Dr Levine's Medical Hour 11/09/25--topics include low blood pressure

• 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.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right. Good morning Southeast Sex is Internet radio listeners.
Good morning. This is Dark Levine, your host of the
Dark Levine Medical Hour. I'm here live in the suits
of kov I. Hear in Beaumont, Texas, across the street
from Park to them all every Saturday, I less. I'm off.
We had an off weekend last week, but phone lines

(00:20):
are open eight nine to six kalv I one eight
hundred three three zero klv I. We're trying to give
you some answers about healthcare and to make things a
little bit easier for you and your family to make
decisions about how to stay alive and what's right, what's wrong,
how much is enough, how much is too little. It's

(00:44):
very confusing out there, even for healthcare professionalists like myself
who listen to this stuff all day long, and we
do it all day long. Sometimes it is confusing. There
is not a clear answer or a clear solution to
the problem at hand, or even if you have a
physical symptom, sometimes it's unclear what is going on, and

(01:09):
you have to be comfortable with the concept of reassessment.
Get reassessed right, go back in and get checked out.
But hopefully your Saturday morning has been going well. As
the weatherman says, this upcoming week should be cooler. This
is normally our most festive time of year. The weather

(01:30):
is cooler, that heat wave is over with. We're out
of dangers for hurricanes, thankfully, didn't have to deal with
that this year. That's always scared during this time of year.
It just a hurricane season comes about. So we're heading
into our winter and we'll see if we get some
snow this year. We have had bits and bouts of

(01:54):
snow flurries over the years, just for a day or
two and rex havoc because we know not to act
when it snows and the weather gets pretty slippery out
there in terms of cars and walking and falling and
getting those leg fractures, arm fractures when you slip and

(02:16):
fall in the ice. So it's got its own challenges.
So we'll see what happens in the year. But we're
here for you. Give us a call. We'd love to
hear from you two way radio. Remember this is also
our respiratory virus infection time of year where we sort

(02:37):
of see a spike of respirator infections. But you know
we're in the month of November and I haven't really
seen a big spike yet. To be honest with you,
I'm not quite sure why not. We normally have started
to see a big time up swing without respiratory infections,

(02:57):
but I haven't seen it yet. Maybe or maybe January
we'll start to see that. It could be because of
the increased awareness increased utilization of vaccines. That would be
my personal bias as it pertains to that. Again, I
wasn't really talk to that much when I was in

(03:19):
medical training about the importance of vaccines, but I really
do think that they hope control the spread of viral infections.
And again we talk a lot about cardiovascal disease cancer,
but infections do a lot of damage to elderly patients

(03:42):
as you get older, infections is a big reason why
you might have to be hospitalized. You know, Grandpa was
doing fine two days ago. Now all of a sudden,
they're confused, they have fever, they are severely weak, and
depending on how severe disinfection will go or how severe

(04:03):
it is at the time of presentation, it can be
pretty significant and life threatening. So vaccines don't help with
all infections, but certainly some common infections. Again, the respiratory
stuff the flu. Pneumonia is a term we use to

(04:24):
describe infection of the lung tissue now that could be
viral or bacterial. We do know of a few viruses
that cause pneumonia. We're familiar with those right, covid, influenza A,
influenza B, and we do have medications for those three

(04:44):
or two groups of viruses. There's medication Packslovid for covid
and Tammi flu for influenza A and B, and most
doctors' offices and minor cares of yours have fast testing
EQUIPM to determine if you have that also. But there's
a whole host of viruses out there that we do

(05:06):
not test for that can cause respiratory infections. However, we
don't have direct medications for them, so it normally is
just supportive care while we get through through that. But
we try to hit the main organisms that tend to
cause most of the infections as one gets older. So

(05:30):
that's why we promote the pneumonia which is called prevnar
pruv nar prevnar. I think we're up to thirteen now
or maybe even twenty and keeps growing as the manufacturing
and production of vaccines gets cleaner, more efficient, and more effective.

