• You do not need to register if you are not going to pay the yearly fee to post. If you register please click here or log in go to "settings" then "my account" then "User Upgrades" and you can renew.

HuskerMax readers can save 50% on  Omaha Steaks .

Fun Things to Do In A Hospital Room

AzHusker said:
Kardia_Mobile_angled_Kardia-TA.jpg


Holy crap, that's amazing. My FIL would have benefited from one of these. He got more and more anxious every time the blood pressure machine gave a "no signal" message - and of course anxiety is just great for AFIB as we know.
Click to expand...

Yeah it gives you peace of mind. It won't give you a reading if your heart rate is 100 or higher. But generally, it will tell you there are no abnormalities. Which for someone like me who thinks every time I have an elevated heart rate I must be in AFib, that helps my paranoia.
 

HuskerSuperGenius said:
crab husker:
With your family history of early coronary disease, talk with your doctor about a coronary calcification cat scan. It will tell you yes or no whether you have coronary artery disease and it sounds like you need to know the answer to that question.

Lab, ECG and other tests only hint at the relative risk for this, where the CT tells t=you the actual answer. Then you know that you do or do not need to aggressively reduce your cardiovascular risk factors, take drugs to lower cholesterol, etc.

I didnt stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I am a retired Mayo Clinic Consultant in Hypertension and Nephrology.
Click to expand...
I got that calcification scam due to my lovely family history. So far so good for me.
 



HuskerSuperGenius said:
That's good to hear Native.

Mines negative too :).
Click to expand...
i started as a 9. With type 2 diabetes i was at 33 a coupla years ago (5 years later). Diabetes is a huge risk factor for coronary artery disease. Maybe better than family history of early heart attack, but not by much. I am not aware of a good study that ever compared/contrasted them.
 
Last edited:
Sorry to hear you're in the hospital. Don't plan on getting any rest. Hospitals are the worst for trying to rest. I once had nurses come in at 03:00 hrs to get my blood pressure.
 
izzycohen said:
Sorry to hear you're in the hospital. Don't plan on getting any rest. Hospitals are the worst for trying to rest. I once had nurses come in at 03:00 hrs to get my blood pressure.
Click to expand...

Thanks Izzy, but this thread was from last year at this time. I just revived it ( bad pun) to thank all of the people who kept me entertained while I was there.
 




Brew City Husker said:
I offered the nurse $100 if she could stay out of my room for 6 hours so I could sleep.
Click to expand...

The hospital is no place to get rest.

To my knowledge, coronary calcium CT is still in its infancy, and no risk/benefit has been worked out. It is certainly not recommended by the US Preventitive Medicine Task Force, which probably has the highest bar set for screening tests.

That isn't to say it isn't beneficial, especially for a certain subset of patients.

In my area, I don't ever see these being done. The cardiologists use stress echo, then if that shows anything, angiogram.
 
Husker Country Doc said:
The hospital is no place to get rest.

To my knowledge, coronary calcium CT is still in its infancy, and no risk/benefit has been worked out. It is certainly not recommended by the US Preventitive Medicine Task Force, which probably has the highest bar set for screening tests.

That isn't to say it isn't beneficial, especially for a certain subset of patients.

In my area, I don't ever see these being done. The cardiologists use stress echo, then if that shows anything, angiogram.
Click to expand...

Does this help:
The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association guidelines published in 2013 on cardiovascular risk assessment suggested that it would be reasonable to perform coronary calcium heart scans for people with a calculated risk of 5 to 7.5 percent or when "a risk-based treatment decision is uncertain."

Test is NOT in it's infancy, being done for more than 15 years, since that's when I had my first one.

Yes, it is not for everyone as it would be too expensive to do for people at low risk for coronary disease.

But remember Country Doc, a stress echo that is negative only tells you that the blockages you have (or don't have) are not significant the day you have the test. If you have chest pain six months later that doesn't mean you aren't having a heart attack due to blockages that got worse or due to clots that appeared on your blockages.

Each test answers a different question:

Coronary cat scan: do I have coronary disease? Yes or no and if I do then I better do something about it.
Stress echo: Is the chest pain I had yesterday due to severe coronary blockages (and I already know that I have blockages)? Yes: I need an angiogram for further information/therapy. No, great, now I need to work on making sure the blockages I know about don't get worse.
 
HuskerSuperGenius said:
for people with a calculated risk of 5 to 7.5 percent or when "a risk-based treatment decision is uncertain."
Click to expand...

Fairly small subset. 5-7.5% is a 53-58yo male with average cholesterol and no other risk factors.

Most of my patients go straight to maximally tolerated statin therapy (>7.5%). I always include the 10-year risk in my result letter to patients.

All I know is I don't see these tests being run a great deal in Central Nebraska. Maybe they are, and I just don't see the result, since I'm not the ordering physician. Maybe cardiologists want to keep the revenue stream in house, and do angiograms, rather than send the money to the radiogist, for the CT scan. I honestly don't know.

Screening tests are double-edged swords. They can catch more things than they should, and they miss some they shouldn't.
 



You must log in or register to reply here.

GET TICKETS


Get 50% off on Omaha Steaks

Back
Top