
the doctors, the consultants, the nursing staff, etc. So sometimes
communication does break down and it is not an ideal situation.
A lot of times when talking with family members for
(02:28):
various reasons, So it does break down, I would say,
but certainly it is critical, it's important, it's prioritized on
our side. It just sometimes it doesn't happen for various reasons.
So even though the types of medicines that are being
delivered to test that are being ordered might be correct. Yeah,
(02:51):
you know, messaging is very very important and critical. So
it's something that we prioritize. But I agree it doesn't
always work out for every UH interaction and you know,
every single day.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, thank you for that.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I just wanted to be all to prioritize that or
you didn't, because then I was when I go to
the doctor or go to the hospital, be in the hospital.
It's make a big difference when they're friendly and explain
things to me more so than when they just kind
of or hear the ten to get all the boy
FLEs going on, like well what do you mean?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
What's going on?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Know what's going on?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So yeah, a lot of yeah, a lot of times,
even if sometimes the healthcare providers feel like they're providing
that information for you. But again, communication is so tricky
a lot of times that if you're not getting information
and you need a lot of times you have to
what they call advocate for yourself, and most healthcare institutions
(03:47):
do have what they call patient lia zones, or someone
that outside of the doctor and a nurse, is someone
you can call that represents the institution, the facility of
that you can call and talk to and express your
concerns and maybe if you're not getting information you need
or something's not happening the way you expect, you can
(04:09):
call them and talk with them, and then they can
be a mediator to try and reach a solution in
terms of how to fix that and how to resolve that,
because it doesn't always work out again for various reasons,
even though it is prioritized. So a lot of healthcare
institutions have these personnel that are there available. A lot
(04:32):
of times you call a number or you get online
and you send a message, and then they will sort
of do their own investigation. Maybe sometimes go talk to
the doctor, go talk to the nurse, and figure out
how to fix the solution, because a lot of times
it's not that the doctor's bad the nurse's bad. It's
just again it's a very stressful situation and sometimes doctors
(04:54):
nurses don't even know what they're or how they're coming
across to the patient and the family and sort of
need to have a tap on the shoulders. So all
of us need to work on that as healthcare providers,
and it is something that we try to prioritize every
single day. Absolutely, well, thank you, Doug. Appreciate you, all right, brother,
(05:14):
We appreciate that. And good questions. We don't get that
question often. It's a issue that has been prioritized. More so,
even when I graduated from medical school, you didn't hear
a whole lot about that. Just a little bit. But
certainly now that hospitals, even doctors' offices, and the involvement
(05:37):
of the insurance companies, they certainly are paying the bill,
and they certainly want a certain experience to happen when
they go to the hospital, they go to the er,
they go to their primary care physician's office, or any
sort of medical institution where there's an interaction between a
patient and a health care provider. They want a certain
(05:59):
interaction to happen. Are they're sort of expecting a certain
interaction to happen, and if it falls through or it
breaks down, you know, how do we fix that or
how do we repair that? And again, most of the time,
there are avenues that patients families can exercise that can
(06:19):
allow them to try and figure out what went wrong
or try and rectify or resolve the situation, because it
does come up more often than you think. And again,
these environments are very stressful, they're high risks. There's a
lot of emotion a lot of times, especially in the hospital,
not so much in the doctor's office, but sometimes there
(06:42):
can be stressful situations in the doctor's office. But a
lot of times, yes, the monor caares ers hospitals. There
are just questions that need to be answered. Patient's life
is at risk, and that just puts stress on everyone,
the doctor, the nurses, the hospital itself, the patients of families,
and a lot of times these or people that have
(07:06):
never worked together, they don't know each other, and just
a lot of unknowns, a lot of fear, and so
it's a powder kay to be honest with you, But again,
the healthcare world has really tried to work on this
relationship and it is important to all healthcare providers and
(07:27):
hospitals to prioritize that aspect of healthcare delivery, not just
getting the labs right or making the right diagnosis, which
is also a critical part of that interaction and certainly
a huge priority for healthcare providers. They've introduced again trying
to make sure that families and patients are getting the
information that they need. This is one reason why the
(07:50):
electronic medical record world has helped out. You get all
this information handed to you now, because there is the
awareness that, again, sometimes it's not communicated very well by
the healthcare provider, again for various reasons, not necessarily the
doctor's fault, the nurse's fault, or the patient's fault. Again,
just a very powder keg, tight, stressful, fast paced interaction.
