May 4, 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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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome Southeast Texas Internet radio listeners. This is
doctor Levigne, Doctor Levine Medical Hour. Welcome to another edition
of the Doctor Levigne Medical Hour. I'm your weekly hosts,
Doctor Levine, coming to you live from the studios of
k LVI here in both My Texas Cross Street from
proggam All where I take your phone calls and answer
(00:20):
questions to the best of my ability to help you
figure out how to stay alive as long as possible
and as healthy as possible, so you can enjoy your
life as long as possible without all of the cumbersome
activities of having in take meds, go to the doctor,
be hospitalized, sit and wait in the offices and the
(00:43):
ers and the hospitals, and.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
What a drag? Right, who wants to do that?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
You should be out there and join your life, your retirement, traveling,
giving back, volunteering, second career, all that. But it's hard
to do.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
When you're sick.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
So we want you to stay alive and stay healthy
as much as possible, So we do our best to
answer your questions here live too on the radio, So give.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Us a call. The phone lines are open. We would
love to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Eight nine to six klv I one one hundred three
three zero klv I and we.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Can talk leisurely.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
As opposed to maybe when you go to your health
care provider's office. I do my best to give my
patients time, but sometimes there is a time crunch, time constraint,
so much to get done within five to ten minutes
of a visit. A lot of times I do advise
(01:46):
patients to write down there are questions before they go
into the health care providers off It is just because
it is a little nerve wracking when you do go in.
There's all these steps and you have to check insure
and how much you're going.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
To pay, and.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
It can be nerve racking, right, and you sometimes just
forget about a particular physical symptom that has been nagging
you for weeks, and when you go in, the ball
gets rolling and then you leave them before you know
what you forgot to ask your health care provider. So
kind of a missed opportunity to go over a physical symptom.
(02:26):
And yes, sometimes as a health care provider myself and
a primary care physician, myself on the front lines sort
of the first doctor to get some of these physical
complaints trying to ferret out which one is serious which
one is not can sometimes be challenging, and I know
for patients it can be difficult to figure out if
(02:48):
a certain physical symptom is something that warrants a visit,
or if it's something that you can kind of do
on your own, go down to the pharmacy and take
some over the counter medications, buy something and treat yourself.
I mean a lot of patients do that, and honestly,
there's nothing wrong with that in my opinion, especially if
(03:10):
your symptoms improve, but certainly with physical symptoms, if there
is something that's brand new, you've never had it before,
and you may have even gone down to CBS or
HB and gotten some medication and it kind of helps,
but it's still not going away. You're not quite sure
what it is. I mean, certainly it deserves to be
(03:32):
looked at by a healthcare professional who does this for
a living, who has studied the human body, study the
diseases that impact the human body, and just kind of
let them listen to your story and do a physical examination,
maybe do some brief labs, maybe some X rays, just
to try and narrow down maybe what it is or
(03:54):
is not. Just so that you do not put yourself
at risk for overlooking a major, major disease, which, again,
no matter what disease you have, all of the diseases
that are known to men, they kind of start out
very similarly. There's only so many physical complaints that we
(04:14):
have that physicians and healthcare providers hear about every single day,
and it's about ten major symptoms that I manage every
single day in terms of how the story starts out.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
But again, you never know at the end of the.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Day what it's going to be related to. So that's
what all the X rays and labs and physical exam
and just sort of the conversation that you might have
with the healthcare provider. And that's well a lot of
times if you're going to an emergency department, are you
even a minor care or are your doctor's office for
routine visit?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Why they who know?
Speaker 1 (04:54):
No matter who you talk with, there's always this introductory
question in terms of you know, why you hear and
what happened? And I know sometimes patients get a little
frustrated or concerned that the same questions are being asked
about the same problem and would rather we sort of
(05:16):
just review a previous healthcare provider's notes or just look
in the computer. The information is all there, and I
kind of get it, just because you're tired and you
just want answers and you just want to feel better.
And it's hard to remember things and talk and focus
and concentrate when your abdomen is hurting, or you're puking
(05:37):
your guts out, or maybe you having bleeding. Are you
having a severe headache, or you're having a heart attack,
It's hard to remember things. Just the stress of the
event can sort of get in the way of remembering
all that stuff. But again, that's how healthcare providers are
taught to start the interview processes, asking the patient a
(06:01):
very simple question in terms of, hey, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Why are you here?
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And that normally starts the whole conversation so that the
health care provider, the nurse that's taking care of you
can sort of figure out what direction they want to
go with the investigation and try and figure out exactly
what is wrong with you. And again, unfortunately, we're not
(06:27):
always able to provide that answer, even after you've been
there for six hours, eight hours, and you've had several
tests and you've maybe seen a couple of different doctors
or health care providers and you're hungry and they haven't
fed you, and all the labs or some of them
are back, some of them not. Sometimes at the end
(06:47):
of the day, we just don't have an idea exactly
of why something is happening. And that happens every day, honestly,
and it's a common scenario where personally, for me can't
speak for other healthcare providers, but I can just only
imagine that sometimes we just don't know, and I think
(07:11):
it's safe, it's fair to just let the patient know that, hey,
we really don't know why you feel the way you do,
or what that rash is or why this lump is here,
but certainly try and have a follow up game plan
in terms of following that up, and a lot of
times that just means sort of surveillance testing. Our surveillance
(07:36):
follow up meaning we'll see you back in a week
or come back in a day, two weeks, whatever the
case may be, and we'll look at it again. Just
kind of keep us posted on any physical symptoms that
you might have, are any changes again, because as a
(07:56):
lot of these diseases start getting wrapped up, it generates
certain pattern of physical abnormalities that again, we've studied diseases,
we kind of know how they behave, how they look,
what they're supposed to do to your laps, what you're
supposed to complain about. At least that's classically how it's
been described to us in the medical books. But I
(08:18):
can tell you, as a provider for over twenty years,
these diseases, they just do not present in a very coordinated,
easy to absorb fashion a lot of times, a lot
of times they presented very confusing, atypical, rare ways that
really can fly under the radar for a while until
(08:43):
someone discovers it or something hits in terms of the
story that provokes a provider to do a certain test
or try a certain medication, and then while you have
your diagnosis, but it may have taken two months, three months,
you know, multiple doctor visits, and I really do get
it talking with patients that it's super, super frustrating, especially
(09:08):
when they're spending their time here. They're getting sort of
different ideas from different providers about what it is they have,
even though the information is the same. Right their X
rays are being looked at by two or three different
providers or labs are being looked at by two or
three different providers, and each provider is saying this, and
(09:29):
it's sort of inconsistent with what the other one said.
I talk with patients there every day, and I know
how upsetting that is. And certainly that is a situation
that is sometimes unavoidable, as every healthcare provider has their
own sort of perspective on what the story is telling
(09:51):
them and what their perception is, and it's all based
again on their own personal experience and their own personal
understanding of how diseases are supposed to behave and how
they present, what the labs look like. And then again normally,
if you're talking to different providers, nurses, doctors, of physicians, assistants,
(10:14):
you might be saying different things and prioritizing different physical things.