(05:52):
That is again always in the background, humming, trying to
generate these vaccines very quick so that we can meet
the demands of what infections are going on out there.
It's pest control basically, just pest control, and there are
more people that get vaccinated, the better it is for

(06:12):
the whole community. So maybe that's why we haven't seen
the big rise of respiratory infections yet, because I do
feel like there has been a because of COVID. There
is a heightened conversation about vaccines and I think more
people are buying into it. However, we still have those

(06:33):
that are concerned about the vaccines, especially COVID. There's still
a lot of tension in my experience when I bring
up COVID, there's a lot of tension that says, no,
we're not going to take that. And it's again because
of the information out there. That's why we love this
country so much. We can access a lot of information

(06:57):
to make it informed this city vision about whether or
not personally we want to take a certain drug or
a certain procedure. We call that informed consent as well.
If you get a surgical procedure, we don't necessarily do it.
With medications, however, right most of them, you go to

(07:18):
the doctor's office, they give your prescription and you take it. Right.
That's almost like consent to do something which could potentially
harm you. And there's no signing of paperwork like there
is for an operation if you've never had an operation.
Most of the time, the surgeon or a nurse that

(07:38):
represents the surgeon, we'll bring this paperwork by and sort
of explain to you the risks of this procedure, and
you have to signd off on it, basically saying I
get it, I understand that this might not be perfect,
that it's no one's fault, just man, this can happen,
but I still need the procedure, still want to procedure,

(08:01):
and I still consent to the procedure. We don't really
do that much for medications, however, I guess maybe chemotherapy
are more aggressive medications. Maybe these immunomodulators, these what they
call biological agents for some of these autoimmune diseases or

(08:21):
inflammatory diseases like sooyatic crisis or lupus, are inflammatory bio
disease like ulteratifical litis, Krohn's disease. These what they call
biological agents that are used, which are strong, which affect
the immune system to sort of tamper it down so
that it's not so hyper. Obviously, the goal is to

(08:45):
just affect a certain part of the immune system but
not increase your risk of other complications or other adverse fractions.
But it's possible. So yeah, in form consent, you sign
the paper, say, and I understand that this might ha
me when it's really trying to help me, but it
could harm me. So let me let everybody know I

(09:06):
get it, but I still need this medication. So and
even if it's some sort of major surgery, if you're uncomfortable,
certainly try and get a better understanding of what is
happening before you sign off on it. I mean, every
surgeon I know wants you to agree to the operation
before they do the operation. If there's any discomfort about that,

(09:29):
then they normally will postpone the surgery and not do
the surgery. Because we all know that even every every
day these operations are happening. For the most part, everything
goes as plan, but periodically just get some issues after
the surgery that we have to deal with, whether it
be bleeding or infection. Same thing with medications. Not trying

(09:51):
to hate on the surgeons. Good people out there doing
good work, even doctors like me. I'm not a surgeon,
but I'm a medical doctor. We're prescribing medicines all the
day long, and yes, unfortunately these medicines can cause home
blood pressure medicines. We prescribe these just like we don't
even think about it. We just do it. But every
now and then it can cause high potassium, it can

(10:13):
cause kidney failure. Antabotics, you know, we try to honestly,
over the past twenty I've been doing this for over
twenty years. Is amazing that I'm in I'm in this
game for twenty years plus. And antabotics. You know, we've
tried to lean ourselves down in terms of using these products,

(10:37):
but it just seems like there's more opportunity to use
these medications every day and again because of the fact
that we're gaining our success or getting or were successful
with cardiovascal disease, we're successful with cancer, patients are able
to stay alive longer than their seventies, eighties, nineties. Infection

(10:57):
again becomes a big issue. So we're prescribing a lot
of antibiotics every single day in the office, in the hospital.
These drugs can cause harm. Even though people love antabotics,
say feel like antibotics can cure just about everything. You
start feeling bad. I mean, the first thing you think about,