(08:15):
A lot of times that will interact and make communicating
very very difficult. Sometimes there's a language barrier. If you're
not from this country or you don't speak English, that
can be a huge language barrier. So there are ways
that we deal with that interaction. But that is the
one big reason why you get all this information handed
(08:37):
to you, especially at the time of discharge. Again, this
was not happening when I became a physician. It wasn't
really even talked about, to be honest with you, the
electronic medical record world was just sort of getting started
when I became a physician. I remember the days where
we would just sort of tell the family, tell the
patient what we expected or what change this we need
(09:00):
to mate, and then kind of walk out the door.
Maybe if there was some new prescriptions, we would write
that on a prescription pad and handed to them and
that was it. But there's sort of a lot of
suggestions and recommendations that happened during healthcare interactions that is
a lot of times not document especially if you don't
have electronic medical records. But most doctors now and just
(09:24):
about all healthcare institutions have electronic medical records. There is
a platform that most of them have or that they're
exposed to, where a lot of that communication can be
documented fairly well and then handed to you so you
can take it home and read it and just review it.
Just because when you're sick and you're scared and you're
(09:45):
by yourself and you're getting all these new medicines, you
don't remember everything. I mean, it's just hard to do
that in those situations. So that's why a lot of
time it's written down and it's handed to you so that, yes,
you can go over it and look at it later
and maybe even again. The idea is to have a
conversation with the healthcare provider about what it is is
(10:09):
wrong with you and what the medicine's for as much
as possible, right sometimes time does not allow the situations. Again,
like I said, is not always perfect, but we certainly
try and achieve that, even like we try to achieve
giving the patient the right medicine on the first interaction
and making the right diagnosis on the first interaction. But
(10:31):
after being a physician for over twenty years, man, that's
tough a lot of times, just because these diseases are very,
very tricky and don't necessarily present themselves in a very nice,
easy packaged manner so that the darknesses can be made
on the first go at it. A lot of times
(10:52):
you need a second, or third, or even a fourth
interaction with your healthcare provider to get the right diagnosis.
There's only so many physical symptoms that a person has
in order to make that diagnosis. So all sort of
diseases have similar presentations, and it sometimes will take several
X rays, labs, and even several days of just monitoring
(11:16):
your patient to see how they respond to certain medications
or don't respond to certain medications, to try and narrow
down exactly what it is that is wrong with them?
And yes, super frustrating situation where yeah, okay, I've spent
five days in the hospital, I've spent all this money,
I've seen all these doctors. What's wrong with me? Well,
we don't know, man, Super super frustrating, but it does
(11:38):
happen periodically. Phone lines are opened eight nine to six
kov I won one hundred and three and three zero
O kov I be back in two minutes. All right,
(12:01):
welcome back to the doctor the medical Our phone lines
are open eight nine to six kV I one one
hundred and three to three zero kov I. So if
you're attack talking about Yes, when things don't go as
well with your interaction with the healthcare provider, what can
you do? Communication breaks down, maybe not getting the information
that you need. Again, most institutions do have a process
(12:24):
where you can call a number and talk with someone
and try and figure out the best way to resolve
that issue. Just doesn't work out as well a lot
of times. Just like with any human interaction, I think
both parties typically have a desire to try and resolve
the issue as well as make sure everything is growing well.