And because of that, right the healthcare provider that you're
talking to at the time will have a different perspective
on what it is is wrong with you. So and
we talk about it as well, how the stories can
(10:34):
kind of change from hour to hour, day to day
when we interview patients and we ask sort of similar questions,
how we kind of sometimes get different answers. Then that
certainly will impact our decision to do certain tests put
you on certain medications. It's very fluid, I guess, is
what I mean when it comes to that. And again,
(10:56):
I know it's frustrating and it's frustrating for us sometimes
as well, but we honestly try to be on the
same page with our colleagues and generate the same diagnosses.
But that's what keeps the whole process clean and true
and as crisp as possible, because doctors and healthcare providers
(11:19):
are sort of taught to kind of have their own
independent investigation, their own independent perspective, which we call assessment
and plan is the term that we use. We assess
information and what is our plan. We're sort of taught
that way in our training that this is your understanding,
(11:41):
this is your plan, and you kind of need to
own it, which is why maybe you might get a
different answer from a doctor or a healthcare provider even
though they're looking at the same information that doctor B
looked at a few hours ago, and now you're telling
me something different. Yes, that's just the way that is,
(12:02):
and we apologize, but certainly at some point, yes, we
typically come to some conclusion about what it is or
it is not and get you on proper medication or
maybe have a procedure, or sometimes yes, we do have
to transfer her to one of the bigger hospitals there
in Baytown or Galveston or Houston, which is sort of
(12:27):
the big medical metropolis that we have access to, which
is wonderful and it's super super convenient to have such
a medical world to have access to that, and it's
only just an hour and fifteen minutes away, which is
not a terrible situation when you're talking about being ill
(12:47):
or sick and you've tried the local doctors, you've tried
the local hospitals really not coming up with any good answers,
even though they're doing all the right things. Everything quote
has been done. Yes, it's sometimes time to step out
and go to some of the bigger cities where a
lot of times there's just more providers. There's more sort
(13:09):
of service if you will, that can sometimes break or
crack the code and figure out exactly what is going
on with you. So sometimes that's a good idea. A
lot of times your healthcare provider will let you know
that or transfer you there themselves to get you to
(13:30):
one of these bigger institutes, especially if you're in the hospital.
A lot of times you start out at your local
community hospital and let them sort of go through their
process of elimination to try and figure out why you
feel the way you do or why your EKG is abnormal.
And sometimes after we've been through all that, we just
(13:50):
don't know, or we do discover something that is more complicated,
more confusing, then we can manage just because again we
don't have a lot of times the full bar of
medical services that you might get, Like I said, a
big Methodist in Houston or Galveston, UTMB University of Texas
(14:10):
Medical branch down there. You know where doctors are trained.
They've been there for many years, so there's just a
lot of support and a lot of know how when
it comes to treating a lot of these medical issues.
Sometimes that's the place you need to be. But most
of the time, your local hospitality, the local community will
do their best to get you there, maybe find a
(14:31):
doctor for you our team that can take care of
your particular situation.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
So, yeah, it's frustrating for us.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Too, to be honest with you, but man, we draw
best to try and be on the same page and
give you consistent answers, but it's unfortunately that's the way
it's sort of built. That's the nature of the business
in terms of how we figure.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Out these diseases.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
All healthcare providers sort of have their own independent thinking
and the own interpretation and sometimes doesn't line up with
the next provider. So that's just sort of the negotiation
process that we go through most of the time every
day is trying to come to some conclusion everyone on
board in terms of what's the best route and the
best way to do things. But again, in my opinion,
(15:18):
it keeps everything true, keeps it clean because you've got
different perspectives looking at a particular case, and that's how
a lot of times everybody wins, just keeping the mind
open to all the different possibilities and not sort of
getting pigeonholed into thinking one thing and one thing only
(15:39):
because these diseases are tricky. Phone lines are open eight
nine to six Scalva one one hundred three to three
zero Kaleva. I'll be back in two minutes.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
All right, welcome back to the doc La Medical.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Our phone lines are open eight nine six kalfy I
one hundred three to three zero kill.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
We have bill from Bama. How can we help you?
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Bill?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Doctor? Thank you for taking my call. Give me just
a second. I have a I had a dental problem
and I had an X ray done. I got notification
on that X ray that. Let me quote this too.
It says califications are noted in the thyroid and corotid spaces.
(16:28):
Evaluation is recommended. Do I go to a I have
a heart physician as well as a my regular doctor.
Which one should I take this too?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Bill, you can always start off with your primary care
physician or a healthcare provider, whether it be a nurse
practitioner or physician assistant. They're providing a lot of primary
care out there and doing a fabulous job. So yeah. Traditionally, yeah,
you would just start with.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Your primary care provide or.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Your go to healthcare provider that you go to for
your refills. And if you get some coals and sniffles,
they are trained to know what to do with that information.
And based on what you're telling me, yes, this description
sounds benign, and we do see that a lot on
(17:21):
these X ray reports, and typically it does not generate
any sort of disease process. But again, I think from
the radiologists standpoint, whoever read it. You know, it's technically
an abnormal finding. Maybe it shouldn't be there, but they
see it, so they have to say something about it.
(17:42):
And just to make sure that everybody's on the same page,
they normally will throw in the hey, follow up with
your doctor or what they call clinically correlate is the
term that they used to use all the time. And
all that means is the doctor who ordered it or
who's looking at it needs to correlate that with some
sort of clinical condition if there's one that is present.
(18:06):
A lot of times with these findings, there is no
disease process that you have to worry about. It's a
benign finding. Again, our bodies or machines and they're sort
of in the background doing all sorts of things and
we don't even know about it until we start doing
labs and X rays and we start seeing this stuff.
But most of it amounts to benign findings as the
body does its job on a daily basis.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Oh okay, well, let's read relate man. I will take
it up with a primary position that's in is my
next appointment?
Speaker 1 (18:40):
All right, Bill, we appreciate that phone call.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
You have a good day. That's the fear of.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
A lot of times doing just screening tests. I remember
when cat scans first hit the scene, and it's awesome technology.
It's revolutionary technology in my opinion, to have the ability
to scan someone, as we say in the medical world,
which means using X ray technology to look inside the
(19:10):
human body and allows doctors' healthcare providers to visualize the
organs and just look at them, almost like if you
had eyeglasses and you could just kind of look right inside.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
It allows us really to.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Make some incredible diagnosses very efficiently, very rapidly.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
And accurately.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
The medical world as I know it, as I was trained,
could not exist or operate without CT scan technology because
we use it every single day. I mean, it's just remarkable.
It's amazing technology that allows us to make the right
diagnosis very rapidly and accurately, saving a lot of people's lives.
