Let it be known that I am on vacation. And it is winter And my wife is working. So…How bout some folly. It’s better than housework. I have always said that I was a nerd before being one was cool. See… Thus, this graph really grabbed my attention. Ahh…Things are so impermanent. Heh? JMM h/t […]
It is risky. Stay fresh. Avoid repeating yourself. Don’t rant. Never preach. These would be the ‘rules’ of supposedly good blogs. And, of course, doctors that dare to take a stance on health issues risk being perceived as pretentious. I get this. So it is with trepidation that I write a follow-up to last week’s […]
You may have heard that AF is a tough disease to understand. Questions far outnumber answers. What causes AF? Why do some not feel it at all, while others are incapacitated? What’s the best treatment? Drugs? Ablation? Surgery? No treatment? Should I take a blood thinner…and which one? Where should one go for the best […]
AF News Flash: Heart surgeons are on the case! An important trial comparing catheter ablation to surgical ablation for AF was reported at last month’s AHA meeting. The surgical ablation arm of the FAST trial used the newly-approved Atricure Synergy Ablation System. And onward goes the collegial tussle between heart doctors and heart surgeons. Before […]
The chart reads, “here for 6-month AF ablation follow-up.†My eyes track first to the palpitations box. None. Then the ECG. Regular. Good. That’s a relief. Sweet! Knowing he was free of symptoms and in regular rhythm, I bounced into the room. “How are you?” He looked well. Observe. Always observing, us doctors. I just got […]
Dear Endurance Athletes, Accept an apology in advance. You have endured so much from me. Sorry. Let’s at least start by agreeing that I can’t control the data. Yes, you guessed it. There is unfortunately more bad news pertaining to the deleterious effects of endurance exercise on the human heart. Again, I am sorry. Maybe […]
I didn’t mean to see it. A daughter’s email, signed by a professor, not, “sent from my iPhone,” but rather a quote from influential essayist James Baldwin. The words, arrhythmically repeating in my head, like an AM-radio song. Why won’t it stop? “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed […]
I was delighted when my friend, Dr Kevin Pho, accepted my recent post on statin drugs. As a ‘student’ writer, I was also happy to read more than a couple ‘robust’ comments. No worries here, bike racers and heart docs have thick skin. I penned six responses on the KevinMD post. The gist of the […]
Patients often ask what’s more important: exercise or losing weight? As winter rolls through the Northern Hemisphere, maintaining fitness seems a timely and relevant topic. Heck, maintaining or gaining fitness should always be a relevant matter! A recently published study seems worth a comment on Cycling Wednesday. In this math-heavy publication in the journal, Circulation, […]
My last post centered upon the funny-sounding word, ‘parallax.’ I was using it to describe how middle-age athletes see their sport. But it seems to me that parallax relates to healthcare policy. First, the definition: Parallax: an apparent change in the position of an object resulting from a change in position of the observer. Here […]