(12:46):
And communication is so critical in healthcare delivery to get
the information that you need, and we have gotten a
lot better with that with the use of electronic medical
records helps resolve a lot of those situations times and
you know that a lot of now when you get
just one prescription given to you, there's all this information
(13:07):
give from the doctor's visit, doctor's office, and then you
get to the farms you get more information. It can
be very overwhelming getting all this information to you. Again,
it's in order for you to engage and understand why
this stuff is happening, but very complicated, very confusing. But
the idea is there is to try and improve outcomes,
(13:29):
meaning that the docnosis is correct and patients sectory medication,
and then certainly try and figure out the best way
to communicate with your healthcare providers. So huge, huge priority
in healthcare delivery at this time, and certainly it's something
we talk about in ari end all the time when
we meet and gather and discuss the issues of the day,
(13:51):
that always comes up and how to get better, how
to make it easier for that to happen, just because
sometimes again things get in the way. When you're talking
about someone who's sick during the hospital you're trying to
figure things out, and again the communication does break down,
so something we work on and if there's something that
(14:13):
you've experienced, like I said, reach out to someone and
try to resolve the issue so that you can get
the answers that you need, which is all we're trying
to do, whether it be in the office or the hospital,
just trying to get you some answers and trying to
make you feel better. So we appreciate that phone call. Certainly.
We had our taping of our acid doct yesterday. There
(14:33):
were a couple of questions that I thought were pretty interesting,
and one of them that came up was just sort
of the issue with adverse reaction to a medication. This
patient was taking medications for I think hormone replacement therapies
and progesterone, which is sort of a female hormone that
(14:55):
sometimes ladies take when they become in a puzzle wondering
if a physical symptom that developed after taking that was
related to the medication. And if you listen to my show,
you I try to make it clear that with any
medication that you take for any disease process, even if
you've been taking it for several years, can at some
(15:18):
point cause an adverse reaction anything. Again, I just talked
about the information being handed to you. The medications normally
have all of them, any of them, whether it be benadrill, talanol,
motor and advil. Leave all this stuff you have over
the counter. The assumption that because it's not a prescription,
that's not as strong, it cannot do harm. We talk
(15:41):
about all these nutraceuticals or these dietary supplements that patients
are consuming now to improve their health just because it's
readily available to them. They don't need a prescription, they
don't need the involvement of a healthcare provider. There's this
assumption that it cannot do anything to me. It's not
that strong, I don't have to worry about it is untrue.
(16:05):
I mean, anything that you're swallowing or taking every single
day can at some point cause an adverse reaction. You
have to be on the lookout for, which is specifically
why they give you all that paperwork when you get
a prescription, so that you can educate yourself. And even
if you don't get it from the pharmacy, you can
probably go on line and look up more information in
(16:27):
terms of these products and what other patients other people
have experience when they take these medications, and the bottom
line is anything can happen. Really if you read this list,
I mean, it can impact every system of the human body.
So for healthcare providers, it's pretty easy to understand if
(16:48):
I take this medication and then a week later, a
minute later, something happens to me physically, that's sort of easy.
But a lot of times you start taking medicine, nothing
happens initially, and then maybe six months later, you start
having issues as it pertains to maybe take in the medication.
We hear a lot about certain categories of medications. This
(17:11):
one was about hormones, but certainly we hear a lot
about the injectable medications for diabetes. Now there's been a
lot of talk about that, the cholesterol medicines, the statins,
we hear a lot of talk about that, as well
as the GI medicines for acid reflux. And the reason
we hear a lot about these medications because a lot
of people are taking these medications every single day, and
(17:35):
even though it's properly researched and it went through all
the checks and balances before it hit the market, when
it hits the open market, it's always inevitable that some
persons somewhere will experience some low percentage adverse reaction issue
(17:55):
that that particular individual person experiences. Were still trying to
figure out this whole issue with how one particular body
interacts with a certain chemical composition chemical product. And again,
even though it's researched properly, you just can't get to
everyone's system. I think they try and get to the
(18:18):
meat of the situation before they let it out on
the open market. And even though when it maybe some
product is out in the open market, there is constant
surveillance of all these drugs that are out there, and
I'm sure that most of these drugs again have some
sort of number you can call if you have an
adverse reaction to report the fact that you had this reaction.
(18:42):
And I'm sure that the pharmaceutical company would like this information. Again,
because there's surveillance a lot of times, especially if it's
a new product. They're sort of waiting and watching and
seeing what's happening, just because they understand as well that
even though they studied it, just things can happen. So
if there's any sort of physical complaint, physical problem you have,
(19:05):
medications is always a possibility when you go into your
doctor's office and you said, you know, I'm tired or
have this rash, or I'm nauseated, or I have diarrhea
or stomach upset. You always have to look at the
medications to try and figure out if those medicines are
caused net especially if you're taking more than two or
(19:27):
three meds. But even one medication can really generate that,
and that's sort of an easy fix, right You just
kind of stop the medicine for several days and you
see what happens. I'm a lot of times very proud
of patients just because they intuitively understand that relationship, and
a lot of times before even talking with the health
(19:49):
care provider, they'll just sort of experiment by themselves. A
lot of times when patients come back to the office,
that's one of the things I ask them in my cadence.
