Glad the car is on the mend! Much as we don’t want to be car owners it’s just unavoidable especially as we get older. Can’t imagine relying on public transportation (if it even existed here!) for my four days of doctors appointments. And it was ugly cold and raining too. And many more appointments in the future.

Unwanted advice for PAV - find a doctor you like and trust and go with it. Don’t know how Canadian medical system works so ….

Hey Dante answer PAVs private message! How’s that for motherly nagging?

I’m making some weight progress but it’s a daily fight for control. I picked up about ten pounds over the holidays, surgery and stress eating. 🥣. I’m definitely not one of those people who lose their appetite when worrying!!!

I wonder why the Canadian national health care system would differ so much among provinces? Is it possible to buy additional health insurance for private medical access? It may seem expensive but sometimes you might need more than is offered…..

I have to admit that one of the thoughts that have crossed my mind is how much more difficult and expensive traveling to the USA has become / is likely to become for me to the degree of giving other destinations a significant preference. Because not having additional health insurance when traveling to the States is not really an option and all of a sudden I'm looking at pre existing conditions 🤷‍♂️

PAV have you asked your primary care doctor to be referred to another cardiologist for a second opinion?

Hmm. Slow down helpful peops we have more of a slow process and slow communications and do nothing issue and at least part of it is being addressed end of the month on a one on one in person wrestling match that I booked a few days ago!🤣

I am more likely to do an out of province paid private consult than change the base cardiologist, sadly. They are a founding member of the practice and the NP who provides the primary care operates under their umbrella. And they have already referred me to an electrophysiologist to whom they are deferring.

But the specialist I am almost sure (based on their lack of follow up reaction after the MRI they ordered other than the moa calling to say that they will schedule a call in early 2025) will take a "watch and see" posture.

Bottom line: two years after the routine baseline ECG ordered by the NP for our first physical found that I have a LBBB, I've managed to collect two 23 hour Holter monitor studies and three tests. A MIBI (less than two months), an echo (12 months for the cheap as borscht test!), and a cardiac MRI (less than 40 days due to a cancellation). All of them say that EF=lower than normal=45. Two say non ischemic cardiomyopathy. None say super dire. None say all good. None indicate what came first and if things are deteriorating, or not, and how long they've been going on (2 years or 22 or 59.2?). So some more contextual information is needed other than me reading and interpreting the results on my own. 🤷‍♂️

I've also been told to bring my normal range blood pressure into the normal range and to not hit high heart rates because "your heart is week". I've also been told to exercise as normal. Which given that if I do so I am likely to hit appreciably more than the 150 that raised the previous comment obviously cannot coexist unmodified.

In the meanwhile i am trying to sleep more and manage various stresses / stressors, and of course I'm wondering if the (not yet fully figured out under that conditions they occur) bouts of intense sleepiness after food (which for me usually follows activity) are a symptom of deterioration or just of de-tuning and the extra 5lbs I am carrying or ?????🤯🤯🤯

PS: yes it is very annoying that the cheapest test (the echocardiogram) caused the biggest delay, including an eight month delay for the specialist to open the file since they refused to do so before the basic series of tests were complete.

Ouch. Not that aggressive counterattack doesn't make sense. My own initial inkling might be along the lines. But it does pile on.

If you trust the doctor--and I've met as a patient, as a family member and through work doctors I would trust--then they definitely have the knowledge, the ability to synthesize the knowledge, and the experience to give valuable advice. And I would be very much swayed by such advice.

But If you get the feeling that the doctor hasn't even bothered to read the chart before talking to you and is just engaging in "pap" talk [and I don't mean pap smear but I do mean a piece of bland bread dunked in water till ready to dissolve type of talk....] then you don't really know if you have received (relevant) advice.

Unfortunately I have not researched enough, and even more so, do not have the knowledge and context to have enough of a grasp as to what's going on. AND, very annoyingly and maybe even thankfully, some of the values are at the cusp of classifications.

It doesn't help, in terms of confidence, that some of the imaging was not great: The echo had some issues and, more unfortunately since I suspect (and hope) that I won't be doing a lot of them, during the MRI I definitely experienced breath hold issues [that I more than 50% blame on the tech and over-tightened straps ] which degraded the images.

And, of course, different studies use different cut-offs. And, of course, while the risk difference may sound wonderful in a study.... 25% reduction in mortality, woohoo! But in actual fact it may mean that nothing changed for nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety NINE people. But for ONE person in a million EVERYTHING changed for better or worse. Because a risk reduction from 4 in a million to 3... is 25%! But then you have to also take into account which subset(s) of the million cohort you may be aligned closer to... because let's face it some of the studies include people in both better and worse shape at the onset.

Which brings us back to benefiting from the knowledge of a person who is both educated in the field and who you (believe) you can trust.

The AI's, even paid versions, are not there as of today--too much hallucination! So full circle.

But on the bright** side the AIs may make the whole future a non issue because they watch movies too!

**not sure that would be THAT bright for non AI's... but hey: it could terminally take care of any human worries about termination!

I suspect you've got the jeans and genes to keep going... and discovering for yourself😎

@PAV8888 Just saw your post. Never got your message man. Inbox is empty.

No need for proof. It is a semi-known problem where if the people are not friends direct messages will not work will come up with something when I wake up😝

This is not a reliable guess because I haven't eaten/tracked or even thought about the calories in meat in ???35ish years! I'm putting it at 1000 calorie (give or take 100). Can't really see how much bacon there is on there?

What do you think?

I started off the cuff at 1200 and then broke it down by the individual components and thought maybe I had come in too high. Sneaky cheddar! Didn't see that. How much of an omelette is that? 2 eggs? Maybe less? lol - the obsessive part of my brain likes this game (on someone else's dime of course)

Pictures on MFP are hard to see. Portions were large. I used a university of Minnesota (similar to USDA derived entries) entry for egg omelette with cheese based on volume at 1.5 cups on the eyeball. You know my hamsters were not impressed 😁 but needs must 🤷‍♂️