(19:55):
But when they first hit the scene, it was sort
of being used in all all sorts of ways, and
I remember, I don't know if I was in medical
school yet, maybe I was, but there were sort of
these cat scan boutiques, if you will, where someone bought
a cat scan machine and you could go get a
(20:16):
full body set scan. You know, you just pay a fee,
and at that time, insurance companies were not paying for
these sort of scans, but you would just pay a
fee and you could go get your whole body scan,
get an X ray of your head and your chest
and your abdomen, which is sort of the big anatomical
and anatomical sites where a lot of pathology occurs. So
(20:38):
you would sort of kind of get this sweep of
X rays just to see if they could find anything. Again,
if certain diseases run in your family, like cancer, or
your cousin died of this, your mother died of that,
and if they would have just caught it earlier, you know,
they would still be alive that maybe they would have
gotten treated earlier. So this whole lidea of let me
(21:01):
look now and make sure I'm clean, if you will,
let me let me get my clean bill of health
if you will, And I'm going to go get this
cat scan and just sort of look at everything and
see what I need to do. And that's sort of
how it was being utilized, other than just being in
the hospitals being used for the purpose it was intended
(21:24):
to be used for, right to help doctors and hospitals
make this diagnosises more rapidly and efficiently, and the technology
has only gotten better. But these cat scans were in
malls and strip centers and you could just go and
pay your money and get your scan right, But then
it would it would find all of these abnormal findings
(21:49):
that and I had several patients like that that normally
ended up not being anything to worry about, but it's
nerve wracking to get that report, and on black and
white there it is, you have this abnormal finding and
what does it mean? And you have to then normally
follow up with your healthcare provider. And again they don't
(22:12):
want to overlook anything. They want to sort of meet
you halfway and make sure that you are all right,
and they don't want to overlook anything. They're not not
trying to be insensitive. They are listening to you and
want you to feel good about what it's going on.
But a lot of times to sort of close the
(22:32):
door on the situation, it would require more testing, maybe
even a surgery or a procedure like a bopsey, or
even consultations with one or two other doctors to sort
of close the door on what this finding means or
what it doesn't mean, because there you found it. That's
(22:55):
why you paid the big money to have it looked at.
As you're trying to find something abnormal, and then you do,
and what does it mean? And you know, certainly most
people get frightened as they get into their fifties and sixties,
just because health tends to start declining for some of
(23:16):
us pretty rapidly in our fifties and sixties as the
aging process starts to kick in.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Maybe our habits are not the same.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Maybe we have some strong family history that certain diseases
run in the family, and this is when they start
to present themselves. So a lot of times, when you
start feeling different or abnormal, it can sort of be
very concerning for a lot of patients because they're wondering
if this is the beginning to the end in a
(23:45):
sense that oh, oh you know this. You know my
friend or my brother or my sister they're sick. And
then here I am starting to get this little twins
here feel a certain way. I don't know, and so
let me get my full body scan. And then they
do it. Then they find these certain findings and again
(24:09):
that might require more and more testing or even procedures
to close the door on that. And this particular call,
I got an ultrasound, which we use ultrasound technology a lot.
The ultrasound machines have gotten better, faster, more efficient, and
a lot of healthcare providers are using ultrasound technology in
their offices again to help visualize or view the human
(24:34):
body in certain targeted anatomical areas such as the carotid
artery or your kidneys, or maybe a ultrasound of your
heart again as it beats away, and as you get older,
we a lot of times get into cardiovascal disease. Remember
that's the biggest problem in our country is cardiovascal disease.
(24:57):
And I've done my best to indicate to you that
a lot of the that has to do with what
you're eating and drinking. And if you don't, if you
want to stay out of the hospital, you don't want
to have a heart attack, you really got to do
your part. But again, visualizing the heart can be another
way of looking at it to make sure it's still
beating okay, that it looks okay. But we're finding all
(25:19):
sorts of things that you're unaware of. One thing that
we typically find a lot are cysts in various parts
of the body, such as in the kidney we find
a lot, the liver, we find a lot of cysts,
and a lot of times can be picked up on ultrasound.
(25:40):
One thing that we find a lot on these caroated
ultrasounds is nodules insist in the thyroid. We found a
lot of those, very very common, and we are looking
at the artery of the crowd or remember these are
the two big blood vessels that travel in your neck
(26:01):
area up to your brain. But this is where a
lot of the plaque forms from all the years of
hypertension and high cholesterol and diabetes. You start getting that
corrosion and that build up right like in the plumbing
of your house, you get the same thing.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
We call it plaque.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
But that's a common location of where plaque develops, which
can then increase your risk of a cardiovascular event. So
it's one area that we target all the time just
to kind of look at.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
But in doing that.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Exam, the sonographer will a lot of times sort of
look around in the general area and the thyroid kind
of sits right there by the carotid artery and they
will pick up a lot of thyroid pathology. Sometimes sometimes yes,
something serious is diagnosed looking there the thyroid, in particular
(26:57):
thyroid cancer, which a lot of times is a solid
tumor or solid mass. They're in the thyroid tissue itself,
which can be easily picked up on ultrasound, which then
prompts the work up and then prompts the diagnosis. So
not that ultrasound technology is not useful, it's very useful,
just because as a screening exam, ultrasound is probably the
(27:19):
best route to go because again it.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Is very easy to do.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
You can do it as we can say bedside, and
it doesn't involve any invasive needles or any injections or
anything like that. They're basically putting a probe as I
say probe, that's the actual device that it puts on
your chest. They call that a probe with the jelly
(27:47):
and they just look. Using ultrasound technology, I mean, it's
super super convenient. They are now using that in certain
target areas such as the emergency department where doctors sort
of have these personal ultrasound machines that are very tiny,
very small that they can kind of walk around with
or easily grab the machine because it's small, it's portable,
(28:12):
and they can use the probe and sort of look
at target areas like your heart are your abdomen is
one common area. Abdominal pain, man, what a big complaint
every single day, And just all the different organs in
the abdominal cavity just can be confusing. All of them
can cause pain. But if we had a very easy
(28:33):
way to look and look at the organs inside, ultrasound
technology has allowed us to do that. So a lot
of er physicians and even hospital physicians are being taught
how to read or interpret the images of ultrasound so
that they can very easily use that as a tool,
(28:54):
kind of like a stethoscope or you have some of
this other bedside equipment EKGs. These are the things that
we look at everyday information to help make decisions. They're
using ultrasound technology bedside that allows them to look at
the liver, look at the gallbladder, and look at your heart,
and look at your arteries. I mean, my god, A
(29:17):
lot of times patients come in with certain physical complaints.
