Can You Lower Fast Resting Heart Rate without Exercise?
There are other ways to lower a fast resting heart rate besides exercise and meditation.
Suppose you’re healthy but your resting heart rate remains fast, despite regular exercise and attempts at stress management or meditation.
What can you do to bring down your resting heart rate?
“There are not too many good ways to reduce resting heart rate from stress without medication,” says Dr. Sameer Sayeed, a cardiologist at ColumbiaDoctors of Somers, NY.
“But one can try filling their office with pleasing pictures or imagery and look at it while working if possible; this has been shown to reduce high resting heart rate from stress.
“Avoiding excessive caffeine and nicotine can help.
“Slow breathing and more abdominal breathing or alternating nostril breathing has been somewhat effective but difficult to learn.”
You probably already know that consistent aerobic exercise will lower resting heart rate, and this lowering effect will also carry over to stressful times when the resting pulse soars — it will be sped up, but not as high as it would be if you didn’t exercise.
However, overtraining can cause a fast resting heart rate.
Make sure you’re not excessively exercising, though if you’re a competitive athlete, you have no choice but to train many hours per week.
What else can lower a fast resting pulse besides exercise and stress management?
“Adequate sleep will help combat higher RHR from stress,” says Dr. Sayeed. “Frequent bladder emptying also helps to reduce RHR and prevent as high a rise with stress.”
Supplements
“Fish oil tablets [or gelcaps] may have some effect on lowering RHR and preventing as high a rise with stress.”
Drugs
“Finally, the most effective way of reducing RHR with stress that is also beneficial and proven would be by prescribing the person a beta blocking or calcium channel blocking medication.”
Additional methods that might help lower a fast resting pulse is to increase water intake and also see what happens with a daily 81 mg. aspirin.
If you’re overweight, losing fat will help, depending on the level of overweight.
Dr. Sayeed performs echocardiograms and stress tests at the Midtown Manhattan and Westchester offices at Columbia Doctors. He is also trained in cardiac CT imaging.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Top image: Shutterstock/Chun photographer
Causes of Headache Every Day: Nerve Entrapment in Head, TMJ
Here are two causes of a chronic daily headache that should not be overlooked, but often are: nerve entrapment and TMJ disorder.
If you experience a headache more than 15 days a month, this is called a chronic daily headache (CDH), and can have numerous causes including a sinus issue (even without feelings of congestion or a runny nose).
However, a headache nearly every day can also be caused by the entrapment of some nerves located in the head – not deep in the head, but just beneath the skin, superficially.
For patients with this diagnosis, a doctor can surgically release the “entrapped” nerves, resulting in a significant improvement for the patient’s symptoms: fewer headaches, and when they do occur, they’re not as bad.
How is it determined if daily headache is caused by superficial nerve entrapment?
The doctor administers a nerve block or Botox injection. If the patient has temporary relief, then this indicates nerve entrapment.
TMD is a possible cause of chronic headache every day.
TMD stands for temporomandibular joint disorder, and laypeople usually refer to it as “TMJ.”
“Pain from temporomandibular disorders and pain from headache disorders often overlap in daily settings.” says Brijesh Chandwani, DMD, BDS, Diplomate, American Board of Orofacial Pain, with Connecticut & NY TMJ.
“Headache pain occurs when neurons from the trigeminal nerve are irritated or sensitized (at times it could be vagus or glossopharyngeal nerves).
“This disorder of the nerves (in headaches) is not exactly understood, but is thought to be related to inflammation, chemical stimulation, mechanical stimulation — or at times the nerves are irritated for no [known] reason.”
What exactly is TMJ disorder?
Dr. Chandwani explains, “TMD typically involves pain in the jaw and head muscles and pain in the jaw joint due to joint disease, muscle spasms, muscle dysfunctions or a disease process in the area.
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“TMD also irritates the trigeminal nerve [fifth cranial nerve] — or irritation of the trigeminal nerve is present in people suffering from TMD. This can often trigger more headaches.”
TMJ Disorder Treatment
“Treatment of TMD often reduces these triggers and reduces the frequency of the headaches, but does not reduce the intensity of the headache which is due to neurogenic inflammation of the trigeminal nerve, vagus nerve or the glossopharyngeal nerve,” says Dr. Chandwani.
“Treatment of TMD can start at home with warm compresses over the jaw, temples for 10-15 minutes twice daily.”
Dr. Chandwani has 15+ years of experience focusing on TMJ disorders and sleep disorders.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Top image: ©Lorra Garrick
How Common Is a Transient Ischemic Attack?
