Hi, folks, Ima Frawde, CHC (certified home cardiologist) here to explain how to care for your heart at home.
It’s time for people to take back the care of their hearts from the cardiology industry and treat hearts as the natural organs that they are. Consider:
Animals don’t use cardiologists. Animals have existed for tens of millions of years despite the fact that animals in nature never use cardiologists. People are animals, too, so obviously we don’t need cardiologists, either.
If heart disease were really as big a problem as cardiologists claim, we wouldn’t be here. Cardiologists like to claim that literally hundreds of thousands of people each year require cardiac interventions. Really? Our ancestors didn’t have cardiologists and we’re still here.
All we need to do is eat and exercise like our paleolithic ancestors and care for our hearts with certified home cardiologists and everyone will be just fine.
What’s the difference between a CHC and an MD cardiologist? There are many, many important differences including:
Certified home cardiologists trust hearts. MD cardiologists act like people anybody could have a heart attack at any moment and that we must be prepared. Home cardiologists know that heart attacks are rare and that most of the time hearts work just fine.
Home cardiologists don’t do screening tests. Do you know that most people screened with tests like cholesterol levels and EKG’s DON’T actually have heart problems. It’s true; therefore you should reject any testing that might show you are at increased risk for heart problems.
Home cardiologists don’t pay any attention to risk factors. High cholesterol, abnormal EKG’s, obesity and smoking don’t make a patient high risk because they are just variations of normal.
Home cardiologists don’t play the “dead person card.” Instead of trying to scare you by claiming that heart attacks increase the risk of death, home cardiologists soothe their patients by insisting that there is no increased risk.
MD cardiologists do too many angioplasties and cardiac surgeries; home cardiologists do none. It is a well known fact that people who leave their heart care to home cardiologists have a much lower angioplasty rate and a much lower cardiac surgery rate. This dramatically reduces medical costs.
MD cardiologists do angioplasties and surgeries because they are rushing off to their golf games. Home cardiologists, on the other hand, take the time to watch your heart attack evolve.
Home cardiologists know that attitude is critically important. As our homebirth midwives sisters have taught us, merely mentioning complications causes them. That’s why we never ask our patients if they are having chest pain.
Chest pain is good pain. The heart is a muscle and like any muscle it may have pain when you exercise. Crushing chest pain is just a variation of normal. Plus, you know what they say: no pain, no gain.
Home cardiologists carry the same equipment as MD cardiologists. We carry drugs and oxygen, too, so what’s the difference?
The hospital is only 10 minutes away. MD cardiologists insist that if you are having crushing chest pain you should take a baby aspirin and call an ambulance. Why? You only need to go to the hospital if you are risk of dying of the heart attack, so there’s no reason to go to the hospital unless you your EKG flat-lines. Most of the time you don’t even need to take an ambulance. Your home cardiologist will just drop your unconscious body at the local emergency room.
And, the clincher:
People who have heart attacks die in the hospital, too. In fact MORE people die of heart attacks in a hospital cardiac care unit than at home.
If you can trust your baby’s life to a homebirth midwife, surely you can trust your own life to a home cardiologist. The reasoning is exactly the same.
hmmm errr well… yes… If you didn’t have to pay for health care would you have posted all of that? I’m not sure what a certified home cardiologist is, but if they were any good…the NHS would have them.
Whoosh…
The sound of a joke going straight over your head…
http://www.buzzfeed.com/antoniamalchik/my-pregnancy-almost-killed-me
“Pregnancy was natural, all my friends said. Pioneer women hadn’t used
painkillers. Women have been giving birth to healthy babies for
thousands of years without the help of doctors.”
“Because it’s hard to forgive myself for believing lines about pioneer
women bearing babies in midwinter, even though I’m well aware of what
their dismal survival statistics were, for pushing through the abdominal
pain and not insisting on seeing my obstetrician when I now know that
my son and I were tottering toward death.”
Hilarious!
LOL
Love it! This one is my favorite:
“Chest pain is good pain. The heart is a muscle and like any muscle it may have pain when you exercise. Crushing chest pain is just a variation of normal. Plus, you know what they say: no pain, no gain.”
Lol.
Animals do have cardiologists. I have a friend who’s a veterinary cardiologist for cats and dogs. So CHCs can’t even use that one.
Haha – love it!!! One of your best pieces 🙂
Babies die being born in hospital. Mother dies in childbirth. Had she given birth at home, she would have died also.