And if you're a one of my patients, you kind
of know that I have a certain box of questions
that I just ask routinely, repetitively every patient that comes through,
(20:11):
just so I feel like I'm doing my due diligence
to get to the bottom of what I want to
get to there's a certain core group of questions I
asked just about every patient, and one of them is
have you been to an er or a monecare have
you been hospitalized? And it's certainly a task that healthcare
providers and like myself or in a position to chronicle
(20:31):
your primary care position is sort of the ch chronicle
or if that's a word, of your health care to
sort of put down on paper your trajectory of what
has happened or what is happening to you. So that's
always a big question, is hey, did you have a
medical crisis? Did you have any physical problems since we
(20:53):
last saw you? And invariably it always comes up, yeah,
that medicine you gave me, did this or did that?
Or it made me sick or I had to go
to the er, which again we tried to when we're
prescribing medicines kind of go over potential issues that might
pop up or common issues that might pop up. But again,
(21:14):
I could prescribe this medication, or any healthcare provider can
prescribe this medication A thousand times nothing happens, and so
we get good record with it, and we don't really
prioritize saying I think it's nothing really happens. But then
you might have one patient too, patients that they get sick,
they have to go to the er and maybe get
(21:35):
some fluids, get some lab and get checked out and
maybe even get sort of an antidote to the medication
that was prescribed to them for the particular reason. Again,
even though it's a medication you've prescribed for a long time.
And that's really how we decide which medication we're going
to prescribe. A lot of times the patients is which
medicine gives me the least amount of problems, the least
(21:58):
amount of headaches, but has effective Again, because we're sort
of out in the open market, your health care provider
that you see all the time, this is the open market, right,
it's not a controlled medical research study like a lot
of pharmaceutical companies have to do with these medicines before
they hit the open market, if you will. We are
(22:18):
in the open market, and again that's how we figure
out which medicines we're going to use. And that's why
if you go to one doctor, you typically get one medicine.
If you go to another one, you get a different medicine.
Just because it all boils down to what our experience
has taught us works and which medicines give us the
(22:39):
most headache but doesn't work. That's how we figure that
stuff out, and that's why there's sort of variability in
terms of what you will receive when you go to
one healthcare provider over another. Not that we're wrong, but
there's just a lot of times, a lot of options
to one particular problem. The pharmaceutical company has really given
(23:00):
us the power to prescribe, and these medicines, for the
most part, are very very good. They've been well studied,
especially medicines that have been out in the open market
for many years. Again because of the surveillance and the
constant research. They're sort of fine tuning the medications all
the time, trying to just make it as best as possible,
to make it neutral as possible, meaning you take the medicine,
(23:23):
just does what it's supposed to do, and then it
gets out of there. Just like the chemotherapy world with cancer,
they have really really made some strides in making the
medications more tolerable. A lot of times, back in the day,
when I was a young physician, or even before I
was a physician, chemotherapy was very very harsh, and there
(23:44):
was a price to pay a lot of times to
receive chemo therapy, which stroke which strikes fear in the
minds of most patients because they saw what happened to
other patients that received chemotherapy, things like losing your hair,
weight loss, and vomiting, confusion, rashes, I mean, all sorts
of things that could come infections, I forgot about that,
(24:07):
all sorts of things that come up when you're receiving
these strong products. They have worked diligently to reduce that. So, yes,
unfortunately you do get diagnosed with the cancer, but you
start taking medication. A lot of times it's a tablet
or maybe a weekly infusion that maybe takes thirty minutes,
maybe an hour, and you're out of there. And they
(24:29):
have these really beautiful infusion centers now where just like
you go to your doctor's office, you just go to
your appointment, you sit down in comfortable environment, you get
your drug, nothing happens, you walk out of there, you
go to work, you go back to your house. I mean,
everything is gravy. So they've worked very, very diligently to
(24:51):
provide these sort of medications chemotherapy. Same thing with medications
like for diabetes or hypertension, cholesterol very potent, very strong,
sort of a more convenient way to take it. It's effective.