The number of people who have a transient ischemic attack every year is huge.
In Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, three neurologists report that as many has 500,000 people in the United States every year experience a transient ischemic attack (TIA).
Another name for a TIA is a mini-stroke. A TIA is a harbinger or forerunner of a near-future massive stroke. A transient ischemic attack is a medical emergency.
What about incidence in the United Kingdom?
“This is not definitely known,” says Dr. David Beatty, MD, a UK-based retired general practitioner with 30+ years of experience and an instructor of general medicine for 20+ years.
“Many people will recover quickly and never seek medical help.”
This phenomenon is true anywhere, actually, since many people won’t even think, “Is this a TIA?” upon onset of the symptoms.
Many will just brush it off as stress, a side effect of a medication or a normal part of aging.
“Those who do see a doctor may not get a correct diagnosis,” continues Dr. Beatty.
“This is because a TIA may present in various ways.
“The classical case will have had clear limb weakness and perhaps a droopy mouth on one side of the face and speech difficulty.
“Many presentations, however, will be more vague.
“There might be dizziness, brief visual disturbance or an episode of confusion.
“Even if a patient goes to hospital they may have had a TIA — but all the tests can turn out normal.
“The estimated prevalence for a first TIA is 50 per 100,000 people per year,” says Dr. Beatty.
“There is a lot of guesswork involved in reaching this figure.”
Disastrous Fallout of a Transient Ischemic Attack
“After having a TIA there is a 12% chance of getting a stroke in the following year and a 7% chance each year after that,” says Dr. Beatty.
“The UK prevalence for a first stroke is 230 per 100,000 per year.
“There are about 80,000 hospital admissions due to stroke each year.
“Stroke is the biggest cause of adult disability.” This is true in the U.S. as well.
“The risk of a further stroke within the next five years is 26%.”
Stroke Around the Corner
In the U.S., the ERN report says that 10 to 15% of known TIA patients suffer a full-blown stroke within 90 days.
Out of these strokes, 40 percent will strike within 24 hours of the original transient ischemic attack.
The difference between a TIA and actual stroke is duration.
The causation and symptoms are the same, though in the TIA, the symptoms are temporary (transient).
A blood clot obstructs a vessel in the brain, blocking oxygen to the portion of the brain that the vessel feeds.
A transient ischemic attack is a medical emergency, even if the symptoms last only 30 seconds.
Dr. Beatty has worked in primary medicine, surgery, accident and emergency, OBGYN, pediatrics and chronic disease management. He is the Doctor of Medicine for Strong Home Gym.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
Top image: Shutterstock/Natalie Board
Source: sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130204184302.htm
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Maybe Your “Black” Poops Are Actually Dark Dark Green
What you think are black stools may actually be very dark green, and here’s how this can happen.
Seeing black stools in the toilet can be scary, since this can bring to mind the “tarry black stools” that can result from colon cancer.
However, the appearance of black stools can be quite deceiving.
Recently I noticed that my stools were black.
Or were they? The BMs had sunk to the bottom of the toilet bowl. They were well-formed and like large pebbles.
With a spoon, I removed one and examined it close up, under the light at the sink. They were very dark green.
In poor light, BMs that are very dark green can appear off-black.
Just to be sure, I removed another one and inspected it close-up.
Viewing bowel movements that are at the bottom of a toilet bowl does not give you a fair chance to discern their color accurately.
When something’s under water, this can distort the actual color, especially when you can’t get your eyes close to the BMs when they’re at the bottom of the bowl.
In my case, the green had obviously come from the spinach I had consumed earlier in the day — I had juiced quite a bit of spinach (more than usual), enough to create a brilliant and solid green beverage—which I then turned dark crimson by tossing a beet into the juicer.
The addition of the beet probably darkened my stools, adding to the spinach’s effect.
It is well-known that spinach and beets can “darken” stools, making them appear black.
Here is what a physician says about benign causes of BMs that appear to be black:
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“Common causes could include medications such as iron or Pepto Bismol,” says Michael Blume, MD, “as well as certain foods, such as spinach or beets.” Dr. Blume is a gastroenterologist at MedStar Good Samaritan Hospital, Baltimore.
Close-up inspection is key to seeing what color they actually are.
In practice for 25+ years, Dr. Blume treats over 65 conditions including abdominal pain, appetite loss, blood in stool, celiac disease, colon cancer, esophageal and liver disease, gas and IBS.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Top image: ©Lorra Garrick
High Risk Elderly, Bypass Surgery: Off-Pump or On-Pump?
Off pump coronary bypass surgery is the better option for high risk patients who need CABG.
