a post of randomness.

1. 2 Things my patients learned this week that I could have told them ahead of time...
* a gallon of alcohol for a week straight is a bad idea.
* urinals work better when you take the lid off... otherwise the urine
goes flying. possibly hitting the nurse.

2. I was catching up on my ana-recommended news articles this morning (okay... afternoon. I don't do mornings) and I found a couple that were interesting.
* Huntington Hospital upgrades nurses' communications
how awesome would it be to have the hospital give you an ipod touch? I can't
tell if every nurse just gets one or it you pick them up when you get to work,
but still. Something I can pretty much guarantee my hospital will never do.
*For Heart Health, Focus on Risk Factors
At first I thought this would be one of those articles I would make fun of (like
the one I read last week that said something to the effect of NEWS!! WE HAVE
DISCOVERED THAT OBESITY INCREASES HEART RISK!! because I totally didn't know
that!!) but this one was actually interesting. we have been putting more and
more patients on statins, even when their cholesterol is normal, because it has
been proved to have protective qualities in addition to lowering lipids. I wish
I could find a good patient-friendly article to hand out to patients regarding
this, because it is a lot of the younger patients who come in (by young I mean
40-50yo)that we do this for, and they want to know why, and the patient drug
information we print and give still focuses mainly on cholesterol levels.
Decreasing overall heart risk is a good thing, and sometimes a simple medication
is good thing. (however, as the article says, if the only thing wrong is high
cholesterol and your overall risk is low, then don't look to medications to
change it. Work on diet and exercise first. People want easy answers, even if
they aren't the best long term solutions. (I wish I could find the article I
read a couple of months ago about this subject... hence the blogging about this
one, keep it easy to find.)

And in honor of it being wear red for women's heart health awareness day here are a couple of articles on warning signs and symptoms for heart attacks in women. Notice that chest pain is usually last on the list, if it even makes the list. Also notice that heart disease is the number one killer of women, and it gets one day of red as opposed to breast cancer which gets an entire month of pink. Also notice that the risk for heart attacks is highest in the years leading up to and away from menopause, because of the hormonal changes.
hidden signs in women
Women's heart health (good website with lots of info...)


So, in conclusion... if you are a woman age 40-60 you have increased risk, chest pain doesn't always happen and is often the last symptom, and extreme fatigue and flu-like symptoms are often the first. Know your risks, know your body... stay alive. i tell my patients all the time that my number one goal is for them to keep breathing and their heart to stay beating.

That being said I am now going to get off the couch and go hit the gym.