(11:17):
I need some antabotics. I mean, you don't even know
what's wrong, right, you come into the office, you go
to the monarch. I need some antabotics. I know it's
one I want, and that's what I want. And it's
the weekend and I need this stuff right even though
it could be something totally different. We have to do
our evaluation. But I've seen antibiotics do harm. Rashes, vomiting, dizziness,

(11:43):
that ill fated issue we call c difficultlitis where you
develop a lot of diarrhea and abdown on pain, can
get severely dehydrated, cause kidney failure, little blood pressure can
start causing injury to other organs. It can lead you
in the hospital for several days. I mean, this stuff

(12:03):
can do it. But for the most part, with all
these antibotics we're handing out every day, most people take it.
They get better, no issues, And that's how it is
with most of the human endeavors. Out there in terms
of the medical world. Everything goes the way it's supposed
to go, and everybody's happy, but man, we got to
deal with that every single day. We're trying to keep
it to a minimum, and honestly, that's how all of

(12:26):
the practitioners out there decide which medications we're going to use. Again,
I'm talking about the medical world. There are certain parts
of the medical world that are more rigid, such as
the oncology world. They have very sort of rigid decision
making trees that tell them do this and do that,
don't do this, don't do that, just because of the

(12:49):
information that they've received on the studies of researching all
sorts of cancers. The medical world, the one I'm in,
is a little bit more flexible and we have a
lot of choices. It's not so rigid. So we have
obviously guidelines, as we call them, guidelines that are put
out by the experts of the field of the day.
They meet every year or so, and they have these

(13:10):
big conferences where they sort of review all the medical
literature of the day and then they make recommendations on
the standing guidelines. And these guidelines we access through our
computer or our phone, or a watch. Right, If we
have a question about something, we go to these websites
and we look and read very quickly, what is the

(13:34):
latest understanding, the latest recommendation as it pertains to treating
this particular disease process, So which medicine is recommended? How long?
All of these sorts of things great, great resource, But
after a while you sort of have a bread and
butter volume of decision making that you make every day. Again,

(13:57):
it works for most people, and you sort of figure
out which medicines do the best for you and which
ones cause the most complications for you, and you sort
of stay away from those that cause problems and you
prescribe the ones that do. I mean, it's pretty simple.
We're human too. We want to get through the day
as easy as possible and as problem free as possible.

(14:21):
But again, working as a physician, a healthcare professional, nurse practitioner,
physician assistant, it's sort of difficult to get away from
problems just because, again, things don't go the way they're
supposed to, and that's just sort of the way the
system is. That we try to keep that to a minimum,
even when it comes to prescribing a little simple medication
like a blood pressure medication. You go in, your blood

(14:42):
pressure is high, you want the medication, We give it
to you, and then you end up in the er
because you passed out. You know, the medicine was too strong,
or your heart starts beating rapidly, or caused you to
throw up and vomit and you couldn't and so you
had to go to the er, which is a lot
of times. Why when patients come in, I don't really

(15:05):
want to change a whole lot just because anytime you
introduce a new medicine or you change a medicine, there's
that potential for an adverse reaction to occur. And again,
my goal every single day making all these decisions is
to yes, keep you out of the hospital, make you
feel as neutral as possible. It's every physician's goal, that's

(15:25):
every surgeon's goal. They want to operate, get in, get out,
and get you home the next day or the next
couple of days without any harm, any injury. But I
just can't control that grimlin that's always running around messing
up things. Anyway. Phone lines are open eight nine to six,
scale Van one eight hundred three three zero kale with you.

(15:46):
I just sitting here chatting about healthcare. Give us a call.
Give We'll be back in two minutes. All right, welcome
back to the doctor Lavine in medical our phone lines

(16:09):
are open eight nine to six k lvi when in
one hundred and three to three zero klvi two way radio,
sitting here chatting about healthcare, vaccines, and certainly one question
I get all the time is how do we lower
our risk or prevent dementia from happening? Just memory loss.

