Q&A: High Blood Pressure Medications

Posted on September 29, 2011 by John K. Hynes MD, FACC

Our blog aims to answer questions about your heart health. We hope you’ll keep your questions coming in the comments section or by e-mail! One of our readers asked this:

Being on high blood pressure meds for several years, does dosages and changes affect blood pressure changes? For instance, higher than usual, headaches and other symptoms. Are there types of foods that help lower blood pressure as well as supplements such as magnesium, etc.?  Thank you.

Appropriate treatment of hypertension starts with dietary modifications and especially a sodium restricted diet with a goal of less than 2,000 mg of daily sodium intake. Food groups that promote increased urine output may lower the systolic blood pressure.

There are many, many drugs available to significantly lower blood pressure, and each drug has a particular set of side effects that may be dose related. Sometimes a combination of drugs is used to better control blood pressure and reduce the toxicity of any single agent.

It is important to remember that blood pressure control is a process with many variables. Single highly elevated blood pressure readings are misleading and do not necessarily warrant a change of medication. For hypertensive patients on therapy, a reasonable goal is to achieve a blood pressure of less than 140/90 mmHG on 80% of the blood pressure readings. Attempting to maintain a BP of 120/80 mmHG is unrealistic and almost certainly will lead to significant drug intolerance.

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Cold Therapy Boosts Cardiac Arrest Survival Rates

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Dr. J. Alan Heywood

A new study by the Minneapolis Heart Institute supports the use of cold treatment for patients who have suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. Overlake has been providing hypothermia protocol for many years and we continue to do so. We were one of the first hospitals in the region to treat cardiac arrest patients with hypothermia therapy.

A cardiac arrest occurs when the heart goes into a life threatening rhythm called ventricular fibrillation. The heart beats chaotically at rates of over 200 beats per minute, circulation essentially ceases, and death ensues without prompt intervention. Out of hospital cardiac arrest occurs about 400,000 times per year in the United States. Survival depends on early activation of emergency personnel, initiation of CPR and defibrillation. The Medic One emergency response system and the placement of Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) in the community have improved survival to hospital arrival. Survival to hospital discharge is substantially improved with techniques to cool the body’s temperature for the first 24 hours after resuscitation from a cardiac arrest. Continue reading →

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Some Pacemaker Patients Can Now Get MRIs

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Overlake Hospital

An Overlake cardiac patient just marked an important first on our campus: Teresa Bliss received a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. That’s significant because she’s the first person in Western Washington with an FDA-approved implanted pacemaker to receive an MRI scan.

Like a lot of people, Teresa needs a pacemaker for her heart condition, but she also needs occasional MRI scans as part of the follow up care for her recent stroke. Thanks to a new type of pacemaker that’s designed for use in the MRI setting she can now get both safely.

We sat down and spoke with Teresa a few minutes after her MRI yesterday and she couldn’t be happier about this. 

Teresa’s doctor and Overlake cardiologist, J. Alan Heywood, MD, FACC, explains the medical side of it for us.

Before this pacemaker was developed by Medtronic, MRIs were not recommended for patients with implanted pacemakers because of the possibility of serious complications, such as interference with pacemaker operation, damage to its components, or the chance that the lead or pacemaker could become dislodged or that the image could become obscured.

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Teen Athlete Deaths from Sudden Cardiac Arrest

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Dr. Jeffrey Fowler

Automated External Defibrillator

As a sports fan, an electrophysiologist, and above all else as a father, I recently read with horror the story of Wes Leonard. Wes was a 16-year-old star athlete who died suddenly after hitting a game winning shot in his high school basketball game. Later Wes was discovered to have an enlarged heart that contributed to a sudden cardiac arrest. Such tragedies inevitably lead to many questions of how and why young athletes could ever suffer a sudden cardiac arrest when, on the surface, they appear so healthy and in their prime of life. Parents question whether their own children might fall victim to a similar fate. And above all, people look for explanations and ways to prevent such events from ever happening again.