“Age is less of a criteria than other risk factors,” says Michael Fiocco, MD, Chief of Open Heart Surgery at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, one of the nation’s top 50 heart hospitals.
“Patients with COPD, prior stroke, kidney dysfunction, and patients with atherosclerotic plaque in the ascending aorta are better served off pump.
“Healthy 80+ year-old patients do just as well with on pump.”
Elderly Sickly Better Off with Off Pump: Study
If a patient is high risk (e.g., elderly with other health ailments), and has been told they need coronary bypass surgery, it would be in their best interest to undergo off pump surgery rather than on pump, which requires the heart-lung machine.
This is the conclusion of a study out of Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, lead by Jan Hlavicka, MD, a cardiothoracic surgeon.
The study looked at combined patient outcomes of heart attack, stroke, renal failure and all-cause death within 30 days of their operations.
The patients who’d received off pump surgeries had much better results.
The off pump group had a 9.2 percent rate of these negative outcomes, and the on-pump (heart-lung machine) patients had a 20.6 percent rate.
An issue with the heart-lung machine is that it requires clamping off and then un-clamping the aorta (the body’s biggest artery).
This raises the risk of blood clots. Of course, the heart-lung machine means that the patient’s heart has to be stopped, then restarted.
Dr. Hlavicka’s study was confined to only high-risk subjects, based on a scale called EuroSCORE.
The EuroSCORE predicts a person’s risk of dying during or soon following cardiac surgery.
Elderly with Serious Ailments Who Need Heart Bypass Surgery
Sick, elderly people who need heart bypass surgery should ask their health care provider about the off pump approach.
Keep in mind that this study didn’t extend beyond the first 30 days following bypass surgery.
A larger investigation is indicated, says the report.
Dr. Fiocco specializes in treating artery disease, valvular disease and aortic aneurysm. His heart care expertise has earned him recognition by Baltimore Magazine as a Top Doctor in 2010, 2011, 2013, 2016 and 2017.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Source: sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130312102549.htm
Is Spotting One Week Before Your Period Normal?
An OB/GYN discusses whether spotting a week before menstruation is abnormal or not.
This isn’t about spotting “between” periods, but rather, one week before the start of menstruation.
And there are different ways to “spot” one week before menstruation.
The spotting can occur one week before the period, but then not occur again till seven days later when a woman begins flowing.
Or, it can happen seven days prior, then skip a day, then occur again, then skip a day, or any combination of recurrences and skips.
It can also escalate, merging right into actual flowing.
But no matter how you slice it, Dr. Marlan Schwartz, MD, says, “This is abnormal. There are many reasons for this – both hormonal and structural (such as polyps, fibroids).”
If this happens rarely or not often, a woman can likely just be observant of the situation. This includes keeping documentation.
“If it is persistent, recurrent or bothersome, it should be evaluated and the cause should be diagnosed and addressed,” says Dr. Schwartz, FACOG, robotic surgeon with Lifeline Medical Associates.
Thinking that spotting a week or so before menstruation is common in the population?
“Just because something is common does not make it right,” says Dr. Schwartz.
“The cycle is a tightly controlled hormonal process, affected by other hormones (thyroid, for instance), physical stress, mental stress, physical activity, etc.,” continues Dr. Schwarz.
“When these things have a demonstrable effect on the hormonal cycle, one may experience irregular, frequent, absent, heavy, or any other effect on the cycle. These changes are, technically, abnormal.
“I will maintain that having a five day cycle surrounded by two or three days [of spotting] on either end, resulting in 10 or 12 bleeding days, is not normal.”
If you’ve been spotting a week prior to your period and/or continuing to spot brown discharge for several days after the fifth day — then discuss this with your gynecologist just to make sure that everything is okay.
And it definitely CAN be for many women, but it’s best to have your doctor confirm that after an exam.
Dr. Schwartz is the past Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital-Somerset.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Top image: Shutterstock/ Emily frost
How Fast Do Toddlers Really Move? Slower than You Think!
Illusions create the myth that toddlers “get away so fast” when a parent turns their back for a few seconds.
Every time a story surfaces of a lost toddler or preschooler, invariably the comments pour in about how fast young children “get away.”
But when an older child — who can clearly run a LOT faster than a preschooler and especially toddler, goes missing while on a shopping trip or at an amusement park, nobody says, “They get away so fast.”
The “They get away so fast” sentiment has always applied to toddlers and preschoolers.
Suppose a woman and her toddler are at the mall. She’s not holding his hand. She turns her back on him.
At that moment he wanders away. Three seconds later she turns and he’s gone—POOF!