(16:31):
That becomes a huge, huge issue as one gets older,
when you start losing your memory. A lot of people
come in very very concerned about that and what do
I do? How do I prevent it? And there are
some dietary supplements out there on the market that seem
to have caught attention of a lot of my patients

(16:52):
that seems to be very popular. And always get that
question whether or not it works or not, or should
I try it or not? And what I say about
most of these dietary supplements, if you listen to my show,
you understand that is that a lot of times the
dietary supplement world, the way it works, the way the
laws work, they really do not have to study it

(17:14):
to a certain high degree to really get the information
that prescribers like myself need to help patients make those decisions.
So a lot of times that information is not available.
I understand that if you go to the website, they
might have some testimonials and there might be some basic information,
But in order for prescribers like myself who look at

(17:39):
medicines and prescribe medications, it's got to reach a certain
level of intensity in terms of the type of studies
that we're done. And most of the time these studies
are not done to that degree, which because they don't
have to understand that studies are expensive, they take a
long time to complete, and at the end of the

(17:59):
day day the studies might not support the agenda that
they have in terms of these dietary supplements. So a
lot of times the information does not exist, and that
would go for other dietary supplements out there. It seems
like every year therees a new one on the market.
You know, a pack of tablets, a pack of capsules,

(18:22):
very good packaging, normally very interesting exciting names, and when
you take it out of the package, it looks good
and there's normally some sort of story or narrative attached
to this product that is promoted by maybe some familiar faces,
maybe someone you know in the media, again, just a

(18:47):
way to try and connect with you because they know
patients out there are struggling and are concerned about their health.
But as we've talked about before, sometimes it's difficult to
find a solution to be healthy and we're looking for
something quick, fast and easy to achieve that. And my
argument as a healthcare professional is that, unfortunately that's just

(19:12):
not how the human body works in the sense that
if you don't do certain basic things correctly, it's, in
my opinion, of fantasy to think that you can just
go to a website and get a product over the
counter that is supposed to sort of overcome all the

(19:32):
things that you're not doing and then make you more
healthy than the next guy or next girl who's not
doing it. So that's I guess my point. And a
lot of times I don't really want to take the
wind out of someone's sales. If they believe in something,
they've tried it it works for them. So a lot
of times if a patient wants to try it, I

(19:53):
normally have no problem with my patients trying get most
of the ingredients of these docters supplements, they tend to
be very benign, very neutral. Normally are non toxic and
will not generate any sort of toxicity issues. But again
sometimes things happen. I've recently treated some patients who were

(20:16):
taking some dietary supplements over the kind of supplements and
developed significant liver injury where they started having nausea and vomiting,
got really sick and had to be hospitalized for a
few days, and during that time their liver tests were
very high. It caused some inflammation of the pancreas. As

(20:40):
you know, the liver and the pancreas are part of
the digestive system. The liver in particular is a huge,
huge blood filter, meaning that a lot of blood flow
goes through the liver. It is a big filter, meaning
it cleans the blood. And so most anything and everything
that you drink, eat, swallow, consume, orally or even intravenously topically,

(21:07):
it will be processed at some point through the liver
and if deliver doesn't like it, maybe it's some ingredient
or component that your body doesn't like it, it'll generate
inflammation of the liver. And when the liver is inflamed.
It's normally not a painful issue, but you do feel
very very ill, just because the liver is an extremely

(21:30):
extremely important organ in terms of making your body work.
You know, we don't have a liver machine like we
have a dialysis machine for kidney failure, or we have
a lung machine for lung failure. So far, the medical
world anywhere has not been able to come up with
a liver machine. So a lot of times when your
liver stops working, man, we don't have a really a

(21:54):
lot of specific things to make deliver heal. We just
sort of have to step back and give your liver
for time to heal and just provide what we call
supportive care as your liver is trying to repair itself.
And thank god, it's a it's a strong organ. It
it heals very rapidly, almost like the skin is. It's