**Update on 4/4/2011: A new University of Washington study reveals college athletes suffer from sudden cardiac death up to 7 times more frequently than previously reported.** Continue reading →

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Why You Should See a Doctor Before You Start Exercising

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Guest blogger: Christy Gibson, MD, family medicine physician at Overlake Medical Clinics Issaquah

The benefits of regular cardiovascular exercise are well known. It lowers your weight, lowers your blood pressure, decreases the workload on your heart by making it pump more efficiently, lowers your LDL (bad cholesterol) and raises your HDL (good cholesterol). Regular exercise can also reduce your risk of certain types of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

However, there are some risks to starting an exercise program. The most common problems I see in my practice are musculoskeletal injuries. These are usually seen in my “weekend warriors” – people who engage in intense exercise on an infrequent basis – and commonly involve sprains, strains, tendonitis, and fractures. Continue reading →

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Make it Your Mission to Fight Heart Disease in Women

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Guest blogger: Cherish Hart, American Heart Association Community Health Director

Join us February 5, 2011 for a Wear Red Day event at Bellevue Square Macy’s!

Did you know that heart disease is still the #1 killer of women, taking the life of 1 in 3 women each year?

This means women just like those you care about − mothers, sisters, friends − are dying at the rate of one per minute. My family has not been immune from these statistics as both of my grandmothers died at a young age from cardiovascular diseases. Genetics certainly play a role, but in my work at the American Heart Association, I’ve learned that we can make a difference! In fact, 80% of cardiac events in women could be prevented if Continue reading →

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New Options for Patients With Atrial Fibrillation

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Dr. Jeffrey Fowler

In our last post, we discussed atrial fibrillation. Since that time, there has been a major development in one component of treating atrial fibrillation − stroke prevention.

Atrial fibrillation is a leading cause of strokes in America. Because the top chambers of the heart fail to squeeze efficiently in atrial fibrillation, there is a risk of forming blood clots. When a clot breaks away from the heart and travels to the brain, the result is a stroke. Not all patients with atrial fibrillation have the same increase in risk for stroke. There are 5 classic risk factors we consider in patients with atrial fibrillation that increase the risk of stroke associated with the arrhythmia. They are Continue reading →

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What is Atrial Fibrillation?

Posted on September 29, 2010 by Dr. Jeffrey Fowler, Dr. Jeffrey Lee

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is an abnormal heart rhythm, which involves the two upper chambers of the heart. In a normal sinus rhythm, the impulse generated by the SA node spreads through the heart and causes coordinated contraction of the heart muscle. In AF, the regular electrical impulses of the SA node are replaced by disorganized, rapid electrical impulses, which result in irregular heartbeats.

AF is usually not life threatening, and is often asymptomatic. Some patients however can develop significant symptoms. Continue reading →

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Q&A: Shocking a Heart Attack Patient Back to Life

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Dr. Jeffrey Fowler

Our blog aims to answer questions about your heart health. We hope you’ll keep your questions coming in the comments section or by e-mail! One of our readers asked this:

“I recently read about a man who had his heart shocked several times (more than 10) in what was ultimately a successful attempt to revive him. It made me wonder how many times a heart can be shocked and how paramedics or doctors decide when to stop revival efforts?”

As I have written in previous posts, sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is a major health threat in the United States. Every year more than 325,000 people die from SCA. Most often this is the result of an arrhythmia called ventricular fibrillation (VF). In VF, the electrical signals that usually coordinate the heart’s pumping function suddenly become extremely rapid and chaotic. As a result the lower chambers of the heart, or ventricles, begin to quiver and fail to pump blood out to the body. Within seconds the brain becomes deprived of oxygen and the individual loses consciousness. As VF persists, the body is starved of oxygen and death ensues. The only way to stop the VF is with an electrical shock which can be delivered by a defibrillator. The chances of a successful resuscitation are reduced by 7-10% every minute after the onset of VF. Thus, every second counts in getting a person defibrillated. Continue reading →

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Modern Day House Calls

Posted on July 7, 2010 by Dr. Jeffrey Fowler

House calls. What a foreign concept in today’s medicine.

In my basement, I still have the medical bag of my grandfather who was a family physician in Vancouver, Washington in the 1950’s and 60’s. The wear and tear on that old leather bag (similar to the one pictured) reflects years of service to a community in a day and time when doctors weren’t restricted to hospitals and clinics. Their healing touch extended into the very homes of the patients for whom they cared with early morning and late night personal home visits.

While medicine has seen the disappearance of such doctor visits, new technology is allowing me to follow in my grandfather’s footsteps by making a more modern house call, of sorts. Continue reading →

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