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Mother-Dies-Labor-Birth-Twins-New-York-City-Hospital-274541731.html
Why didn’t they do a cesarean?
The twins were NON-viable, less than 23-24 weeks, less than a pound each. At that gestation it isn’t actually a “cesarean section” but a “hysterotomy”, a very thick, difficult incision (because the uterine wall is still very thick and the uterus is still small, even with twins), that wouldn’t be expected to save the fetuses. Hysterotomy has a high complication rate (hemorrhage, hysterectomy), and there’s really no information given to tell us why this woman died or to indicate that a hysterotomy would have done her any good. This is a pretty unusual story. Doesn’t sound like a uterine rupture (since she delivered both fetuses vaginally), maybe a massive blood clot in the lung or amniotic fluid embolism?
It’s easy to be an armchair observer and ask “why didn’t they ____?” And maybe the clinicians involved could have done something differently, but maybe they did everything right and it was still an inevitable disaster. I’ve been at enough M&M and case reviews to know that sometimes patients still die even when they receive perfect care.
I figured that it was just insurmountably early for the babies, but had never heard that hysterotomy was contraindicated in the second trimester. Or that it wasn’t called a cesarean at that point.
She was in full blown labour with two non-viable foetuses. Premature labours are usually quick and easy because the cervix doesn’t have to dilate fully. At this point the lower segment hasn’t formed so risk of rupture is low as the scar isn’t stretched out the way it is later in pregnancy.
If you’re going to lose both babies anyway, the safest option for mum is VB, not a difficult abdominal surgery with higher risk of PPH, hysterectomy and rupture in subsequent pregnancies than a VB.
A hysterotomy would have been a riskier surgery for her than a D&X (i.e. partial birth abortion) if the family really wanted the safest surgical management for her, it would have been that.
The risk/benefit of each choice would have been different if the twins had been viable and the pregnancy further progressed, but at 22/23 weeks CS is probably not the safest option, even with two prior CS, and saving the babies wasn’t possible.
“Our ancestors didn’t have cardiologists and we’re still here.”
Ticks go through four different life stages, each of which requires a new host to provide a blood meal. Most ticks die waiting for a host to come along, before they actually reach the adult/breeding stage.
And yet, ticks are still here. Unfortunately.
Well, goddamn. Really? They need a new host at each stage? How have we not wiped them out?
Your comment is fascinating, so thank you, even though I’m now thinking more about ticks than I ever want to in my life, and waaay more than I ever want to think about them before bed.
Haha sorry, I just thought it was a great example of why nature doesn’t need all, or even most of a species to survive in order for that species to still be pretty prolific.
Very good point.
Hi everybody. I’ve been away from this site for a while, but I just thought I’d share this gem from the mothering.com unassisted childbirth forum: http://www.mothering.com/forum/306-unassisted-childbirth/1404337-going-cruise-8-month-pg.html
Highlights:
– Mom is pregnant with her sixth. She had a big family cruise scheduled before she got pregnant. The cruise line policy states that women who are earlier than 24 weeks need a note from their doctor to travel, and those beyond 24 weeks cannot travel at all. She’ll be about 32 weeks at the time of the cruise.
– Mom thinks this is just ridiculous. (It’s “discrimination,” apparently.) So her brilliant plan is to track down the midwife who delivered one of her babies years ago and ask her to lie and say she’s not 24 weeks yet.
– When mom is told how stupid this plan is, she doubles down. After all, she’s “positive” that nothing will go wrong. Why? Because she’s never had a premature birth before. She’s certain that she’s low risk, although she does not appear to have had any prenatal care. Oh, and never mind the fact that she’s had a UTI for several months that she’s been unsuccessfully “treating” with probiotics. (Why probiotics? Well, she’s allergic to antibiotics. Which antibiotics? All of them!)
– When someone pointed out that their 32-weeker needed a CPAP and artificial surfactant, she brushed that aside quickly. After all, they probably have a CPAP, and obviously it can be used on a preemie. In any case, “The most important thing a preemie needs is oxygen and warmth….both of which can be provided on the ship.”
– Is she concerned about being responsible for tens of thousands of dollars in bills for an evacuation or for any costs incurred by the cruise line as a result of her conscious attempt to defraud them? Nah. They could probably set up a zero-interest payment plan. Also, she’s pretty sure that no one at the cruise line will ever ask any questions about why a 32 weeker was born on the ship. Why? Because.