(22:15):
it's very tough and can take a lot of beating
before it just shuts down. It's designed that way. But again,
these supplements, these doctor supplements that you see, I have
seen it cause harm. So you still have to be
careful with that. And a lot of paces again are
looking for something quick, easy, fast that they can take

(22:38):
to give them some confidence that they are doing what
they can to stay alive, to stay healthy, and to
stay out of the doctor's office. And again I think, hey,
you can try that. But certainly, in my opinion, it's
sort of a fantasy to think that you can be sedentary,
you can be overweight, you can not eat the right foods,

(23:03):
and to think that all I have to do is
buy this product that is going to erase the things
that I'm not doing. It's just not real, right, It's
sort of made up. And I understand sort of the
idea of thinking that that might happen. But I'm saying,
based on my experience and what I see every day,

(23:25):
you have to do the basic things right. And again
number one is you have to put in the right fuel. Right.
You got to put in the right ingredients in your
body to make your work. And it sort of makes sense,
you know, anytime if you're a baker, you're a cook
or a chef, right, you're trying to get the best

(23:45):
ingredients into the product so that end of the day
it tastes well. Are you're doing some repairs to your
house or you're doing some repairs to your car, right,
your priority is you want the best right, you want
the best doctor, you want the best hospital. It's just
common sense, and so as it pertains to the human body,

(24:06):
that's how you should be thinking or prioritizing your decision
making anytime you eat or drink something. Is this good
for me? Is this not good for me? Is this
product going to generate illness or sickness? And again, I
understand a lot of times the products that are good
for us seem to be a little bit out of reach,
maybe financially. Again, going back and forth with the grocery

(24:30):
store all the time, I mean, my god, it's so
time consuming to have to go and get fresh food
all the time. Plus it's hitting that pocketbook. We're looking
for something that we can get from the grocery store
and maybe hang on to it for several weeks and
not have to go back and forth, and it's going
to last a long period of time. And again that's

(24:50):
while a lot of times the whole food industry has
been able to generate some solutions for us where we
can get food, get beverages that kind of hang out
for a while. They're preserved, I guess, is what I mean.
But again, those things that they were put in the
substances and the chemicals that they're putting in the foods

(25:12):
and the beverages that we are eating and consuming. Scientists
a lot of research out there suggesting that it does
generate some illness and disease, and if you don't feel well,
you might need to make some changes in your dietary habits. Again,
it's complicated, but certainly for me, it seems to be

(25:34):
fairly straightforward, as one thing that I recommend to most
patients is simply avoiding consuming sugar in your beverages. A
lot of people out there are drinking sugar and their
beverages every single day, whatever that is. And even the
diet soda beverage industry has come under some concern that

(25:56):
the things that are putting in these beverages are not
so hot for you either. So stick to that water, right,
it's the best beverage in the world. Yeah, it's boring, absolutely,
So try to put some lemon in it, or some lime,
or there's a lot of ways to naturally flavor the
water so that it's more exciting and not so boring

(26:19):
for you. Because as you get older, you have to
spend more time doing your part to stay alive and
stay healthy, and it starts with that diet anyway. Phone
lines are open eight nine six kova one hundred three
three zero kill over. Yeah, I'll be back in two minutes.

(26:51):
All right, welcome back to the doc Lev Medical. Our
phone lines are open eight nine to six kova one
hundred and three to three zero. Koever, I give us
a buzz. Love to hear from you. One thing that
certainly happens as we get older is our body does
become a little bit more chaotic in the sense that
the vital organs that help keep us alive become a

(27:12):
little bit more chaotic in terms of how they work.
And the cardiovasco system obviously is top on the list.
And one thing that I've kind of started recommending to
some of my patients who are older is to purchase
one of these watches that you can wear on your wrist.

