Do you ever get fat ankles? Swollen ankles may not seem like a reason to worry. Your swollen ankles indicate unhealthy fluid retention!
Do you think, “maybe I just ate too much salt”?
It’s a good idea to remember that sugar causes you to retain fluid, too!
Unhealthy blood sugar levels have everything to do with fluid retention.
This article on HealthLine.com addresses this very common problem without quite telling you WHEN to seek help:
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Grief is a very powerful emotion!
It seems to come in waves.
The first powerful wave tends to knock you off your feet.
It takes a while to get up.
Once you get your feet under you, the next wave can surprise you just as much!
Dog Gone! You thought you had this under control. You thought you were healing and moving forward.
Time heals. However, healing tends to sets the stage for the next layer of grief to demand expression.
As much as you want to be done feeling like dung, you need to grieve when you need to grieve.
Do you see your grieving process somewhere in the list of the stages of grief?
No matter how many days or years have passed, you can likely recognize yourself in there somewhere.
The following article is from an old post here on Heart Failure Solutions, though the content is as old as Grief Itself.
The 7 Stages of Grief:
1.Denial and Isolation
This is actually very normal and expected. The onset of grief causes you to withdraw.
Much like burning yourself, grief makes you pull back.
This process can happen within a few moments, or it can take much longer.
2. Anger
Whether you feel mad at your loved one for leaving you, mad at the world for going on without them, or mad at God for a taking them, anger is a normal part of the grieving process.
It is also normal to blame yourself, even if it is unrealistic and irrational. Perhaps nothing could have been done to alter the circumstance, even so, blaming yourself is not at all unusual.
3. Bargaining
Your unrealistic and irrational feelings may take a while to work through. Bargaining with God to take away your loss may sound nuts, but within the grieving process, this is also perfectly normal.
4. Depression
When the intense onset of grief begins to subside, a numbness begins to replace overwhelming feelings.
The reality that you will never see your loved one again starts to set in. It is normal to sink into a period of depression as you adjust.
Sharing happy memories can actually be helpful at this stage. Though friends and family may avoid talking about your lost loved one, it might be exactly what you need.
Encouragement to “move on” or “get over it” is NOT helpful at this stage.
Resist the temptation to stuff your feelings to appease others.
Honor your healing process so you can heal.
5. Turning the Corner
There comes a time in your grieving process where your physical symptoms begin to subside. You may even find yourself feeling guilty for hurting less.
Be encouraged. This upward turn is also a natural part of the grieving process.
6. Reconstruction
When you see yourself facing the heart wrenching task of going on without your loved one, you know you are moving into the phase of restructuring your life without them.
As painful as this can be, it is especially important to honor this part of the process. If your loved one lived a distance from you this can be a little more difficult. It is harder to believe they are really gone.
A memorial or just a collection of pictures can help you to put life without them into perspective. Do some journaling if it helps you to process.
7. Acceptance and Hope
When you can remember your loved one with a genuine smile on your face you know that acceptance and hope have begun, and that is a true sign of healing.
(Article originally published in an earlier post here on Heart Failure Solutions)
Happy Memories are medicine!
Truly they are!
You can only hurt as much as you LOVE!
A Congestive Heart Failure diagnosis is a devastating piece of news to process.
Look up information online and you aren’t likely to feel very hopeful.
The bigger issue is that congestive heart failure can go UN-diagnosed for many years, so by the time you actually hear your doctor speak those words your disease process may be very advanced and your heart may have experienced a significant amount of damage.
Do you know the symptoms of congestive heart failure?
Heart failure symptoms
- Shortness of breath (dyspnea) when you exert yourself or when you lie down
- Fatigue and weakness
- Swelling (edema) in your legs, ankles and feet
- Rapid or irregular heartbeat
- Reduced ability to exercise
- Persistent cough or wheezing with white or pink blood-tinged phlegm
- Increased need to urinate at night
- Swelling of your abdomen (ascites)
- Sudden weight gain from fluid retention
- Lack of appetite and nausea
- Difficulty concentrating or decreased alertness
- Sudden, severe shortness of breath and coughing up pink, foamy mucus
- Elevated blood pressure
- Profuse sweating
- Chest pain, if your heart failure is caused by a heart attack
(Article originally published on MayoClinic.com)
You can see that most of these symptoms are typical for multiple health issues.
Can you understand how your doctor might miss the clues?