Absolutely beyond belief.
Oh, I also just wanted to take the opportunity to toot my own horn: I quit smoking since the last time I posted here! Thirty-three days without a single puff and feeling so much better! I’m in my early 30s, so I really hope that I stopped in time.
I always felt like a complete hypocrite for criticizing people for taking a 1/100 chance when I was setting myself up for a 50% chance or better of an early death. Thanks, Dr. Amy, for your posts pointing out the similarity between NCB nuttiness and the idiocy of tobacco use.
Sorry for going so off topic.
Congratulations! That’s good work on a hard job. You deserve to toot your own horn a bit.
Thanks, Elizabeth! I really appreciate your kind words! It certainly sucked for the first week or so, but it really hasn’t been as hard as I’ve convinced myself it ought to be. Now if I could only figure out why I did something so stupid for so many years…
Brava!! That is really hard to do…and you did it!
Nice work!
Good for you! Happy to see you back.
Oh no, you sing it from the rooftops!
Well done you!
Wow, what a great accomplishment!!
I quit for the last time three years ago! I was 32 and had been smoking off and on since I was fifteen. I feel a million times better now and am so glad I finally gave up the habit for good. You have every right to be proud of yourself, this is a huge accomplishment and as the weeks, months, and years go on you’ll be feeling so good and thanking yourself for finally making that choice.
Prematurity is not in her birth plan. Problem solved. Now if only those fools at the cruise line would listen.
She’s sure the cruise ship carries betamethasone. They could use an adult CPAP mask on a preemie. No response on surfactant.
I hope they whip out a pregnancy test at check-in and send her home.
And I guess their equipment stretches to premmie-sized chest drains for the pneumothorax caused by the adult-sized CPAP circuit? Surely.
And someone on the thread pointed out that if she gets a note from a doctor, she’ll be good to go. All the drama because she is too stubborn to get a doctor’s note. I remember reading posts about this idiot before…she was convinced she was having twins, but didn’t.
Did she used to go by Blessed Jess? I read this woman’s thread and can’t for the life of me figure out why she is so blasted selfish
Unfortunately, Blessed Jess hasn’t been the only UP/UCer to believe they are having twins (or even triplets). They claim to feel two head and two bums, and hear multiple heartbeats if they have their own Doppler.
And hopefully the baby will listen and not come early. 😛
One of my friends is a Dr on a Cruise ship. That is FAR from the craziest thing people will do to avoid cancelling or re-scheduling a holiday.
My cousin is a pilot. More people are born and die at 30,000ft than you would think.
My mom was on a SwissAir flight one time, and the flight attendants were worried about a passengers health at boarding. They asked if there was a doctor on board, so Mom volunteered herself, evaluated the guy, and said no, he shouldn’t fly. They got him off the flight, and the attendants said she’d be getting a thank you from the airline.
A week later, some hotshot surgeon did an emergency tracheotomy on a SwissAir flight, using a coathanger, some tubing, and alcohol from the drinks cart.
They sent Mom a keychain.
I think I saw that one on a documentary.
Like Macgyver for doctors.
There was a baby born on a Qatar Airlines flight. Her mother opted to call her Qatarina and the airline gave the child a lifetime of free flights.
Cruise ship Dr friend would like people who have just received terminal diagnoses to sit down and have the hard conversation with their family, rather than booking a cruise with all their nearest and dearest. He’s had to tell a lot of people that their relative is dying when they just thought they were on a nice holiday for no particular reason.
I know of one couple who lied about her due dates so she could fly to go back and have the baby with her parents nearer to her due date. That was OK, baby born on time…except the embassy and airline staff smelt a rat when she applied for travel documentation for a full term, healthy baby when her dates said that kiddo should have been
…should have been a micro preemie in a NICU and very unwell.
The authorities assumed she had faked the pregnancy and bought a baby and the black market. Only DNA testing and confessing that they had forged the EDC on the medical letters saved their bacon.
Wow. Did they have any kind of penalty?
No, because the airline wasn’t interested in pressing charges. By the time DNA testing, new flights, legal representation etc were paid for it was a very, very expensive piece of paper.
That. Is. NUTS.
And this is why I check for new content on this site every day and troll old threads for new comments. Dr. Amy’s posts are great but I read the coolest, funniest, most interesting things in the comments.