(27:32):
Reason being is a lot of times as we get older,
we start getting those what we call palpitations, right sort
of that sensation of our heart is thumping or stumping
out of rhythm, or it's just not a normal regular
sensation that we're accustomed to, and a lot of times

(27:52):
it kind of comes and goes initially, and sometimes it
can last all day, and you can have other associated
symptoms such as dizziness or chest pain or shortness of
breath with it, and you go into the doctor's office
to sort of get checked out, and other than the story,
you really don't have any other information to give the practitioner,

(28:14):
which is fine. But again with all of the sort
of monitoring equipment that's now available to the American public,
these watches are pretty good as it pertains to your
heart rate and your heart rhythm right the rhythm in
terms of how it's beating, because again getting older is

(28:36):
the biggest risk factor for sort of cardiovascular issues to
start coming up. We're familiar with plaque formation in the
blood vessel wall that's what generates the heart attacks and
the strokes, but we're also talking about the electrical aspect
of the heart in terms of how it's beating. So
you start getting to some rhythm issues and some of

(28:58):
your symptoms again may be power ptations or chest pain,
and these watches are getting pretty good, even the apps
on a phone. They have some apps now that you
can use if you are someone concerned about any sort
of heart irregularity or if your heart is beating too slow,

(29:18):
too fast. Again, this stuff happens a lot to elderly
patients of course, but even someone who's young, they can
have heart rhythm problems as well. These watches and these
phones are offering the ability for patients to monitor themselves
and Christmases around the corner. If you have an elderly patient,

(29:40):
you have your mom, your dad, a loved one that
you're concerned about. Maybe they have cardiovast disease, maybe they're
having symptoms, you can purchase one of these watches. Again,
they're not that expensive based on my understanding, and just
sort of put the watch on. As far as I know,
there might even be one watch that checks your blood
pressure as well. You know, we have the blood pressure

(30:04):
device that's out there versus the one that goes around
your arm. I guess my preference would be the one
that goes around your arm. It tends to be more accurate.
That's with all the blood pressure studies out there. Is
normally the cuff around your bicep. But again, we're just
trying to get information to the patient and to the

(30:26):
practitioner to make some decisions. And these blood pressure wrist
cuffs or even a blood pressure watch. Again, I want
to say it's out there, is available, super super convenient, right,
just because again you just have to strap on a
watch and it can monitor your heart rate and your
rhythm and your blood pressure just walking and I'm sure

(30:49):
it records everything and you can download things and look
at grafts. So again, heading into Christmas, that might be
a very good Christmas gift for someone you're concerned about.
Even the phone. Again, they have apps where you can
sort of put your hand or your fingers on certain
parts of the phone. Again, it can look at your

(31:09):
heart rate, your heart rhythm. I don't think it can
measure blood pressure yet, but it's probably the technology is
catching up where it's possible to do that. Again, the
ease and convenience of interacting with these devices might be
a good stocking stuff in my opinion, because a lot
of patients come in now we have some monitoring devices

(31:33):
that we can put on you if you've ever had palpitations,
or you've ever passed out, or just for a general workup.
Sometimes we will place these what we call whole term
monitors holter, but certainly they can be a little bit
more cumbersome. You have to hook it up to your
chest and you have to wear it for a day
sometimes three days. Again, it can just be a little

(31:56):
obtuse and doesn't wear very well. Again, if you just
had a watch man, I mean, how convene is that.
And again, a lot of my patients have picked up
their own cardiac irregularities just by using the watch. I
think it has an alarm on it, or it beeps
or it sounds. It lets you know that something is

(32:17):
it's wrong, it's not normal. Are they perfect, No, they're
not perfect. But again it's a nice ability to screen
those a little bit more at high risk for these
things that happen. Remember, the most common in my opinion
electrical cardiac a rhythm out there is called atrial fibrillation. Again,
age related. The older you get, the more risk of