We're concerned about blood clots, We're concerned about just narrowing
of the arteries.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Boom.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Ultrasound is right there, very easily used, and doctors and
healthcare providers are getting more into that. Traditionally, you would
have sort of what they call an ultrasound tech to
ecch this as a person who's gone to radiology school
and has been taught how to position the probe and
find out which probe is better, and then they generate
(29:48):
the images and those images are then sent to an
interpreter a radiologist typically who was taught how to read that,
and then it gets a report gets generated. That's a
little time consuming and depending on the hospital that you're at,
the turnaround time as they say, meaning from start to finish,
meaning the time the healthcare provider orders it until they
(30:10):
get the results. Every hospital is different, but certainly they're
trying to make that as short of a period as
it can be done. But again you might have some
hang ups with just getting it done and then getting
it interpreted and then getting it reported in terms of
typed out or generated in the computer. Again, every hospital
(30:31):
has a different system, but the idea is to get
that information to the provider asap.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Well.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
They're trying to get the providers themselves, give them the
power and the ability to have the machine bedside are
portable that they carry around with them, and then they
can do it right then and there as they're talking
with you and look at it. And because they've been
taught how to interpret the images, they can very rapidly
on the fly live tell you exactly what it is
(31:03):
is going on and what they see. Cool cool stuff,
And that's sort of what has been pioneered recently and
should probably expand as more providers are taught how to
use the ultrasound portable ultrasound and taught how to read it.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
So really cool cool stuff.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
And your phone lines are open eight nine six kV
I win one hundred three three zero kV. I'll be
back in two minutes. All right, welcome back to the doctor,
(31:40):
Lavie Metapour phone line to open eight none six kVA
one hundred three to three zero klv I chatting about
ultrasounds and cat scans.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
We love them.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
They are revolutionary, allowed doctors and healthcare providers to provide
your information with what's wrong with you.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
So we use this stuff all day long. There is one.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Program that's been around for a long time which I
do endorse. It's called life Share. You may have heard
of this particular program where this company goes to like
churches and schools and businesses and basically offers this sort
of surveillance ultrasound review where they look at targeted areas
(32:25):
of your body, like I've mentioned the carotid artery, your heart,
your aorta, and again just so that you are aware,
you should have a screening ultrasound of your aorta. If
you were a smoker for many years, and you're a man,
and you're sixty five and above, you should have received
(32:47):
a one time screen of your aorta. Remember the dreaded
aortic aneurism that we sometimes encounter in patients, which again
is a abnormal dilation are enlargement of the circumference of
the area of the blood vessel such that the wall
(33:09):
kind of thins out and it balloons out, if you will,
And this is normally because of a history of.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
High blood pressure.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Typically smokers get these aneurysms a lot, but it can
be sort of a spontaneous development, again as a part
of the degenitive process of the human body. As it
gets older, certain organs will start to fail and certain
things will start to happen, and one of those things
(33:38):
is aneurysms can develop in the order. That's the big
central highway blood vessel conduit that runs down the middle
of your body, and that gets exposed right to all
of the things that we do to the human body
every single day. And one thing that happens is it
(33:58):
wears out the wall. The strength of the wall. It degenerates,
and so it's under constant pressure every day, it'll start
to kind of balloon out, and we call that an
aneurism typically, and we try to identify a certain high
risk individuals, and smokers are high risk for aneurism. So
if you're sixty five and above you've ever smoked, he
(34:21):
should have had sort of a one time screening of
your aorta and they do that with the ultrasound. But
this live share program that I've been around for a
long long time, to be honest with you, because the
only reason I know about it is patients will bring
the results to me, so that, like I said, they
normally target like a church or maybe a business, a
(34:43):
small business, and you pay a small fee, and I
think it's a very affordable fee. It's one of the
programs that I do endorse just because it's just a
very affordable way to kind of look at some targeted
organs and see if you can see anything. I don't
think there's anything wrong with that. Again, you're just trying
to get information with all this monitoring equipment that we
(35:06):
have now with the smart watches and the smartphones, and
it just seems like we're always monitoring the human body.
That this is one systemic or systematic way of sort
of screening some targeted organs. So if the live Share
ultrasound program has been offered to you, sounds like a
(35:27):
good deal to me, to be honest with you. They
look at the blood flow in your legs, and again the.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Order your heart I believe, and the artery.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Your kidney could be a couple of other areas that
they look at. But again they a lot of times
we'll find some good things that we can kind of
stay on top of. Otherwise we wouldn't even know it existed. Again,
I don't think insurance companies involved with this particular program. Again,
when working with insurance companies, they normally have guidelines on
(36:00):
if a doctor can order the test, and if it
doesn't meet the guideline, then they will not pay for
the particular test to be done. And again everyone listening.
There is a market out there for just paying out
of pocket, as they say, for any test that you
want to get done.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Blood test, X rays.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
There is a what they call out of pocket cash
price for most of these tests and these procedures, so
that if you do have the funds, you have the means.
If insurance company doesn't want to pay for it, you
can a lot of times negotiate a cash based price
with the facility of choice. They know there's a market
(36:42):
out there and they want your business, they will sort
of negotiate a price with you. So don't ever think
because you don't have insurance you can get medical care,
because that's not true. There is a lot of medical
care being done out there with no insurance involved. If
phone lines are open eight nine to six klvy I
one hundred three three zero kalo via, I'd be in
on a last break, all.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Right, welcome back to doctor V Medical.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Our phone lines open eight nine six kV I want
to hundred three three zero Kalova. At the end of
the show, time goes by so so quickly. I want
to thank the callers and the listeners for listening to show.
Remember if there's a topic that you would like to
uh listen to or you'd.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Like me to discuss.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Just call the station and leave your message, or you
can call my office four O nine three four seven
three six two one and you can leave a message
with my staff and we'll be sure to talk about
that and chat about that. I normally talk and chat
about topics that are kind of on my mind or
that may have happened the previous week. That sort of
(37:56):
sparked my interest in maybe relaying that information too. You
remember the show for you, just trying to give you
a doctor's insight into what does all of this stuff
mean and how things are really happening throughout the day,
just a different perspective on maybe what you might see
somewhere else, just to simplify it and help you make
it make sense so that you can digest it and
(38:20):
make the right decisions for you and your family so
again you can stay alive and be healthy and just
enjoyed life. You know, who really wants to be inundated
with a ton of meds and be at the hospital
all the time and having to go to doctor visits
is just you know, it's really a little depressing to
some degree when you like that. And sometimes, yes, bad
things happen to good people even though they're doing the
(38:42):
right thing. They've been to their doctor's visits or taking
the right medicines, and we still sort of have these
events happen. So that can't happen. But certainly for most
of us, if we're just doing the right things and
doing our part a lot of times, it can significantly
significantly reduce your chances of being ill or being sick
(39:04):
and having to loize a healthcare system which again not perfect.
There's no perfect system in the world. Yeah, I don't
understand that right, very complicated, complex, multi layered system that
we have here in this country to provide healthcare, and
you know, it always needs constant adjustment and constant improvement.
(39:27):
And this is what healthcare providers are doing every single day.
This is what the industry is doing every day. And
we have gotten better and things are better in a
lot of ways, but certainly in terms of who's going
to pay for it and how it's financed, that's a
big question and that's for our policy makers to help
(39:47):
us try and figure that out. But you can do
your part right every single day when you wake up,
you can do your part. You're the person who can
control that, and in my opinion, it comes down to
what you're putting in your mouth. That is where it
starts every single day. So do your part to limit
(40:08):
your knee, limit your exposure to the healthcare system by
eating the right food items, drinking the right food items,
and avoiding those food items and beverage items which have
been linked to diseases and making you sick. And the
informations out there just sort of have to start. And again,
a lot of times in talking with my patients, I
(40:29):
try to let them know, hey, it's not going to
get done in two or three days. This is more
of a marathon, it's not a sprint. So just make
one simple step, one different choice at a time, without
trying to change all these things. Especially if you are smoking,
maybe have a bad diet as well.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
For me, it's got to be the smoking. Just work
on that first.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Then we'll get to the bad diet later, just because
I have seen just how smoking just oh so destructive
to the human body that that's really their priority is.
You've got to try and figure out how not to smoke,
and then we can get to the diet later. And
then if it's a diet issue.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
If you're drinking sugary beverages, you're eating a lot of
ultra processed food. Hey, let's just cut out. There's sugar
beverages for right now. Leave everything else the same. Just
drink water, maybe get some iced tea, don't put any
sugar in it, and we'll work on the diet later.