If you don’t ask to be tested, you may not even hear the term “congestive heart failure” until you are in the midst of a health crisis.
Statistics show that this condition is often mis-diagnosed or just plain undetected by doctors for years!
An excerpt from the book Bypassing Bypass
Most people first hear the terrifying term “congestive heart failure” when they are hospitalized for heart problems.
Though recently it has been noted that the death rate from heart disease and cancer in the U.S. are dropping, the number of cases of congestive heart failure has doubled during the same time that all other heart disease rates have been decreasing.
The Weakened Heart
The heart is just like other muscles. When it is weakened, it becomes enlarged, congested, flaccid, and often prolapsed (dropped from its original position in the chest). It is not unusual to require a stethoscope placement three to five inches below the normal area when listening to a weakened heart.In addition, a weakened heart simply cannot contract forcibly enough. Imagine if you had a weakened forearm and hand. Or imagine someone cutting off the nerve impulses to your fist. Now try to squeeze a tight fist. It becomes impossible. And in the end, you can only contract your hand weakly. The same thing happens with the muscle of your heart. Only in this case, due to a weak contraction, the blood entering the heart cannot be pumped out completely.
When this occurs, congestion takes place in the body. Your body is robbed of blood, nutrition, and oxygen. You become weak, tired, exhausted, and mentally spaced out. Your heart will often try to compensate by beating faster (trying to get the blood out with faster but weaker beats). When this happens, the condition becomes complicated by the tachycardia (racing heart).
Since nutritional deficiencies causing heart problems are rarely considered in the field of medicine, you are placed on powerful drugs that attempt to keep your heart beating and try to keep the congestion from becoming overwhelming. When your heart starts to race, more drugs are used to control your heartbeat. Meanwhile, you are getting weaker and weaker as your heart starves for the correct nutrition.
(Originally posted on MNWellDir.org)
There are 4 Stages of Congestive Heart Failure.
Unfortunately, you can be all the way in the 3rd Stage of Heart Disease and still have relatively few symptoms.
On WebMD.com they describe a person in Stage 3 of Heart Failure as:
Patients with known systolic heart failure and current or prior symptoms.
Most common symptoms include:
- Shortness of breath
- Fatigue
- Reduced ability to exercise
(Information originally posted on WebMD.com)
However, a patient in Stage 3 of Heart Failure can also show up in the emergency room having never been told that they have ANY heart issues what so ever!
You may not even notice your symptoms of heart failure!
If you do, it is very likely that you will chock them up to something else … like getting old!
There is an epidemic of congestive heart failure ravaging the planet.
The Life Breath Club is dedicated to helping you recognize trouble before it threatens your well being.
Your free membership helps you evaluate your health care decisions and your Masters Membership will help you make the changes you need to make to AVOID health crisis!
Do you notice signs of trouble?
Your doctor prescribes yet another drug for you, this time it’s Beta Blockers.
Do you take it?
Is it responsible to question your doctor before swallowing?
It’s tough to feel confident enough to question your doctor, but if you don’t ask questions, do you know what you are risking?
First, let’s take a look at the side effects you might expect from taking Beta Blockers:
Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) associated with the use of beta blockers include:
- nausea
- diarrhoea
- bronchospasm
- dyspnea
- cold extremities
- exacerbation of Raynaud’s syndrome
- bradycardia
- hypotension
- heart failure
- heart block
- fatigue
- dizziness
- abnormal vision
- decreased concentration
- hallucinations
- insomnia, nightmares
- clinical depression
- sexual dysfunction, erectile dysfunction
- alteration of glucose and lipid metabolism.
Clinical guidelines in Great Britain, but not in the United States, call for avoiding diuretics and beta-blockers as first-line treatment of hypertension due to the risk of diabetes.
(article originally published on News-Medical.net)
WOAH! Hold the phone! Is it worth risking all that? Continue reading article
Metformin has become down right fashionable!
Everybody is taking it!
Has your doctor offered you Meformin yet for your “pre-diabetes condition”?
Before you decide that you can’t risk high blood sugar and you need to take the drug your doctor is pushing, you really should take a look Metformin side effects. Continue reading article
If you are searching for information on blood oxygen saturation you are likely facing some huge health issues. Normally folks first hear of this phrase from their doctor. It is likely that low oxygen levels have been causing health issues for quite some time before you or your doctor observed and evaluated them. There is a reason heart disease is killing so many. Continue reading article