(32:39):
you developing thing developing this atrial fibrillation, which is this
sort of chaotic electrical heartbeat of the top chamber of
the heart. Remember the heart is made of four chambers.
There's two on the bottom, two on the top. The
two on the top are called atria. And when this
chaotic regular electrical activity occurs in the atria, we're called

(33:05):
it atrial fibrillation. And again for most people, as it starts,
it's silent, you don't even feel it right. And then
as it advances, and this might take a year six months,
you start getting more symptoms, whether it be palpitations or
shortens of breath or you get dizzy. And these watches,

(33:27):
because of the monitoring ability of these watches, are picking
up these cardiac rhythmias sooner than later. And it can
be life saving because, again, as I mentioned, most of
the time, this atrifibrillation is silent. People don't feel it,
they don't know they have it. But nonetheless, when the
heart is beating chaotically like that, the blood does not

(33:50):
flow as well through the heart chambers. And when the
blood does not flow as well as it should, it
can generate what we call a thrombus, which is basically
a small little blood clot boulder rock if you will,
that is sort of bouncing around in the top part
of the heart, and God forbid, it gets ejected out

(34:14):
of the heart chamber into your blood circulation. That little
clot boulder thrombus, as we call it now is called
an embalis will go somewhere and plug up a blood
vessel somewhere and not allow blood to flow to a
vital organ, in particular your brain or any other vital organ,

(34:35):
your spleen, your liver, your finger, your leg. I mean,
it just finds somewhere to go. A lot of times
it hits the brain, just because when the heart ejects
the blood, a lot of blood flow goes directly to
your brain because of the two big blood vessels coming
off there, the carotid arteries. The brain gets a lot
of blood flow, and it's in close proximity to the

(34:58):
hearts a lot of times, and that clot gets ejected. Boom,
it goes right to the brain. And a lot of
people present with strokes, big strokes, new on set, nothing
ever happening. All of a sudden, they can't talk, they
can't see, they can't walk. It's almost like flipping a
light switch. And they come in, hopefully sooner rather than later.

(35:22):
We do a checkup. In Boom, there's the hual fibrillation
sitting there. Nobody knew about it. They even went to
their doctor's office three weeks ago, had a normal exam.
Everything was good, labs are good, You're gonna live forever,
that sort of thing, and boom trire fibrillation was hiding
because a lot of times it comes and goes. But
if you have that watch there or the phone there,

(35:45):
it might pick up on this irregular heartbeat and heart
rhythm such that you can go in get properly tested,
and get on top of that so that that sort
of thing doesn't happen. So it's something that I've started
recommending to patients is to get these watches and maybe

(36:06):
download app on their smartphone so that they can monitor
themselves to see what's going on, to check for this
age of fibrillation, and even to check for a low
heart rate we call that braded cardia because a lot
of times in your heart is beating slow, you don't
feel well, you feel sluggish, may even pass out. You
know something's different, And again that can come and go

(36:29):
as well. But if you have this watch on, I
think it does have the ability to tell you if
your heart rate is beating too low, it'll sound off.
It's a great, great tool and a great great gift
for someone that you know that you concern about, maybe
they already have cardiovascal disease, because again, one cardiovascal disease

(36:51):
tends to lead to another and it's just one of
those things I think will be a good idea if
you're looking for a gift out there as we're going
into the holiday season. Anyway, phone lines are open eight
nine to six KALV three three zero KLV. I'll be
back in the last break. All right, welcome back to

(37:31):
the Doctor Lavine Medical. Our phone lines are open. Heading
towards the end of the show, an hour goes by
so so fast. Remember, if there's a topic that you
would like me to talk about, you can either call
my office, you can call in for a question, or
you can call the radio station and provide that information
and we can certainly chat about that. Again, the genesis

(37:53):
of the show is to try and clarify some of
this confusion out there and to just get you some
basic information about what to do with not to do.
So give us a buzz. But in speaking of devices
that are good out there again, one of the other
devices that we are promoting are these continuous sugar monitors