So a lot of times just to digest it. Let's
just start with one thing first and then we can
(41:31):
work in the other things later. Again, with it being
a marathon and the human body is so forgiving a
lot of times, you just got to give it a
chance and we'll take care of you anyway. Thank you
for joining for the edition of the show. Remember, don't
drink a drive, eat some fastals, drink more water.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
We'll see you guys next week. Take care beautiful day
to day. By the way,
All right, welcome Southeast Texas Internet radio listeners. This is
doctor Levigne, Doctor Levine Medical Hour. Welcome to another edition
of the Doctor Levigne Medical Hour. I'm your weekly hosts,
Doctor Levine, coming to you live from the studios of
k LVI here in both My Texas Cross Street from
proggam All where I take your phone calls and answer
(00:20):
questions to the best of my ability to help you
figure out how to stay alive as long as possible
and as healthy as possible, so you can enjoy your
life as long as possible without all of the cumbersome
activities of having in take meds, go to the doctor,
be hospitalized, sit and wait in the offices and the
(00:43):
ers and the hospitals, and.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
What a drag? Right, who wants to do that?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
You should be out there and join your life, your retirement, traveling,
giving back, volunteering, second career, all that. But it's hard
to do.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
When you're sick.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
So we want you to stay alive and stay healthy
as much as possible, So we do our best to
answer your questions here live too on the radio, So give.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Us a call. The phone lines are open. We would
love to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Eight nine to six klv I one one hundred three
three zero klv I and we.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Can talk leisurely.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
As opposed to maybe when you go to your health
care provider's office. I do my best to give my
patients time, but sometimes there is a time crunch, time constraint,
so much to get done within five to ten minutes
of a visit. A lot of times I do advise
(01:46):
patients to write down there are questions before they go
into the health care providers off It is just because
it is a little nerve wracking when you do go in.
There's all these steps and you have to check insure
and how much you're going.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
To pay, and.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
It can be nerve racking, right, and you sometimes just
forget about a particular physical symptom that has been nagging
you for weeks, and when you go in, the ball
gets rolling and then you leave them before you know
what you forgot to ask your health care provider. So
kind of a missed opportunity to go over a physical symptom.
(02:26):
And yes, sometimes as a health care provider myself and
a primary care physician, myself on the front lines sort
of the first doctor to get some of these physical
complaints trying to ferret out which one is serious which
one is not can sometimes be challenging, and I know
for patients it can be difficult to figure out if
(02:48):
a certain physical symptom is something that warrants a visit,
or if it's something that you can kind of do
on your own, go down to the pharmacy and take
some over the counter medications, buy something and treat yourself.
I mean a lot of patients do that, and honestly,
there's nothing wrong with that in my opinion, especially if
(03:10):
your symptoms improve, but certainly with physical symptoms, if there
is something that's brand new, you've never had it before,
and you may have even gone down to CBS or
HB and gotten some medication and it kind of helps,
but it's still not going away. You're not quite sure
what it is. I mean, certainly it deserves to be
(03:32):
looked at by a healthcare professional who does this for
a living, who has studied the human body, study the
diseases that impact the human body, and just kind of
let them listen to your story and do a physical examination,
maybe do some brief labs, maybe some X rays, just
to try and narrow down maybe what it is or
(03:54):
is not. Just so that you do not put yourself
at risk for overlooking a major, major disease, which, again,
no matter what disease you have, all of the diseases
that are known to men, they kind of start out
very similarly. There's only so many physical complaints that we
(04:14):
have that physicians and healthcare providers hear about every single day,
and it's about ten major symptoms that I manage every
single day in terms of how the story starts out.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
But again, you never know at the end of the.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Day what it's going to be related to. So that's
what all the X rays and labs and physical exam
and just sort of the conversation that you might have
with the healthcare provider. And that's well a lot of
times if you're going to an emergency department, are you
even a minor care or are your doctor's office for
routine visit?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Why they who know?
Speaker 1 (04:54):
No matter who you talk with, there's always this introductory
question in terms of you know, why you hear and
what happened? And I know sometimes patients get a little
frustrated or concerned that the same questions are being asked
about the same problem and would rather we sort of
(05:16):
just review a previous healthcare provider's notes or just look
in the computer. The information is all there, and I
kind of get it, just because you're tired and you
just want answers and you just want to feel better.
And it's hard to remember things and talk and focus
and concentrate when your abdomen is hurting, or you're puking
(05:37):
your guts out, or maybe you having bleeding. Are you
having a severe headache, or you're having a heart attack,
It's hard to remember things. Just the stress of the
event can sort of get in the way of remembering
all that stuff. But again, that's how healthcare providers are
taught to start the interview processes, asking the patient a
(06:01):
very simple question in terms of, hey, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Why are you here?
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And that normally starts the whole conversation so that the
health care provider, the nurse that's taking care of you
can sort of figure out what direction they want to
go with the investigation and try and figure out exactly
what is wrong with you. And again, unfortunately, we're not
(06:27):
always able to provide that answer, even after you've been
there for six hours, eight hours, and you've had several
tests and you've maybe seen a couple of different doctors
or health care providers and you're hungry and they haven't
fed you, and all the labs or some of them
are back, some of them not. Sometimes at the end
(06:47):
of the day, we just don't have an idea exactly
of why something is happening. And that happens every day, honestly,
and it's a common scenario where personally, for me can't
speak for other healthcare providers, but I can just only
imagine that sometimes we just don't know, and I think
(07:11):
it's safe, it's fair to just let the patient know that, hey,
we really don't know why you feel the way you do,
or what that rash is or why this lump is here,
but certainly try and have a follow up game plan
in terms of following that up, and a lot of
times that just means sort of surveillance testing. Our surveillance
(07:36):
follow up meaning we'll see you back in a week
or come back in a day, two weeks, whatever the
case may be, and we'll look at it again. Just
kind of keep us posted on any physical symptoms that
you might have, are any changes again, because as a
(07:56):
lot of these diseases start getting wrapped up, it generates
certain pattern of physical abnormalities that again, we've studied diseases,
we kind of know how they behave, how they look,
what they're supposed to do to your laps, what you're
supposed to complain about. At least that's classically how it's
been described to us in the medical books. But I
(08:18):
can tell you, as a provider for over twenty years,
these diseases, they just do not present in a very coordinated,
easy to absorb fashion a lot of times, a lot
of times they presented very confusing, atypical, rare ways that
really can fly under the radar for a while until
(08:43):
someone discovers it or something hits in terms of the
story that provokes a provider to do a certain test
or try a certain medication, and then while you have
your diagnosis, but it may have taken two months, three months,
you know, multiple doctor visits, and I really do get
it talking with patients that it's super, super frustrating, especially
(09:08):
when they're spending their time here. They're getting sort of
different ideas from different providers about what it is they have,
even though the information is the same. Right their X
rays are being looked at by two or three different
providers or labs are being looked at by two or
three different providers, and each provider is saying this, and
(09:29):
it's sort of inconsistent with what the other one said.
I talk with patients there every day, and I know
how upsetting that is. And certainly that is a situation
that is sometimes unavoidable, as every healthcare provider has their
own sort of perspective on what the story is telling
(09:51):
them and what their perception is, and it's all based
again on their own personal experience and their own personal
understanding of how diseases are supposed to behave and how
they present, what the labs look like. And then again normally,
if you're talking to different providers, nurses, doctors, of physicians, assistants,
(10:14):
you might be saying different things and prioritizing different physical things.
