all right eight minutes after eleven five February is Heart Month that we all know that right this is
great months for that too because the only heart-shaped things don't really look like
a heart though really so Shannon right doctor Charles David students on the phone who's an
interventional cardiologist and the clinical chief of Cardiology and the medical director
at the North Western medicine Blum Cardiovascular Institute he's talking to us about how valve and
coronary heart disease are diagnosed what to look for in the doctor or hospital to get evaluated
and treated as this comes up a lot because a lot of people who move here from another part
of the country they often wonder you know I like the weather and I like everything else happening
here but it's the hospital is gonna be as good as the one I had left in New York or in LA or
and in Philadelphia or whatever from what I hear we've got pretty good doctors yes but I've heard
so let's find out from dr. Davidson good morning sir how are you good morning how are you today I'm
okay where are you right now I'm in Chicago nice and cold snow on the ground and that's something
you would not have any familiarity with I would hope maybe but a lot of listeners do because we
have a lot of people who move here from your part of the world exactly exactly not a snowbirds that
we have to hear down there and half the year in Chicago we take care of a lot of those patients
absolutely and one of the things that does come up and it's not a slam or slide against
our local doctors but a lot of people moved here they're not sure they said we'll wait a minute
what about doctors are they as good as they are up north so talk to us specifically about the heart
issues and and is there a way to know which hospitals have the the best doctor for what
we need so you know finding the best healthcare is not not the easiest thing there's there's numerous
ways of ranking hospitals and physicians that are available on the website I think one that is often
used is the US News and World Report rankings for cardiovascular programs we're proud to be
one of the top 10 programs in the country of over 3,000 programs so it's it's a highly competitive
one a lot of those things that patients should be looking for what the the mortality rates at the
hospital are what readmission rates are for the hospital there's often some information you can
gather by looking on the on the hospital website that does some ranking of their physicians but
it's not easy to sort all of these things out I think ultimately you want Medical Center that
if you have a certain procedure they're doing a fairly high volume of those and and can tell you
what their what their results are and be so be a critical consumer and obviously there's great
hospitals all over the country and that's where you you want to receive your care maybe the last
follow-up to that and I'll finish is that second opinions are very important when you're being told
you need something done with your heart and that if someone says you need something or don't need
something it's very reasonable to seek a second opinion you may go back to that first person to
get whatever needs to be done or not done but make sure you have a fully informed decision
when you when you undertake this can you have valve disease and not coronary heart disease or
does it go hand-in-hand that's excellent question that valvular disease is often independent from
coronary disease there's one form of valve disease that happens when you have a heart attack the
heart stretches out a bit and causes the mitral valve which links the top and bottom of the heart
to leak more but most of the valve disease and corney's these are independent phenomena and
the risk factors for coronary disease diabetes high blood pressure smoking are not really risk
factors for for valve disease in fact many of the things about valve disease is that we don't even
understand why it progresses in some patient and not and not in others there's a diagnosis
surprise the patient or do they have an inkling that something is that why they're symptoms that
they're experiencing so many patients will just start developing symptoms of shortness of crab
just discomfort leg swelling and maybe never knew that they had a problem with valve disease it's
interesting to me how many patients like Lynn and say I've never known I had a heart murmur so
you know back to the the question of was anyone really taking them listen to that heart because
that murmur has probably been there for quite a while I mean occasionally one comes up suddenly
that it's not how about disease progresses and so the symptoms can be very insidious and slow
onset but also if it's a heart attack or something like that whereas coronary problem those can be
more sudden onset of symptoms and then one last thing these patients with diabetes often don't
get symptoms of heart artery problems and so it's important that taking regular screening because
they don't get those typical chest discomfort symptoms so when we are having some symptoms in
our lower leg those uh we had a doctor talked about that one time is that an indication of a
heart problem so it's a good question the lower leg symptoms we called claudication so pain when
you're walking is typically from blocked arteries in the leg and atherosclerosis or blockages of
the arteries tends to be a diffuse process so almost invariably if someone has blocked arteries
in the legs they probably have some degree of blockage in their heart arteries those may not
be manifesting by symptoms because think about if you have pain when you're walking you're walking
less you're not straining your heart as much and you may not be feeling the typical symptoms so
important if you have leg artery problems to be screened for heart artery disease as well
and in the same risk factors you'd modify four leg arteries you'd modify for the for the heart
which is cholesterol blood pressure diabetes and starting 100% yes oh good do the diet and
lifestyle weight loss for example reverse some of those things so they can help prevent progression
all of these things really help prevent progression is as I tell people there's
no Drano if you will for the arteries there's nothing that really causes regression we like
to get stabilization rather than then regression there's has always been the whole mail that maybe
some diets can actually regress you know that that is that may occasionally occur but it's
the rare phenomena you're just looking to prevent progression by good healthy lifestyle and some of
the other factors we talked about and is there any difference in genders as to who gets more
heart valves replaced or more stents yeah that's a great great question with with there are gender
differences women typically have more atypical symptoms than men for heart artery problems so
the traditional chest discomfort tightness is not often experienced by women and therefore they're
often under diagnosed or late diagnosed and so they can be more advanced in their disease when
they get diagnosed we also know that women tend to develop artery problems later about
10 years later than men probably because it's on the protective hormonal effects that they
have when we talk about valve disease as people age they develop more valve disease and because
women tend to live longer we tend to see for example more aortic valve disease in women
because they just last live longer into their 80s and 90s where men tend to live about 5 years
less and less than women but it's important that the patients are paying this attention
to the symptoms and if they've been diagnosed with the problem some of these don't have a lot
of symptoms and to make sure they're getting regular follow-up a very very important topic
and the short interview only the only scratches the surface on can you give us a website that
would would help us learn more absolutely there's a good patient education on diagnosis prevention
treatments at heart nm Northwestern Medicine org heart.org I think your audience will find
it very informative as a way to learn more about the heart and be an informed consumer
of their health all right doctor thank you enjoy the snow just remember we're down here we got
sunshine we had speech at least three women in bikinis I'm with you I can't wait thank you guys