The illusion is created that he “got away so fast.”
What really happened is that it took him only two seconds to wander around a kiosk, which, by the time the mother turns back around, is obscuring her view of him.
She has no idea which direction he went. There are people and multiple entrances to nearby stores. She panics and randomly chooses to enter the nearest store.
Or, she may frantically head off in a randomly selected direction, weaving in and out of people.
While she’s doing this, she’s getting further away from her toddler, who’s also moving.
He may even be moving quite slowly, dawdling and poking around, while she hurries, creating an increasing distance between the two.
A woman at the grocery store turns her back on her four-year-old for “just a few seconds,” then turns back around and the little girl has vanished.
The girl, at a normal pace, needed only a few seconds to walk to the end of the aisle and make a left turn.
Her mother dashes to the end of the aisle, and by this time, the girl is wandering slowly down the next aisle over to the left.
But the mother turns right and looks down the next aisle to the right and sees no child.
She then returns to the aisle she was in, then goes past it to the next aisle — the aisle that her preschooler had been meandering down just moments before.
But the preschooler is nowhere in sight, because enough time has lapsed by this point for the girl to now be one more aisle over to the left — which would actually be to the girl’s right once she got to the opposite end of the aisle.
The mother runs down the aisle her child skipped down, but turns left!
Hopefully you can now understand how these problems in perception and reaction have nothing to do with the speed of a young child’s legs.
“I think this concept refers to how fallible our sense of time can be,” says Dr. Tia Kern-Butler, a licensed psychologist for over 20 years who treats a broad range of issues including relationship problems and behavioral issues of children and adolescents.
“What seems like five seconds to one person may seem like 10 to another. When our attention is focused elsewhere we may not truly realize just how long we were distracted.
“The common example of how far a car going 60 mph travels when you glance down at your phone for five seconds is a good reminder of this. The answer is the length of a football field!
“One would never describe having traveled that far in that perceived length of time, or likely even that it felt like five seconds.”
When a Third Party Witnesses a Toddler Getting Away
Certainly, you’ve witnessed toddlers and preschoolers wandering away from their parents in public.
How fast does the wandering child actually go? Have they ever bolted into a blurry sprint?
Or had they just slowly wandered off while Mama isn’t looking?
The parent then turns around and is startled that the child has gone missing!
She collects the child from around a corner and exclaims, “My little one gets away so fast!”
But from YOUR point of view, the child moved slowly. Again, the issue is perception.
Currently in private practice Dr. Kern-Butler spent 10 years as the lead child and adolescent psychologist with Winter Haven Hospital and served as the mental health liaison for the Children’s Advocacy Center for 14 years.
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Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Top image: Shutterstock/savageultralight
How to Prevent Minoxidil from Dripping into Your Eyes
If you prefer to use liquid minoxidil, here’s a technique for avoiding dripping it into the eyes and getting that awful burning stinging.
This technique will work very well for those who wish to apply minoxidil to their temples.
Applying the liquid form here with the dropper and avoiding the liquid rolling down your temple and straight into your eye is exceedingly difficult.
My solution is to use an application that combines the liquid with the foam version.
If you use only the liquid minoxidil, then you’ll just have to accept that nearly every time, you’ll get it in your eyes, even if your head is tilted back so far that your temple is parallel to the floor.
In addition, you’re holding some cotton at your temple, below the cut-off point of application, to catch any runaway drops.
But just when you think all the runaway drops have stopped and it’s time to bring your head back to a normal angle…suddenly one or two shoot down your forehead and get into your eye.
So even extreme tilting and using cotton won’t stop this problem.
Put some of the foam on your fingertips and smear on the temple. The foam will not run, but make sure you shake the bottle good so that the foam is as foamy as possible. Otherwise it might be a little “liquidy.”
In fact, after putting some foam on your fingertips, waste no time applying it, because the foam quickly “melts” and will become runny.
Tilt head back (doesn’t have to be extreme) and quickly get that foam on the temples.
After you take care of the temples, you can then apply the liquid minoxidil further behind the area you just applied it, because beyond the temples (more receded back) is far enough away from the slope of your forehead that you don’t have to worry about runaway drops getting into your eyes.
But still take precaution! Keep head tilted back and keep that cotton ball in place.
There WILL be drops trickling down (unless you’re very sparing with the application), but because the application at this point is receded back further, the drops will take longer to trickle onto your forehead, giving you ample time to pat them away with the cotton.
After doing the first temple area, keep head tilted back for 30-45 seconds to wait for any delayed runaway drops. Then return head to normal angle—but don’t do anything yet.