Unbelievable.. I read some of it and had to stop.. too much craziness..
Utter folly!
I just read this entire thread and this lady is as nutty as a squirrel turd. First, she thinks that a normal adult sized CPAP can be used on a 32 wk neonate, it cannot and should not be used on a premie. She is also assuming that the baby will spontaneously breathe at 32 wks, which it might or might not and a CPAP isn’t going to help if the baby isn’t breathing. She is also assuming that the doctor on board will know the adjustments to make to the CPAP(he won’t) or have the proper equipment to resuscitate a 32 wk neonate which he clearly won’t have because of the cruise lines 24 wk pregnancy cut-off. They will prob have an infant kit, but that isn’t going to work on a premie. Secondly, she has a chronic UTI and believes this is no risk to the baby or a cause for premature labor and that somehow pro-biotics (WTF?!) cured her infection.
Has she given out her dates and destination? I’d be calling all the cruise lines and informing them about a lying possibly ill pregnant woman.
Several people there pointed out that if she goes to get on board, and they ask for documentation, and she has none, she’ll simply be barred from boarding. So if she continues to refuse to get an OB’s note, she’ll have a problem later. What a doofus.
Well, that’s why she is trying to get a midwife to lie for here.
I wonder why she wants her homebirth midwife to lie for her. Why doesn’t she just declare HERSELF to be a midwife? No credentialling is needed. Heck even the goddamn American College of Nurse Widwives extends recognition to its “sisters” the lay midwives. She should just print up some letterhead and write herself the letter. If she is worried they won’t accept a note signed with her own name, she can just do what many other homebirth midwives do–use a fake work name.
yeah but if they think to try to contact the care provider, it won’t work. That’s probably true even if she gets a “midwife” to lie for her. I wonder if the cruise staff will consider a lay-midwife’s word enough.
No doubt, if you are going to lie about it, just do it.
Bu then again, what would happen if she did deliver on board, and they found out that she/someone had lied about her due date? If I’m the cruise line, I’d be looking at some way to sue, and would start by checking out the person who wrote the affirmation letter. Because a baby born at 32 weeks would obviously not look like a pre-24 baby. The fact that even something like CPAP and surfactant would be sufficient to know that it’s not 24 weeks.
“Are you crazy or just plain stupid?” .. one of my favorite quotes from Forrest Gump that I think describes her…she is truly nutty, and extremely selfish to boot.. what a piece of work..
Some of the major cruise lines even offer a phone number to reschedule the cruise in case of unforeseen events.
She just said she will be 32 wks by the time they cruise and is hoping a midwife she used before will lie for her! This is about the worst of the worst
http://www.vacationstogo.com/preg-infant.cfm
She is posting on MDC looking for a lay midwife in her area, likely to try to get one to write a note for her. If the cruise line requires a doctor’s note, is a note from a lay midwife going to cut it? I mean, that’s like asking your Aunt Tilly to write a note. She’s got the same training. Or the cab driver or doorman, since they have better outcomes.
What Amy posted below, it doesn’t matter what kind of note she gets they are not going to let her on that boat past 23-24 wks
Good lord.
I have traveled while pregnant, and they took one look at my bump and asked for my doctor’s note. They made a copy of it and I got asked for it several times as I processed through check-in and onto the flight and between legs. This was an airline but I can’t think that the cruise lines will be less strict… I was allowed to fly with a note, but they don’t allow any pregnant women over 24 weeks on this cruise (she updated further down, that it’s flat out prohibited). She’s going to show up at the harbor and get turned away. Hope she likes the town they are cruising out of, she’ll be there for a week waiting for everyone.
I think my headdesk just gave me a concussion.
I was 24 weeks when I went to Hawaii (December 2010) for a week. I had told my OB and he had no problem with it (in fact he was envious). I was told I wasn’t eligible for a couple things like driving the Road to Hana (super long and rough in places) or scuba diving. I was ok with that, all I really wanted was to swim and eat (and pee). I don’t think I would have gone any later though, I did have a premature birth, but not until after 35 weeks.
This woman seems to me totally out of touch with reality…
To begin with, does she really assume that a cruise line, with all their concerns with safety and insurance issues, will be content with a lay midwife’s statement about her due date? Which legal value could this piece of paper, issued by someone who doesn’t carry professional malpractice liability or insurance, possibly have to them?
