Cardiologist FAQ

Osceola Regional Medical Center

Common cardiovascular terms, medical procedures and health care advice

  • 2 minutes 6 seconds
    The First Radial STEMI Procedure Performed at our Hospital
    Time is short when a patient is having a heart attack. Accessing the heart through the femoral artery in one's leg is not always the best option. Our hospital can utilize the radial artery in the wrist to provide swift, lifesaving treament for STEMI
    1 January 1970, 12:00 am
  • 46 seconds
    Smoking and Lung Cancer
    Lung Cancer in the United States kills more people than breast cancer, colon cancer and pancreatic cancer combined. It has a very poor survival characteristic and fortunately is linked to smoking in a large majority of the cases. / Here at Osceola Regional we do non-cardiac thoracic surgery when I am unfortunately seeing the end product of smoking which involves both early and sometimes late stage lung cancer. We do know that stopping smoking makes a difference even for a short time. But patients have to stop smoking for almost 10 years to have the same risk characteristics as a non-smoker.
    1 January 1970, 12:00 am
  • 40 seconds
    Heart Valve Damage: Aortic Stenosis
    The is called aortic stenosis and because the aortic valve doesn't open properly the left ventricle the main chamber of the heart has to work harder to squeeze blood thru a smaller and smaller orifice. And eventually when the valve gets really small the left ventrical finds it difficult to cope and begins to fail. / In that situation the treatment is to surgically remove the valve and replace it, and the surgeons at our hospital are very good at doing that. We have the only surgeon in Central Florida that is able to do it with a minimally evasive incision, a small incision on the right side of the chest which is a unique skill.
    1 January 1970, 12:00 am
  • 36 seconds
    Nuclear Cardiology Diagnostic Testing
    Osceola does have a very busy nuclear program where we stress tests including stress tests for people who can't walk. And we use a substance that has a small amount of radioactive activity in it to take pictures of the heart. So the substance goes to the heart muscle in direct proportion to the blood flow and we can detect areas of the heart where there is insufficient blood flow. This is called nuclear stress testing and basically we do it dozens of time every day at the hospital here.
    1 January 1970, 12:00 am
  • 49 seconds
    ICD: A Type of Pacemaker
    ICD is a fancy kind of a pacemaker in other words it delegates a shock at a various set energy and if your heart what it does is an insurance policy really. The placement of an ICD is just similar to a pacemaker; the difference only being it's slightly bigger in size but it detects your heartbeat for the rest of your life. And if your heart beat were to go dangerously fast your cardiologist or electro physiologist would program it appropriately on an individual basis and it will shock you and save your life. Time is muscle and if you did have a cardiac arrest with the appropriate ICD in place at home it would shock you and save your life. You would probably need that once in your life but that would be the time that it works the most.
    1 January 1970, 12:00 am
  • 1 minute 12 seconds
    What Do Pacemakers Do?
    We all have natural pacemakers in our heart; the function of the natural pacemaker is to provide electrical impulses that are generated at different levels in the heart to keep the heart pumping from an electrical standpoint. There are various reasons why the natural pacemakers of the heart fail and one of the most common reasons is that we grow old. And we tend to have what the scientific and technical reason is sick sinus syndrome or heart attack or you have a heart block or you have sustained trauma to your heart. There are a variety of reasons and once these reasons are determined that a low heart rate is actually causing symptoms for you then a pacemaker is indicated. / A pacemaker is probably one of the most commonly used devices that are implanted; it is almost like skin surgery these days. It takes about an hour or so to do, and the technology has gone better that the batteries and wires that are placed inside your heart have gotten so small that you barely feel them once you put them in. The battery life last about 8 years or so and the mortality or the risk associated with this procedure is relatively low.
    1 January 1970, 12:00 am
  • 44 seconds
    Recovery After Open Heart Surgery
    Most patients after an open heart surgery are in the ICU for one day, most patients are back up to the floor for 2-3 days most patients after standard open heart surgery are home by post op day 3 or 4. At home they are home taking care of themselves. Their major limitation is using their arms for lifting. But they are walking, exercising otherwise. We see them back in the office after 3 weeks and that that time most patients after a standard open heart surgery are asking to get back to driving, get back to work and golf get back to things. We do ask that they hold off to any strenuous activity for a total of 4-6 weeks.
    1 January 1970, 12:00 am
  • 1 minute 1 second
    Side Effects of Heart Drugs
    It used to be and I have been doing this for 30 years and it used to be that patients didn't take their medications because of side effects. I remember there were only 3 blood pressure medicines available and all 3 produced nasty side effects people felt bad, tasted bad, felt sleepy couldn't take them for various reasons that's changed. The majority of medicines non days have minimum or no side effects. And frequently the patient thinks that the medicine is producing a side effect but that's just may be a coincident. / I have a patient come to me just about every day and say that the cholesterol medicine is making their knees hurt, or their hips hurt or their back ache, yes cholesterol medications can cause muscle pains in the large muscles of the body but cholesterol medications do not cause joint pains. These are people that are getting old and have arthritis and blaming their arthritis on their cholesterol medicine. And that is a big mistake because their cholesterol medicine can reduce your risk of having a heart attack by over 30 percent.
    1 January 1970, 12:00 am
  • 1 minute 23 seconds
    Arrhythmia: Unusual Heart Rate
    A well-toned athlete can have a heart rate in his 50s and 60s and he is exercising, because of you---when you run when you exercise your heartbeat goes up to 120-150 because of---ataxia. / But if you do have a heart rate out of the blue that is suddenly starts pounding, is going too fast, you feel dizzy or your symptomatic you have blurry vision or whatever happens that way, then it is a case for concern. / What that means is that the electrical signals of your heart are actually going through a different to keep it very simple going through a different electrical circuit where your heart rate is beating anywhere from 130-140-150 to 200 beats a minute. That is what is called a arrhythmia, there are 3 or 4 different types of it based on an EKG which is an electrocardiogram or based on a holder monitor which is an extended period of an EKG which you wear for a couple of days, we will be able to have a rough idea as to where that short circuit is based. / Treatment options for these vary; always the basic rule is you try noninvasive factor trying simple medications but as electrophysiology and a physician of the heart a lot of these things have evolved quite a bit right now in the terms they can be safely and effectively ablation.
    1 January 1970, 12:00 am
  • 37 seconds
    Time is Important During a Heart Attack
    For us in cardiology time is muscle so the time we lose by not diagnosing something is time that patient loses and its cells that die and that heart gets weakened by that loss of time and loss of cells. So it's important to realize that woman in fact may have a typical presentation and not contributes it to something else and it's safer to have it checked out if you think something is wrong. Don't just think its anxiety, because if it's anxiety and we diagnose that it's not heart is fine, we can say its anxiety. But if we test the person and we realize it is truly heart disease then we can do something about it.
    1 January 1970, 12:00 am
  • 29 seconds
    Hormone Replacement Therapy and Heart Disease
    There are studies that have shown that estrogen replacement in women may actually increase the risk of heart disease and that is no longer recommended. It used to be that woman may take estrogen replacement for menopause thinking that it had a protective factor in the terms of heart attacks is no longer the case and it is important to take that message to the community so those people taking estrogen replacement pills stop doing it, because there are studies that have shown to increase morality in those patients.
    1 January 1970, 12:00 am
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