Snippy doctor comment (resting heart rate question)
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The right doctor with an open mind, who takes the time to listen to their patients and treat the patient not the symptoms, who is not judgemental about who they see in front of them and doesn't make assumptions about how they got there is sooooo important! If your doctor isn't right for you you have the right to change doctors! I've been incredibly lucky myself, but I also choose not to go back to someone who doesn't take the time to treat me as a whole....
on the flip side I guess we all have to ensure that we treat those doctors with respect, we have to approach things with an open mind and a willingness to really give treatment plans a go....
Luckily, for the most part from what I'm seeing in this group, we're all committed to having an open mind and really committing to getting it right for our health's sake! *awww warm fuzzies for all*
Anyway, choose your treatment provider... with the same care you would treat any other provider of services!2 -
rsmorton3086 wrote: »I was once told that without other risk factors, my weight was irrelevant. My reaction was to say that the doctor had just shot down my last motivation to lose weight.
That's terrible. I understand that accumulation of bodyfat is actually protective to a degree but it's not benign. It is, in itself, a symptom. To accept it as anything less is turning a blind eye. Eventually, it will become apparent that there is an issue. It's just a matter of time. Whether or not the connection is ever made to the future health condition is another story.
Someone may be overweight and have good blood work and end up with cancer and nobody ever sees that the weight gain was he first sign that there was a glucose metabolism issue involved all along.
Someone, like my sister, that had an injury that put her on steroids and started her gaining weight, eventually leading to hyperinsulinemia, which was only seen as hypoglycemia that NEEDED a higher carb intake to treat, resulting in even more weight gain... eventually resulting in T2D when her high insulin levels could no longer keep up. Her weight gain was blamed solely on steroids and seen as a simple inconvenience. In the beginning it was a symptom and nobody recognized it. Or any of the other symptoms for that matter because bloodwork was all "normal"... until it wasn't.3 -
I liked my doctor’s online profile; she seemed warm and friendly and she had spent some time in the states, so I thought maybe that would bode well. Unfortunately, her bedside manner is terrible and she blames everything on my weight.
Migraines? Nope, it’s sugar crashes according to her…specialists disagreed, made suggestions (stress reduction) and prescribed me some pills; I swapped from a stressful job to a low-stress job and I haven't had one in a long time - and I've only ever taken two of the pills out of a ten pack.
Strange rash on my face? Nope, she says it’s just acne…skin specialist prescribes antibiotic cream and antibiotics and poof, the “acne” is gone in two weeks. Turns out it was a bacterial infection (gift from my dog, gross but true).
I also had trouble getting her to refill my oxycodone, she claimed I was going to get addicted because apparently fat = addict? I guess, but food is my drug. Still, for anyone who’s ever torn their ACL, you can’t do the physical therapy (or sleep...or exist) on over-the-counter painkillers. My knee specialist had to take care of it for me, and set up a plan for me to ween off of it as I got better.
She's just...not a good doctor for me. The search is on for another, but it's really hard to find a heavy-person-sympathetic doctor. If anyone knows one in Copenhagen, Denmark - let me know.1 -
MzLazyBones wrote: »The search is on for another, but it's really hard to find a heavy-person-sympathetic doctor. If anyone knows one in Copenhagen, Denmark - let me know.
Obesity clinics at med schools or hospitals might have some leads.... ?? (For example, Eric Westman and Sarah Hallberg are both attached to university obesity programs.)
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Freischuetz wrote: »some information about heartrate
actually there are two types: normal(low)-pulser and high-pulser
as you can see in my avatar, i am a high-pulser. my max puls is 208 (picture was taken after a MTB-marathon from a Garmin device, and correspond with my Polar-watch)
while the morning BPM varies wide, there exists no "aerobic heart rate level for some age"
so, if you reach very easy 140 or even 150, you might be a high-pulser
for normal-pulser, 140 BPM is already some "work"
Holy *kitten*! I must be a high-pulser, I had never even heard of this... my pulse is just fast and always has been, I'd be at 180bpm when exercising and not even feel particularly winded... when friends were dying at 150. I gotta read up on this, got any suggested resources?1 -
MzLazyBones wrote: »I liked my doctor’s online profile; she seemed warm and friendly and she had spent some time in the states, so I thought maybe that would bode well. Unfortunately, her bedside manner is terrible and she blames everything on my weight.
Clearly you're not familiar with US general doctors.
To be fair, not all are that bad, but it's common enough to be despairing and frustrating.
There's this ongoing thing where many of the doctors here have gotten high and mighty about their position, but haven't been keeping up with research to support their position of authority in the long term. They expect their patients to just listen to what they say, without question. Others are just overwhelmed by the demands of the system we have here to keep up and research properly. Those ones mean well and often do care, but their ignorance and tied hands tend to do more harm than good.
The problem is that "just listen to the doctor, they know best," hasn't worked for decades. Before, it would just kill people (Dr. Bernstein's story is a fascinating example of this). Now, it's easy enough to research on one's own and bring that information to the doctor.
Thankfully, changes like patient empowerment and tech advances are starting to push the former out, and many of the latter are starting to go into their own practice and not take insurance (this one sucks for lower income people right now, but this kind of "doctor revolt" should be good in the long run if/as it picks up momentum). The bar is slowly starting to be raised, which should help in the future.1 -
I chose her because I prefer communicating in English, sometimes with Danish I feel very limited on how to express myself properly. So the fact that she'd worked with Americans before, and presumably had no issues communicating, was a big factor for me. I had some communication issues with my last doctor, so when I couldn't remember the words or express myself properly, I couldn't just switch to English to explain it. I'm very leery of being in that position again.