That's what they work on constantly, and these medications have
again achieved a lot of that. So most healthcare providers
(25:14):
have the power of prescription, meaning the ability to help
patients with a certain prescription drug to resolve an issue.
But we always have to be on the lookout for
some problem and some adverse fractions, So always be aware
of that. Talk to your health care provider and see
if you can figure that out. Phone lines are open
eight nine to six kV at one hundred three three
(25:35):
zero kV. I'll be back in two minutes. All right,
(25:55):
welcome back to the Doctor p Metical. Our phone line
to open eight nine to six kV at one hundred
three read zero ko V. I sitting here chatting about
various topics. We had our acid Doc segment taping yesterday,
so I thought i'd bring up some of those. One
was just about all of the monitoring equipment that we
do have out there, now that I've mentioned that already
(26:17):
on this show, how it's allowing patients to sort of
quote know your numbers, on the fly very easy every
single day, so that you can sort of monitor your situation. Again,
it's getting easier and easier to sort of know how
your body is functioning so that you can preemptively avoid
maybe a major medical catastrophe or crises. I did mention
(26:41):
this sort of doing their Christmas time where maybe get
a little stocking stuff or But all of these devices
now that you can wear on your wrist are I
think one of the phone companies, I think Samsung has
a ring ring ring that you can wear on your
finger that again is sort of a monitoring device in
terms of monitoring your heart rate and how fast your
(27:05):
heart is beating, if it's beating irregularly or slow or fast.
These are really really neat devices that certainly, if you're
sixty five and above, it is certainly something that I
would recommend that you look into and purchase just because, unfortunately,
as the aging process gets accelerated as you get older,
(27:25):
cardiovascular irregularity and cardiovascular chaos is just one of those
things that normally frequents all of us at some point,
just because that's how our lifestyle tends to lead our
disease process into maybe causing some of these things to happen,
(27:45):
and so these devices like these watches and the phones
and the risk watches that can monitor that are very
very good items that you can purchase for yourself. And
a lot of patients have even come to my office saying,
the phone is saying this, the risk watch is saying that.
And I think one of the risk watches can even
(28:06):
do blood pressure readings or blood pressure recordings, which is
phenomenal just because this white coat hypertension issue that we've
been battling ever since I've been a doctor, Meaning you
go to your doctor's office and your blood pressures through
the roof and then you go home and it's normal.
These devices, which again I think the risk watch segment
(28:29):
or sector is working on that feverishly to try and
produce some of the I think there's one out now.
But certainly, as you know, with new technology, once it
hits the market, it just gets better and better. It
gets more proficient in terms of accuracy and giving the
right diagnosis and can maybe check your blood pressure every
few hours. I mean, that is great, great news for
(28:53):
a lot of Americans who may have high pertension. A
lot of times you don't even have to go into
the doctor's office something and you can purchase over the
counter with how to prescription these devices and bring this
information to your healthcare provider so that they can review it.
Information is everything so that we can make the best
(29:13):
decision for you, because it was kind of trickery before.
Blood pressure hid in the office, but better at home.
Do I pull the trigger and give the medicine? Do
I not? So the more information you have, then the
easier you can make that decision on whether or not
to pull the trigger and get medication a game. We're
trying to be as aggressive as possible a lot of
(29:34):
times with these factors that raise your chance of getting
a cardiovascal disease, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol,
and the high sugar, which again with the continuous glucose
monitor that is now there, that is the sugar sensor
that you can kind of put in your arm that
(29:55):
allows you to monitor your sugar all day long with
the ease of just looking at your So it is
theoretically possible that you could have your continuous glucose monitor
on your arm, and then you can have your blood
pressure wrist watch on your wrist monitoring the heart and
the pulse and how fast and how regular or irregular
(30:15):
it is. Maybe even have that ring as well. Again,
I think Samsung has that. I'm not completely familiar with it,
but I think it's sort of similar to the watches
in terms of how it monitors your cardiovascar system. Again,
it's just information that you can look at to try
and determine if everything is going well, and if it's not,
(30:38):
then again call someone, go in and get checked out,
get a more thorough examination, you know, maybe get an
EKG or what they call a whole ter monitor where you,
you know, wear this equipment on you for twenty fo
hours and it monitors the heart rate and all that,
just like the watch and the ring does, but a
(30:59):
more in depth evaluation that maybe get echo, maybe even
get a consultation with the local heart doctor and sort
of get on top of that sooner rather than later.