You may laugh, but…
http://www.sagewomanherbs.com/general-info/article-center/caring-for-the-heart/
NO mention of possibly going to the doctor for heart failure. Nope, just herbs.
*sigh* I wish it wasn’t so easy to find this stuff…
She also warns that sodium chloride contains sugar, so use ground seaweed instead of salt on food to reduce blood pressure.
(@_@)
Hawthorn for all things heart and seaweed (salt) for hypertension! Scary!
(Hawthorn extract apparently does have some effect on heart rhythm and strength of contraction similar to Digitalis – so this approach takes us back centuries to the unstudied, unpurified, non-standardised dose approach that is “herbal medicine”.)
Heart Failure has a 50% five year mortality rate, which is worse than many cancers.
Actual treatments for CCF include ACE inhibitors, diuretics, beta blockers, hydralazine, digoxin, nitrates and surgery.
Do not mess with herbs if you have CCF, you don’t have the time to waste.
Speaking of animals, we adopted a pregnant cat. She had 12 kittens. We kept her and 3 kittens and rehomed the rest. Within 4 years her and two of the 12 kittens had died of heart attacks. Not terribly common in young cats of course, yet she was able to produce 10 surviving offspring before dying. She would have produced many more if we hadn’t spayed her.
Painfully close to the truth: when I was a med student a guy in his mid-fifties came in with a completely blown out heart valve. Florid failure, sick, sick, sick.
He needed a new valve. Period, end, final. No other options. We tuned him up to prep for surgery and wouldn’t you know that his family said “You doctors always want to cut!” and checked him out AMA, saying they were going to treat him with supplements. For his part he said he was going to exercise more. Guess how well THAT worked.
He’s dead?
Well this was in 1985, so probably…. What happened was he came back in even worse shape, got tuned up again and had the surgery. By the second time he was a much worse candidate because the untreated failure was affecting his heart muscle, lungs, kidneys, etc.
In other word, cardiac surgery is not magic.
A family friend’s father is currently mixing that with prayer, and a lot of preaching to others that they should follow his lead because he is so much better now. (He was too weak to have a valve transplant and refused it becaus he was improving ‘despite’ the doctors and the medicines)
Your home cardiologist will be happy to drive you to that hospital 45 minutes away in the next county where they haven’t banned her for dropping off disasters in progress, yet.
And, of course, when you arrive, the cardiothoracic team will be waiting in the OR, scrubbed, and ready to start whatever operation the home cardiologist advises!
Luckily the home cardiologist has written notes in the style of an 18th century bloodletter with which to advise the surgical team.
I notice you left off the disclaimer. How long before someone with a disabled irony detector comes roaring in here to tell you how stupid you are?
Do you think there’s someone out there who believes Certified Home Cardiologists exist? Or maybe they think it’s another term for “Naturopath”?
Someone on the Fed Up With Natural Childbirth Facebook group didn’t get that it was satire, so there you go.
Ha. They probably think this is real, too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sstCC7T0Do4
Great! LMAO!
And people are constantly commenting in the Sanctimommy group on FB telling all the members that they are evil, heartless bitches. Soooo… YEAH.
If there was such a thing, they wouldn’t call themselves “Certified Home Cardiologists”. Wouldn’t that be equivalent to a midwife calling herself a “Certified Home Obstetrician”? Definitely needs another word. “Midcor”? Would that be Latin for “with hearts”?
Corazon Salvaje (my favorite name for a soap opera ever). It means Savage Heart, (I don’t actually speak Spanish, so if I have got it wrong, someone let me know) but it could easily be misinterpreted as Salvage Heart, which is what the Certified Home Cardio-Therapist would be trying to do.
Perfect satire, as always.
“Animals don’t use cardiologists. Animals have existed for tens of millions of years despite the fact that animals in nature never use cardiologists. People are animals, too, so obviously we don’t need cardiologists, either.”
Yup. They just drop dead. We lose one or two older cows a year to heart failure or a heart attack.
Oh, cows can also have horrible births, too.
Ever seen those shoulder-length gloves for reaching up into a cow to release a stuck calf? Eeeewwwww!
Mel owns a dairy, if I remember correctly, so she probably has lots of pairs.
I worked on a dairy for a few months in college, and have seen the calf chains in action (as well as the gloves)…not pretty.