And because of that, right the healthcare provider that you're
talking to at the time will have a different perspective
on what it is is wrong with you. So and
we talk about it as well, how the stories can
(10:34):
kind of change from hour to hour, day to day
when we interview patients and we ask sort of similar questions,
how we kind of sometimes get different answers. Then that
certainly will impact our decision to do certain tests put
you on certain medications. It's very fluid, I guess, is
what I mean when it comes to that. And again,
(10:56):
I know it's frustrating and it's frustrating for us sometimes
as well, but we honestly try to be on the
same page with our colleagues and generate the same diagnosses.
But that's what keeps the whole process clean and true
and as crisp as possible, because doctors and healthcare providers
(11:19):
are sort of taught to kind of have their own
independent investigation, their own independent perspective, which we call assessment
and plan is the term that we use. We assess
information and what is our plan. We're sort of taught
that way in our training that this is your understanding,
(11:41):
this is your plan, and you kind of need to
own it, which is why maybe you might get a
different answer from a doctor or a healthcare provider even
though they're looking at the same information that doctor B
looked at a few hours ago, and now you're telling
me something different. Yes, that's just the way that is,
(12:02):
and we apologize, but certainly at some point, yes, we
typically come to some conclusion about what it is or
it is not and get you on proper medication or
maybe have a procedure, or sometimes yes, we do have
to transfer her to one of the bigger hospitals there
in Baytown or Galveston or Houston, which is sort of
(12:27):
the big medical metropolis that we have access to, which
is wonderful and it's super super convenient to have such
a medical world to have access to that, and it's
only just an hour and fifteen minutes away, which is
not a terrible situation when you're talking about being ill
(12:47):
or sick and you've tried the local doctors, you've tried
the local hospitals really not coming up with any good answers,
even though they're doing all the right things. Everything quote
has been done. Yes, it's sometimes time to step out
and go to some of the bigger cities where a
lot of times there's just more providers. There's more sort
(13:09):
of service if you will, that can sometimes break or
crack the code and figure out exactly what is going
on with you. So sometimes that's a good idea. A
lot of times your healthcare provider will let you know
that or transfer you there themselves to get you to
(13:30):
one of these bigger institutes, especially if you're in the hospital.
A lot of times you start out at your local
community hospital and let them sort of go through their
process of elimination to try and figure out why you
feel the way you do or why your EKG is abnormal.
And sometimes after we've been through all that, we just
(13:50):
don't know, or we do discover something that is more complicated,
more confusing, then we can manage just because again we
don't have a lot of times the full bar of
medical services that you might get, Like I said, a
big Methodist in Houston or Galveston, UTMB University of Texas
(14:10):
Medical branch down there. You know where doctors are trained.
They've been there for many years, so there's just a
lot of support and a lot of know how when
it comes to treating a lot of these medical issues.
Sometimes that's the place you need to be. But most
of the time, your local hospitality, the local community will
do their best to get you there, maybe find a
(14:31):
doctor for you our team that can take care of
your particular situation.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
So, yeah, it's frustrating for us.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Too, to be honest with you, but man, we draw
best to try and be on the same page and
give you consistent answers, but it's unfortunately that's the way
it's sort of built. That's the nature of the business
in terms of how we figure.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Out these diseases.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
All healthcare providers sort of have their own independent thinking
and the own interpretation and sometimes doesn't line up with
the next provider. So that's just sort of the negotiation
process that we go through most of the time every
day is trying to come to some conclusion everyone on
board in terms of what's the best route and the
best way to do things. But again, in my opinion,
(15:18):
it keeps everything true, keeps it clean because you've got
different perspectives looking at a particular case, and that's how
a lot of times everybody wins, just keeping the mind
open to all the different possibilities and not sort of
getting pigeonholed into thinking one thing and one thing only
(15:39):
because these diseases are tricky. Phone lines are open eight
nine to six Scalva one one hundred three to three
zero Kaleva. I'll be back in two minutes.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
All right, welcome back to the doc La Medical.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Our phone lines are open eight nine six kalfy I
one hundred three to three zero kill.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
We have bill from Bama. How can we help you?
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Bill?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Doctor? Thank you for taking my call. Give me just
a second. I have a I had a dental problem
and I had an X ray done. I got notification
on that X ray that. Let me quote this too.
It says califications are noted in the thyroid and corotid spaces.
(16:28):
Evaluation is recommended. Do I go to a I have
a heart physician as well as a my regular doctor.
Which one should I take this too?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Bill, you can always start off with your primary care
physician or a healthcare provider, whether it be a nurse
practitioner or physician assistant. They're providing a lot of primary
care out there and doing a fabulous job. So yeah. Traditionally, yeah,
you would just start with.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Your primary care provide or.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Your go to healthcare provider that you go to for
your refills. And if you get some coals and sniffles,
they are trained to know what to do with that information.
And based on what you're telling me, yes, this description
sounds benign, and we do see that a lot on
(17:21):
these X ray reports, and typically it does not generate
any sort of disease process. But again, I think from
the radiologists standpoint, whoever read it. You know, it's technically
an abnormal finding. Maybe it shouldn't be there, but they
see it, so they have to say something about it.
(17:42):
And just to make sure that everybody's on the same page,
they normally will throw in the hey, follow up with
your doctor or what they call clinically correlate is the
term that they used to use all the time. And
all that means is the doctor who ordered it or
who's looking at it needs to correlate that with some
sort of clinical condition if there's one that is present.
(18:06):
A lot of times with these findings, there is no
disease process that you have to worry about. It's a
benign finding. Again, our bodies or machines and they're sort
of in the background doing all sorts of things and
we don't even know about it until we start doing
labs and X rays and we start seeing this stuff.
But most of it amounts to benign findings as the
body does its job on a daily basis.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Oh okay, well, let's read relate man. I will take
it up with a primary position that's in is my
next appointment?
Speaker 1 (18:40):
All right, Bill, we appreciate that phone call.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
You have a good day. That's the fear of.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
A lot of times doing just screening tests. I remember
when cat scans first hit the scene, and it's awesome technology.
It's revolutionary technology in my opinion, to have the ability
to scan someone, as we say in the medical world,
which means using X ray technology to look inside the
(19:10):
human body and allows doctors' healthcare providers to visualize the
organs and just look at them, almost like if you
had eyeglasses and you could just kind of look right inside.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
It allows us really to.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Make some incredible diagnosses very efficiently, very rapidly.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
And accurately.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
The medical world as I know it, as I was trained,
could not exist or operate without CT scan technology because
we use it every single day. I mean, it's just remarkable.
It's amazing technology that allows us to make the right
diagnosis very rapidly and accurately, saving a lot of people's lives.