Wait another 30 seconds; otherwise if you start the other temple too soon, a runaway drop may still make its way down the first temple and into your eye. Repeat the process for the second temple.
As for the hairline, you can also use the liquid minoxidil. Tilt head back and imbed the dropper into the hairline and lightly squirt while simultaneously moving it horizontally along the hairline.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
Why Do You Get X-Ray in the ER for Chest Pain?
If you go to the ER with chest pain, the doctor will always want to give you an X ray, but just what can this show?
One of the first things you’ll get if you go to the ER with chest pain is an X-ray.
An X-ray cannot detect clogged arteries or if you had a heart attack, so why is this such a common procedure in the emergency room?
“Many times, chest X-rays are done unnecessarily, especially if the patient just had a normal one recently,” says Dr. Sameer Sayeed, a cardiologist at ColumbiaDoctors of Somers, NY.
“The only reasons a chest X-ray may be repeated in the above instance is if the MD was suspicious of congestive heart failure from chest pain that may be due to a new heart attack,” continues Dr. Sayeed.
Congestive heart failure is when the heart is not pumping adequate amounts of blood.
This situation can cause chest pain, which alerts the ER doctor that the patient could have congestive heart failure, especially if elderly.
The congestive heart failure may have been there for a while, or, it could be the result of a heart attack that the patient just had.
Congestive heart failure causes fluid buildup that is seen on the X-ray.
Other conditions that the X-ray can detect are “cardiac ischemia, a pericardial effusion that could cause chest pain, pneumonia that could cause chest pain or the rare instance that a previously normal aorta now had a problem,” adds Dr. Sayeed.
Cardiac ischemia means insufficient oxygen to the heart. Pericardial effusion means fluid buildup within the sac that surrounds the heart.
Pneumonia is a bacterial or viral infection in the lungs.
An abnormally enlarged section of the aorta, called an aneurysm, can cause chest pain, though usually, an aortic aneurysm causes no symptoms and these are discovered by accident when the patient is getting imaged for something unrelated.
Even if you go to the ER very frequently with complaints of chest pain, and all the previous workups were normal including the X-ray, you’ll still likely get an X-ray.
This is because, if you actually do turn out to have a serious problem that was missed, and decide to sue the doctor, the doctor’s defense will be able to show that standard of care was met because a baseline battery of tests was ordered—which would include the chest X-ray.
Dr. Sayeed performs echocardiograms and stress tests at the Midtown Manhattan and Westchester offices at Columbia Doctors. He is also trained in cardiac CT imaging.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Top image: ©Lorra Garrick
Can Electrophysiology Testing Cause Heart Attack or Stroke?
It’s easy to wonder if electrophysiology testing can trigger a heart attack or stroke, since it involves catheter placement in the heart.
The electrophysiology test is designed to detect a heart rhythm disorder (arrhythmia).
Another question that might pop into one’s mind is if an EP test can miss an arrhythmia.
“The test is meant to provoke the arrhythmia, not wait for it to happen spontaneously,” says Peter R. Kowey, MD, FACC, Professor of Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology, Jefferson Medical College; Chief, Division of Cardiovascular Diseases, Main Line Health System; and author of “Lethal Rhythm,” a medical mystery. Dr. Kowey specializes in heart rhythm disorders.
Can electrophysiology testing cause a heart attack or stroke by dislodging plaque buildup in a coronary artery?
Dr. Kowey explains, “The EP catheter doesn’t go into coronary arteries or carotid arteries.
“It rarely can cause stroke or MI [heart attack] by provoking arrhythmias that in turn cause hypotension and under-perfusion.”
Hypotension means blood pressure that is too low. During an EP test, the patient’s blood pressure is continuously monitored via an arm cuff.
Under-perfusion simply means not enough blood supply.
The area of insertion of the catheter may either be a vein in the groin or in the neck, where a local anesthetic will be applied.
The patient also may — or may not — be given a sedative, depending on what’s determined to be best for the patient.
If an arrhythmia is not detected and the test is negative, the doctor may decide to place an implantable loop recorder into the patient.
Dr. Kowey says that this device “is very useful for recording spontaneous arrhythmias to correlate them with specific but highly sporadic symptoms.”
Implantable Loop Recorder
This device records the patient’s heart rhythm for up to three years.
The instrument, which is placed just under the skin of the chest, will catch deviations from a normal heart rhythm that an EKG and Holter monitor can easily miss.
Dr. Kowey’s principal area of interest is cardiac rhythm disturbances, and his group has participated in a large number of pivotal international clinical trials.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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