Healthwisery

Except in an emergency, you cannot be given a treatment or test without your “informed consent.” You must be informed of the risks and agree to the treatment. In a partnership, however, informed consent may not be enough. The real goal is shared decision-making, where you actively participate in every medical decision.

Why should you help make decisions with your doctor? Aren’t you paying him or her to know what to do? Well, the choices aren’t always black and white. With many health problems, there is more than one option. Consider these examples:

• You have moderately high blood pressure (160/95). Your doctor says that exercise and diet might bring it down, but most people don’t succeed that way. Your doctor recommends that you start on medication to control it. You would rather try exercise and lose weight than take pills for the rest of your life. The best decision depends on your values.

• Your three-year-old has a headache and a fever. The doctor says it’s probably nothing to worry about. Then you mention your hunch that it might be meningitis. Some testing may be appropriate.

• You have been suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome for several months. Your doctor is now recommending a wrist splint and a steroid injection. You would prefer Continue reading ‘The Wise Medical Consumer: Share in Every Medical Decision’ »

If you don’t have a family doctor (primary care physician), now is the time to get one. Everyone needs a regular doctor. A host of specialists working on separate health problems may not see the whole picture. In choosing a doctor there are lots of questions to ask, but these three matter the most:

- Is this doctor well-trained and experienced?

- Is this doctor available when needed?

- Will this doctor work in partnership with me?

Training and Experience

For most people, a good choice for a family doctor is a board-certified family practice doctor or internist. For children and teens, a pediatrician is a good choice. These doctors have broad knowledge about medical problems.

Availability

Because health problems rarely develop when it’s convenient, it helps to have a doctor who can see you when needed. Call or visit the office. Tell the clinic receptionist that you are looking for a new doctor.Ask these questions: Continue reading ‘How to Finding the Right Doctor’ »

You and your family can save a lot of pain, worry, and money by avoiding health problems in the first place. If you can’t prevent a problem altogether, the next best thing is to discover it early, when it is easy to treat. Here are Ten ways you should do to stay healthy.
Continue reading ‘Ten Wise Tips to Stay Healthy’ »

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Each year, almost 44 million Americans experience or suffer from health problems. In fact, health problems are among the most common conditions affecting health today. It’s been said that most serious health problems are caused by complex imbalances in the brain’s chemical activity. They also believe environmental factors can play a part in triggering, or softening against, the beginning of mental illness.

Stress is simply a fact of nature forces from the outside world affecting the individual. The individual responds to stress in ways that affect the individual as well as their environment. Stress is a normal physical response to actions that make you feel threatened or upset your balance in some way. When you sense danger whether it’s real or imagined the body’s defenses kick into high rapid gear, or the stress response.

The stress responses you receive are the body’s way of defending you. When it’s working the right way, it helps you pay attention by staying focused, energetic, and alert. In other emergency situations, stress can save your life giving you extra strength to defend yourself, such as like slamming on your brakes to avoid a car accident.

Continue reading ‘Ways to Keeping Yourself Stress Free’ »

The rapid increase in obesity across the country has resulted in a number of serious health problems. Many of these health problems can deteriorate a persons quality of life and even shorten a persons life. One such health condition that is made worse when obese is asthma. Studies are now showing that there is a link between asthma and morbid obesity. For people who are suffering from severe obesity, lap band surgery has been shown to be an effective method of weight loss that reduces instances of severe asthma attacks.

Obesity has been proven to be a risk factor for such diseases as heart disease, some types of cancer, and diabetes. Now, research studies are revealing that obesity is a risk factor for asthma. For instance, studies now show the risk for developing asthma increases when there is a large increase in weight. When a person is seriously overweight, their breathing becomes shallow because their lungs do not expand as much as it would if one were a normal healthy weight. As well, in obese individuals, there is a chronic inflammation of the lungs which reduces the airway passage. The inflammation takes place in the fatty tissue. A narrower airway passage also means the airways will remain blocked when breathing normally which reduces oxygen exchange. The airways will contract more causing more asthma symptoms. Narrow airways in obese asthmatics are more likely to stay closed during normal breathing which results in reduced oxygen exchange which puts one in a higher risk category for pulmonary hypertension. As well, obese people are more prone to sleep apnea and gastroesophageal reflux disease which can make asthma worse. Continue reading ‘Is Lap Band Surgery Good For Severe Asthmatics?’ »

Often, when we hear about our cholesterol levels, we automatically assume that this is a bad thing. High cholesterol is a well known cause of a variety of heart diseases and cancers and has gained a reputation as a killer. But the good cholesterol, or HDL cholesterol is essential if we are to remain healthy. If we do not know how to increase good cholesterol naturally, then we are setting ourselves up for a number of health problems.

What this HDL cholesterol does is that it stays in the bloodstream; essentially lining the blood vessels and disposing of the bad, or LDL, cholesterol. It would, therefore, be unhealthy to remove all cholesterol from your body, whilst also being practically impossible! The healthiest option is to ensure that you retain the HDL cholesterol by reducing the amount of LDL cholesterol that you have in your body. Continue reading ‘Know How to Increase Good Cholesterol Naturally’ »