(19:55):
But when they first hit the scene, it was sort
of being used in all all sorts of ways, and
I remember, I don't know if I was in medical
school yet, maybe I was, but there were sort of
these cat scan boutiques, if you will, where someone bought
a cat scan machine and you could go get a
(20:16):
full body set scan. You know, you just pay a fee,
and at that time, insurance companies were not paying for
these sort of scans, but you would just pay a
fee and you could go get your whole body scan,
get an X ray of your head and your chest
and your abdomen, which is sort of the big anatomical
and anatomical sites where a lot of pathology occurs. So
(20:38):
you would sort of kind of get this sweep of
X rays just to see if they could find anything. Again,
if certain diseases run in your family, like cancer, or
your cousin died of this, your mother died of that,
and if they would have just caught it earlier, you know,
they would still be alive that maybe they would have
gotten treated earlier. So this whole lidea of let me
(21:01):
look now and make sure I'm clean, if you will,
let me let me get my clean bill of health
if you will, And I'm going to go get this
cat scan and just sort of look at everything and
see what I need to do. And that's sort of
how it was being utilized, other than just being in
the hospitals being used for the purpose it was intended
(21:24):
to be used for, right to help doctors and hospitals
make this diagnosises more rapidly and efficiently, and the technology
has only gotten better. But these cat scans were in
malls and strip centers and you could just go and
pay your money and get your scan right, But then
it would it would find all of these abnormal findings
(21:49):
that and I had several patients like that that normally
ended up not being anything to worry about, but it's
nerve wracking to get that report, and on black and
white there it is, you have this abnormal finding and
what does it mean? And you have to then normally
follow up with your healthcare provider. And again they don't
(22:12):
want to overlook anything. They want to sort of meet
you halfway and make sure that you are all right,
and they don't want to overlook anything. They're not not
trying to be insensitive. They are listening to you and
want you to feel good about what it's going on.
But a lot of times to sort of close the
(22:32):
door on the situation, it would require more testing, maybe
even a surgery or a procedure like a bopsey, or
even consultations with one or two other doctors to sort
of close the door on what this finding means or
what it doesn't mean, because there you found it. That's
(22:55):
why you paid the big money to have it looked at.
As you're trying to find something abnormal, and then you do,
and what does it mean? And you know, certainly most
people get frightened as they get into their fifties and sixties,
just because health tends to start declining for some of
(23:16):
us pretty rapidly in our fifties and sixties as the
aging process starts to kick in.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Maybe our habits are not the same.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Maybe we have some strong family history that certain diseases
run in the family, and this is when they start
to present themselves. So a lot of times, when you
start feeling different or abnormal, it can sort of be
very concerning for a lot of patients because they're wondering
if this is the beginning to the end in a
(23:45):
sense that oh, oh you know this. You know my
friend or my brother or my sister they're sick. And
then here I am starting to get this little twins
here feel a certain way. I don't know, and so
let me get my full body scan. And then they
do it. Then they find these certain findings and again
(24:09):
that might require more and more testing or even procedures
to close the door on that. And this particular call,
I got an ultrasound, which we use ultrasound technology a lot.
The ultrasound machines have gotten better, faster, more efficient, and
a lot of healthcare providers are using ultrasound technology in
their offices again to help visualize or view the human
(24:34):
body in certain targeted anatomical areas such as the carotid
artery or your kidneys, or maybe a ultrasound of your
heart again as it beats away, and as you get older,
we a lot of times get into cardiovascal disease. Remember
that's the biggest problem in our country is cardiovascal disease.
(24:57):
And I've done my best to indicate to you that
a lot of the that has to do with what
you're eating and drinking. And if you don't, if you
want to stay out of the hospital, you don't want
to have a heart attack, you really got to do
your part. But again, visualizing the heart can be another
way of looking at it to make sure it's still
beating okay, that it looks okay. But we're finding all
(25:19):
sorts of things that you're unaware of. One thing that
we typically find a lot are cysts in various parts
of the body, such as in the kidney we find
a lot, the liver, we find a lot of cysts,
and a lot of times can be picked up on ultrasound.
(25:40):
One thing that we find a lot on these caroated
ultrasounds is nodules insist in the thyroid. We found a
lot of those, very very common, and we are looking
at the artery of the crowd or remember these are
the two big blood vessels that travel in your neck
(26:01):
area up to your brain. But this is where a
lot of the plaque forms from all the years of
hypertension and high cholesterol and diabetes. You start getting that
corrosion and that build up right like in the plumbing
of your house, you get the same thing.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
We call it plaque.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
But that's a common location of where plaque develops, which
can then increase your risk of a cardiovascular event. So
it's one area that we target all the time just
to kind of look at.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
But in doing that.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Exam, the sonographer will a lot of times sort of
look around in the general area and the thyroid kind
of sits right there by the carotid artery and they
will pick up a lot of thyroid pathology. Sometimes sometimes yes,
something serious is diagnosed looking there the thyroid, in particular
(26:57):
thyroid cancer, which a lot of times is a solid
tumor or solid mass. They're in the thyroid tissue itself,
which can be easily picked up on ultrasound, which then
prompts the work up and then prompts the diagnosis. So
not that ultrasound technology is not useful, it's very useful,
just because as a screening exam, ultrasound is probably the
(27:19):
best route to go because again it.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Is very easy to do.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
You can do it as we can say bedside, and
it doesn't involve any invasive needles or any injections or
anything like that. They're basically putting a probe as I
say probe, that's the actual device that it puts on
your chest. They call that a probe with the jelly
(27:47):
and they just look. Using ultrasound technology, I mean, it's
super super convenient. They are now using that in certain
target areas such as the emergency department where doctors sort
of have these personal ultrasound machines that are very tiny,
very small that they can kind of walk around with
or easily grab the machine because it's small, it's portable,
(28:12):
and they can use the probe and sort of look
at target areas like your heart are your abdomen is
one common area. Abdominal pain, man, what a big complaint
every single day, And just all the different organs in
the abdominal cavity just can be confusing. All of them
can cause pain. But if we had a very easy
(28:33):
way to look and look at the organs inside, ultrasound
technology has allowed us to do that. So a lot
of er physicians and even hospital physicians are being taught
how to read or interpret the images of ultrasound so
that they can very easily use that as a tool,
(28:54):
kind of like a stethoscope or you have some of
this other bedside equipment EKGs. These are the things that
we look at everyday information to help make decisions. They're
using ultrasound technology bedside that allows them to look at
the liver, look at the gallbladder, and look at your heart,
and look at your arteries. I mean, my god, A
(29:17):
lot of times patients come in with certain physical complaints.