(38:14):
or CGM or continuous glucose monitors that are now out
there more affordable, easier to use. The technology has made
it more user friendly so that if you do have
diabetes or if you don't have diabetes, you just want
to check your sugar and see what happens. This device
is out there again, another good device that if you

(38:35):
have a loved one that has diabetes or wants to
check their sugar in a regular basis, man help them out.
These things are super, super convenient. Just put this little
wafer on your arm. You wear it all day and
it communicates with your phone and you can very rapidly
easily see what your sugars are, how they react to

(38:57):
certain food items. A lot of patients are asked me,
is it okay to eat this? Is it okay to
drink that? And with this device you can find out
if it's good for you are not good for you.
And again you have to understand everybody's system is different,
so that just because your friend eats it or your
wife eats it and drinks and nothing happens, doesn't mean

(39:18):
it's not going to happen to you. And with the
use of this device, you can very easily see what
happens when you eat something normally, just check it two
three hours later and see if it spikes or sugar
and see if it doesn't. And this device has been
out for several years. There's a couple of there's about
two main ones that we use, the dex comdx com

(39:43):
as well as the Freestyle Libre. This is one that
we use. Hey, Leonard, how can we help you real fast?

Speaker 2 (39:50):
I'm calling connection my blood pressure. About a month ago
the doctor putmeal on iron pills. I just want tough
enough to handle it, and made me sick. What do
I do my the last time the last number was
one hundred and over sixty eight, and that just seems
I'm trying to get it higher? What do I do
about it?

Speaker 1 (40:07):
A lot of times, yes, Leonard, if you are taking
blood pressure medications, we normally just discontinue the medications. But
if you're not taking any medicines and your blood pressure
is low, there is a couple of medicines out there
that we can give you that kind of raises your
blood pressure. One is called florine f f L or

(40:27):
any f flora F. You take it twice a day.
And the other one is called mitodrine. Am I do
d ri i in. These are two medications we used
to make the blood pressure go up, and a lot
of times as we get older, just the electrical system
of the cardiovascal system doesn't work as well, and you

(40:49):
can get these low blood pressures, especially when you're standing
up that that can happen. It can generate some fatigue, dizziness.
So it is something that we do see.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
Okay, thanks for a guy.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
All right, Leonard would appreciate the phone call. And low
blood pressure. Honestly, if it's brand new, go into your
doctor's office. There's normally a big workup that has to happen,
just because there's a lot of diseases that can cause
low blood pressure, in particular cardio vascal disease. Right, So
normally you're going to need some blood work, We're gonna

(41:22):
have to look at all your meds, and we're normally
gonna have to do some X rays, in particular ultrasound
of your heart. Maybe don't ultrasound of your carotid arteries. Again,
the two big blood vessels that feed the brain that
come off the aorta, which is the big blood vessel,
the central blood vessel of the cardiovascular system. We normally

(41:42):
look at that and if all of that is negative,
then a lot of times we can add these two
medications Flora nef which basically causes the body to retain fluid,
helps keep it in your blood vessels to give the
blood vel some more volume so they can generate a

(42:02):
bigger blood pressure. And then the mido dream acts on
your central nervous system and certain receptors to sort of
tighten up the blood vessels so that your blood pressure
can go up as well. And you can be on
both of these, certainly under the supervision of a doctor
who's comfortable prescribing these medications. But we invariably run across

(42:26):
this particular issue again, the aging thing. Somebody lied to
his brother. Let me tell you, getting old as heard,
you have to really put your work in. It's not automatic,
it's not simple, and you got to do your part.
You gotta do your work. And again it's not all
about just getting some dietary supplement on the counter and
popping that in your mouth and going on. You've got

(42:47):
to eat right, you got to exercise, get your sleep,
don't smoke, and limit your alcohol consumption. Thanks for joinings
on the edition of the show Don't Drink and Drive.
We'll see you guys next week. God bless