Because again, as we all get older, we know that
our chances and our risk of having CARDIOVASCASESE starts to escalate,
you know, because of the risk factors that I mentioned
(31:19):
and the sort of the foods that we get exposed to,
the beverages that we get exposed to. Again, it's not
like you're trying to be a bad person. It's just
that these are the medicines, I'm sorry, food items and
beverage items that are out there that you purchase and
you eat and you drink that you're feeding to your family.
A lot of the experts are just claiming that a
(31:40):
lot of these food items, a lot of these beverage
items can generate number one inflammation. Then it generates the
issues that we see, and it does sort of take
some effort to try and eat and drink differently than
what is sort of being suggested to you just by
(32:01):
the messaging that you're exposed to. So that again that
watch that is available, it might be a good item
to have, and certainly if you have dobbies getting these
continuous glucose monitors the insurance companies. Initially we're a little
bit hesitant on these devices, but that's getting easier and
(32:21):
easier to get you one so that you can decide
if that certain food item that you love to eat
spikes or sugar, or that beverage you love to eat spikes,
because that's normally a lot of times what happens. I
think most diabetic patients wake up, check sugar, see what
it is. But that's it they don't check throughout today
because that's normally when a lot of that spiking of
(32:44):
sugar happens. It's when you start eating and drinking things
that's normally when the spikes start happening. So having that
information will allow you to avoid the items that you
know with spiked or sugar. And we've talked about these
diet beverages that are out there, the diet this and
the diet that that you know they have no sugar
(33:07):
in them and zero calories. And the sugar free ice
cream is sugar free. This is sugar free. That how
a lot of times when patients think they're doing something good,
they consume these food items and then they check their
sugar and there is a spike in your blood sugar
profile when you're consuming these products that apparently have no
(33:30):
sugar in Then what is causing that? What is going wrong?
And a lot of experts don't quite understand it either.
But again, these are typically sort of synthesized, synthetic, man
made chemicals and products again that they're having to put
in the food to make it so that it doesn't spoil,
so that it's available for human consumption at the time
(33:55):
of purchase, even though it's been sitting there on the
shelf for several weeks waiting for you to purchase it again.
That's why our supermarkets are so huge now. It's just
all of this processed food, ultra processed food experts or
raising the awareness that these food items. Eating them every
single day is just unhealthy. It generates typically poor health,
(34:19):
and it's super hard to avoid, right, just because a
lot of times it's readily available, the packaging, it's ease
of use, ease of eating it. Right, you just normally
throw it in your air fryer in five ten minutes.
Almost like reminds me of the Jetsons. I don't know
if you guys remember that cartoon program years ago, jets
(34:40):
and the Jetsons. I used to watch that growing up,
and I remember the time where you would put like
a pill a capsule right in this device and you
would close the door, press the button, and then the
bell would go off and then you'd open the device
up and you had a full mel I mean, you
(35:02):
had a turkey, you had dress, you had all this
stuff just came in a capsule, right, and yeah, we're
kind of almost there, right, just boom, take the package out,
throw it in the heater presco and boom you have
this ready to eat full meal. Just again. You get
the idea right. Phone lines are opened eight nine six
(35:22):
kV I one one hundred three three zero kale v I.
All right, welcome back to doctor Vin metac Our phone
lines are opened eight nine six kV I one one
hundred and three three zero kal v I. At the
end of the show, I want to thank all the callers,
all the listeners. Remember, if there's a topic that you'd
(35:44):
like me to discuss, either call the radio station or
you can call my office and jot that down and
we can talk about that topic. We did spend some
time talking about your interaction with your healthcare provider and
when it doesn't go as well as planned. Again, just
like going to any service industry, the expectations are there
(36:07):
and sometimes expectations are not met for various reasons. That
is important to the healthcare world at this point. Not necessarily.