We're concerned about blood clots, We're concerned about just narrowing
of the arteries.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Boom.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Ultrasound is right there, very easily used, and doctors and
healthcare providers are getting more into that. Traditionally, you would
have sort of what they call an ultrasound tech to
ecch this as a person who's gone to radiology school
and has been taught how to position the probe and
find out which probe is better, and then they generate
(29:48):
the images and those images are then sent to an
interpreter a radiologist typically who was taught how to read that,
and then it gets a report gets generated. That's a
little time consuming and depending on the hospital that you're at,
the turnaround time as they say, meaning from start to finish,
meaning the time the healthcare provider orders it until they
(30:10):
get the results. Every hospital is different, but certainly they're
trying to make that as short of a period as
it can be done. But again you might have some
hang ups with just getting it done and then getting
it interpreted and then getting it reported in terms of
typed out or generated in the computer. Again, every hospital
(30:31):
has a different system, but the idea is to get
that information to the provider asap.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Well.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
They're trying to get the providers themselves, give them the
power and the ability to have the machine bedside are
portable that they carry around with them, and then they
can do it right then and there as they're talking
with you and look at it. And because they've been
taught how to interpret the images, they can very rapidly
on the fly live tell you exactly what it is
(31:03):
is going on and what they see. Cool cool stuff,
And that's sort of what has been pioneered recently and
should probably expand as more providers are taught how to
use the ultrasound portable ultrasound and taught how to read it.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
So really cool cool stuff.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
And your phone lines are open eight nine six kV
I win one hundred three three zero kV. I'll be
back in two minutes. All right, welcome back to the doctor,
(31:40):
Lavie Metapour phone line to open eight none six kVA
one hundred three to three zero klv I chatting about
ultrasounds and cat scans.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
We love them.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
They are revolutionary, allowed doctors and healthcare providers to provide
your information with what's wrong with you.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
So we use this stuff all day long. There is one.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Program that's been around for a long time which I
do endorse. It's called life Share. You may have heard
of this particular program where this company goes to like
churches and schools and businesses and basically offers this sort
of surveillance ultrasound review where they look at targeted areas
(32:25):
of your body, like I've mentioned the carotid artery, your heart,
your aorta, and again just so that you are aware,
you should have a screening ultrasound of your aorta. If
you were a smoker for many years, and you're a man,
and you're sixty five and above, you should have received
(32:47):
a one time screen of your aorta. Remember the dreaded
aortic aneurism that we sometimes encounter in patients, which again
is a abnormal dilation are enlargement of the circumference of
the area of the blood vessel such that the wall
(33:09):
kind of thins out and it balloons out, if you will,
And this is normally because of a history of.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
High blood pressure.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Typically smokers get these aneurysms a lot, but it can
be sort of a spontaneous development, again as a part
of the degenitive process of the human body. As it
gets older, certain organs will start to fail and certain
things will start to happen, and one of those things
(33:38):
is aneurysms can develop in the order. That's the big
central highway blood vessel conduit that runs down the middle
of your body, and that gets exposed right to all
of the things that we do to the human body
every single day. And one thing that happens is it
(33:58):
wears out the wall. The strength of the wall. It degenerates,
and so it's under constant pressure every day, it'll start
to kind of balloon out, and we call that an
aneurism typically, and we try to identify a certain high
risk individuals, and smokers are high risk for aneurism. So
if you're sixty five and above you've ever smoked, he
(34:21):
should have had sort of a one time screening of
your aorta and they do that with the ultrasound. But
this live share program that I've been around for a
long long time, to be honest with you, because the
only reason I know about it is patients will bring
the results to me, so that, like I said, they
normally target like a church or maybe a business, a
(34:43):
small business, and you pay a small fee, and I
think it's a very affordable fee. It's one of the
programs that I do endorse just because it's just a
very affordable way to kind of look at some targeted
organs and see if you can see anything. I don't
think there's anything wrong with that. Again, you're just trying
to get information with all this monitoring equipment that we
(35:06):
have now with the smart watches and the smartphones, and
it just seems like we're always monitoring the human body.
That this is one systemic or systematic way of sort
of screening some targeted organs. So if the live Share
ultrasound program has been offered to you, sounds like a
(35:27):
good deal to me, to be honest with you. They
look at the blood flow in your legs, and again the.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Order your heart I believe, and the artery.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Your kidney could be a couple of other areas that
they look at. But again they a lot of times
we'll find some good things that we can kind of
stay on top of. Otherwise we wouldn't even know it existed. Again,
I don't think insurance companies involved with this particular program. Again,
when working with insurance companies, they normally have guidelines on
(36:00):
if a doctor can order the test, and if it
doesn't meet the guideline, then they will not pay for
the particular test to be done. And again everyone listening.
There is a market out there for just paying out
of pocket, as they say, for any test that you
want to get done.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Blood test, X rays.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
There is a what they call out of pocket cash
price for most of these tests and these procedures, so
that if you do have the funds, you have the means.
If insurance company doesn't want to pay for it, you
can a lot of times negotiate a cash based price
with the facility of choice. They know there's a market
(36:42):
out there and they want your business, they will sort
of negotiate a price with you. So don't ever think
because you don't have insurance you can get medical care,
because that's not true. There is a lot of medical
care being done out there with no insurance involved. If
phone lines are open eight nine to six klvy I
one hundred three three zero kalo via, I'd be in
on a last break, all.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Right, welcome back to doctor V Medical.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Our phone lines open eight nine six kV I want
to hundred three three zero Kalova. At the end of
the show, time goes by so so quickly. I want
to thank the callers and the listeners for listening to show.
Remember if there's a topic that you would like to
uh listen to or you'd.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Like me to discuss.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Just call the station and leave your message, or you
can call my office four O nine three four seven
three six two one and you can leave a message
with my staff and we'll be sure to talk about
that and chat about that. I normally talk and chat
about topics that are kind of on my mind or
that may have happened the previous week. That sort of
(37:56):
sparked my interest in maybe relaying that information too. You
remember the show for you, just trying to give you
a doctor's insight into what does all of this stuff
mean and how things are really happening throughout the day,
just a different perspective on maybe what you might see
somewhere else, just to simplify it and help you make
it make sense so that you can digest it and
(38:20):
make the right decisions for you and your family so
again you can stay alive and be healthy and just
enjoyed life. You know, who really wants to be inundated
with a ton of meds and be at the hospital
all the time and having to go to doctor visits
is just you know, it's really a little depressing to
some degree when you like that. And sometimes, yes, bad
things happen to good people even though they're doing the
(38:42):
right thing. They've been to their doctor's visits or taking
the right medicines, and we still sort of have these
events happen. So that can't happen. But certainly for most
of us, if we're just doing the right things and
doing our part a lot of times, it can significantly
significantly reduce your chances of being ill or being sick
(39:04):
and having to loize a healthcare system which again not perfect.
There's no perfect system in the world. Yeah, I don't
understand that right, very complicated, complex, multi layered system that
we have here in this country to provide healthcare, and
you know, it always needs constant adjustment and constant improvement.
(39:27):
And this is what healthcare providers are doing every single day.
This is what the industry is doing every day. And
we have gotten better and things are better in a
lot of ways, but certainly in terms of who's going
to pay for it and how it's financed, that's a
big question and that's for our policy makers to help
(39:47):
us try and figure that out. But you can do
your part right every single day when you wake up,
you can do your part. You're the person who can
control that, and in my opinion, it comes down to
what you're putting in your mouth. That is where it
starts every single day. So do your part to limit
(40:08):
your knee, limit your exposure to the healthcare system by
eating the right food items, drinking the right food items,
and avoiding those food items and beverage items which have
been linked to diseases and making you sick. And the
informations out there just sort of have to start. And again,
a lot of times in talking with my patients, I
(40:29):
try to let them know, hey, it's not going to
get done in two or three days. This is more
of a marathon, it's not a sprint. So just make
one simple step, one different choice at a time, without
trying to change all these things. Especially if you are smoking,
maybe have a bad diet as well.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
For me, it's got to be the smoking. Just work
on that first.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Then we'll get to the bad diet later, just because
I have seen just how smoking just oh so destructive
to the human body that that's really their priority is.
You've got to try and figure out how not to smoke,
and then we can get to the diet later. And
then if it's a diet issue.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
If you're drinking sugary beverages, you're eating a lot of
ultra processed food. Hey, let's just cut out. There's sugar
beverages for right now. Leave everything else the same. Just
drink water, maybe get some iced tea, don't put any
sugar in it, and we'll work on the diet later.
So a lot of times just to digest it. Let's
just start with one thing first and then we can
(41:31):
work in the other things later. Again, with it being
a marathon and the human body is so forgiving a
lot of times, you just got to give it a
chance and we'll take care of you anyway. Thank you
for joining for the edition of the show. Remember, don't
drink a drive, eat some fastals, drink more water.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
We'll see you guys next week. Take care beautiful day
to day. By the way,
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