As for doctors in the states; my dad is quite heavy and his doctor has been helping him fight his diabetes (he's tall, but he's over 300lbs). His doctor seems really nice. Unfortunately, there's a six hour time difference for phone consultations, and I don't think his doctor would take Danish insurance 0 -
Eons ago when I was living in Germany, I ate something pernicious, resulting in GI fireworks (easily on par with my later generic metformin days) and decided I'd better go to a doctor. I went to the nearest GP, a dour, disapproving old coot in a pure white coat, with a nurse who cowered before him.
"Bier!" I looked sideways at the nurse, who didn't dare roll her eyes. "Good healthy German beer will restore your digestive health!" (Yeah, the beer was good. Did it help? Only my mood.... It eventually took activated charcoal to release the demons.)
I mentioned this to a friend from Tennessee, who said the advice was rather tepid in comparison with what the older docs would have told him back home....
After that, I sought out the youngest docs I could find, hoping they still might have a few neurons that wouldn't fire dogma.0 -
MzLazyBones wrote: »breaking seriously bad habits, like using food as therapy.
My "story" is a bit unique though I'm certain others have experienced the same. I started "binge eating" AFTER I lost my weight (via non-keto) at the ripe old age of 60 something. I was always hungry. Of course, to offset my binges, I would limit/restrict and created an awful eating cycle. That's not my point. I digress.
I started eating keto in 2016 for a reason other than weight (or eating behaviors). The BEST thing that happened to me with Keto was that I finally did not feel like I was "starving" all the time. Being able to distinguish "hungry/not hungry" allowed me to see how poor/compulsive my eating habits had become. Bored? Eat! Commercial break? Eat! Need to think through a business situation? Eat! Half time? Eat! On a shopping trip and see a particular restaurant? Eat! Go to a movie? Eat! None of those...require eating.
Hopefully you will also benefit. Your awareness is the key. Good for you!0 -
I'm going to say heart rate does not correlate to calorie burn. I have tachycardia so my heart beats really fast so by her metric I should be able to eat 3000 calories and weight about 90 lbs. I burn calories like a normal person. I actually used to wear a polar loop which is kind of like a fit bit but pairs with a heart rate monitor for exercise. Well when I'd workout and eat the calories the Loop told me I could I would gain weight. So anyhow I did a complex analysis of the data and realized that if I zeroed out all the extra calories for workouts then my weight progress made perfect sense. So then I started reading up and apparently oxygen uptake has more to do with calorie burn during workouts. The heart rate monitor assumes that because my heart is beating so fast that I'm breathing super hard but I'm not because that's my normal. So anyhow I'd say the reverse would be true for you.1
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I had an appt with my internist for my yearly physical and an appt with my cardiologist just days apart. I don't have heart disease, but have had 3 ablation procedures for multiple arrhythmia so my insurance requires me to see the cardiologist once a year even though he has nothing to do with the treatment for this. Anyway, at my internist appointment, I had lost about 30 pounds at that point and I went from 6.5 to 5.3 A1c among other significant lab value improvements. Before I left, he told me I need to follow a low fat diet.
When I saw my cardiologist a couple days later, we discussed the same things as I did with my internist. But before I left, he said "keep doing what you're doing". So I ignored my internist and followed my cardiologist's advice. My hope is that I am down close or at my goal when I see my internist for my next yearly physical. Just so I can see his jaw drop, lol.
I believe things are slowly changing out there as doctors are beginning to question what they were taught relative to diet for patients. We as patients can educate our physicians, too, by being open with our experiences with various types of diet. Some will look at us as idiots. Others will listen and hopefully learn that one diet does not fit all.2 -
rsmorton3086 wrote: »I was once told that without other risk factors, my weight was irrelevant. My reaction was to say that the doctor had just shot down my last motivation to lose weight.
Although that is true, the one problem with that is doctors rarely test insulin. As Dr. Joseph Kraft demonstrated testing over 15,000 people, someone can be insulin resistant (and essentially on their way to T2 diabetes) for decades before standard testing of BG shows anything. Since one of the functions of insulin is to store fat, being overweight MIGHT be an indication of insulin resistance. If the person is insulin resistant, then reducing weight will help stave off diabetes. Obviously, if you are in this group, you are LC and already doing something that is even more important in staving off diabetes.0 -
cstehansen wrote: »rsmorton3086 wrote: »I was once told that without other risk factors, my weight was irrelevant. My reaction was to say that the doctor had just shot down my last motivation to lose weight.
Although that is true, the one problem with that is doctors rarely test insulin. As Dr. Joseph Kraft demonstrated testing over 15,000 people, someone can be insulin resistant (and essentially on their way to T2 diabetes) for decades before standard testing of BG shows anything. Since one of the functions of insulin is to store fat, being overweight MIGHT be an indication of insulin resistance. If the person is insulin resistant, then reducing weight will help stave off diabetes. Obviously, if you are in this group, you are LC and already doing something that is even more important in staving off diabetes.
^^^^^^^^^^
This is 100% me. My fasting glucose and A1C are in the normal range... My insulin is NOT. If it hadn't been for me having to see an endocrinologist for something else, it might have been years more before I discovered my insulin resistance, probably about the time I became a diabetic.
P.S. If your doc doesn't want to test for this, @rsmorton3086 - there are independent labs you can go to that will run it for you.0
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