Partis when I was a young physician, wasn't talked about
a lot, but certainly now it's huge, huge, huge, big
in terms of patient satisfaction and whether or not the
patient is getting the information that they need. And getting
(36:30):
the care that they need, and there are now more
avenues for you to discuss that with personnel other than
your healthcare provider, but certainly can always start with them first,
just having an open conversation with their healthcare provider about
maybe questions that you have or answers that are not
getting answered, So always start with them first. But certainly
(36:51):
if that doesn't work or the communication is just broken
down for various reasons, there typically is a process that
a patient or our family can utilize in order to
try and rectify the situation. Normally, a person that represents
the hospital or the healthcare facility that you can call
(37:12):
discuss the situation and try to figure out what happened
and how to rectify that. So that does happen every
single day. Unfortunately, all these interactions that are happening and
all the questions and answering that has to happen a
lot of times to get the message across that in
these stressful, tense, high paced situations, a lot of times
(37:35):
it just doesn't go the way it's supposed to. But
just so that you know, it is important to us
and we want to get that right, but it just
doesn't always work. Out the way we want it to.
But there are processes now in place that you can
utilize to try and fix that situation. Let the provider
knows a lot of times healthcare providers don't even know
(37:56):
what a patient are, a family member is thinking. It
would sometimes be helpful to have that information so that, yes,
you can maybe communicate this way or that way or
provide the information that they're looking for. So just so
you know, yes, that is important and it is your
right to try and get those answers, because that's really
(38:16):
all we're trying to do anytime you interact with the
health care provider is what is wrong with you, why
did it happen, and what can we do to try
and get you that information so that when you leave
you understand why you feel the way you do. Or
if we didn't figure it out, where can you go
next to a different provider to try and figure out
what's wrong with you and get that information. It can
(38:40):
be very cumbersome interacting with the healthcare world, and a
lot of times if you cannot advocate for yourself, having
someone else to advocate for you. I do see that
a lot, especially with elderly patients that may not be
in a position to ask questions, remember things. They normally
have a loved one there, daughter, a son, or even
a husband or life that has all their faculties with them.
(39:03):
They're not sick, because when you're sick, you remember that
you don't really want to hear anything, just want to
lay in bed and kind of curl up. And here's
this sort of doctor of healthcare provider sort of throwing
all this information at you. You got to remember everything
and write everything down. You got to start this and
stop that, and follow up here and follow up there.
And this is the result. And I mean, you're just
(39:23):
not going to remember all that stuff. So again, the
healthcare world and the medical the electronic world has provided
us with a way to try and help that as well.
With all this packet of information you get every time
you go anywhere, you get this packet with all this information,
and again there's websites you can go to to sort
(39:44):
of delineate what all this means. Sometimes it's on the
package that you get, but not always, but there are
websites you can go to to kind of help you
dissolve or digest the information that you're being given to
you so that you can understand everything, so again make
that a priority with that, and again we did discuss
(40:08):
medications and how they can cause adverse reaction to you.
No matter if you've been taking it for a long
time a short period of time. Anything can happen with
anything that you're putting your mouth. So a lot of
times you can sort of self discover and figure that
out yourself and stop the medication, get back with your
healthcare provider. But not always you can take the medicine,
(40:28):
you can kind of push through it, but still something's off,
Like I said, dizzyness, fatigue, maybe a little upset stomach.
Maybe you take ten medications, which one is causing it.
That can be a tough scenario. But certainly get with
your health care provider. They do it for a living
and they see all these scenarios come up more frequently
and can a lot of times more easily try and
(40:50):
figure out if it is a medicine, and if it
is one, which one it is, and stop it. Again,
we get used to prescribing this medicines and we kind
of know typically what can happen and when patients are
on when medicine or a combination of medicines, So we're
pretty good at it. We don't always get it right
the first time. It might take several visits, so be
(41:10):
open to getting reassessed and certainly yeah go get you
a little watch or a ring so you can monitor
your blood pressure and your heart ray.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Well.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Appreciate you listening to this show. We'll see you next week.
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