Family Medicine Blog
Protecting Your Heart - Part 1, 2 and 3
Protecting Your Heart
Join me each week to learn more about the importance of maintaining a healthy heart, risk factors and how to reduce them. For more information on this topic, our physicians, or to schedule an appointment, visit ShawneeMission.org/PrimaryCare.
Part One – Heart Disease: What is it?
Maintaining a healthy heart is essential to maintaining whole-body wellness. Although it is only the size of a fist, the heart beats about 100,000 times per day, circulating five or six quarts of blood each minute. This continuous cycle ensures that your body stays strong and healthy.
Importance of Annual Wellness Exams - Part 1, 2, 3 and 4
Importance of Annual Wellness Exams
Join me each week to learn more about the importance of annual wellness exams, what to expect and how to prepare to ensure you receive the best possible care.
Part 1 – Preparing for Your Exam
An annual wellness exam is one of the best ways to maintain your health. Visiting your doctor’s office each year allows your physician to discuss potential illnesses and health concerns before they become serious, like diabetes or high cholesterol, while offering ways to improve your nutrition and lifestyle. Wellness exams can also provide the assurance that you are healthy and doing well.
To ensure the physician can make a complete analysis of your health, it is important that you provide specific information regarding your medication use and family history.
Dry Air and Your Skin
The winter season is coming to a close, but cold days and dry air are still to blame for skin irritations. The skin is the most common part of us that suffers from the effects of dryness. For some people, the problem is more than just a tight, dry feeling. Excessive dryness of the skin can lead to bigger annoyances like flaking, cracking and even eczema. There are small changes you can make in your everyday routine to improve the health and hydration of your skin.
Blood Pressure – FAQs
One in three adults has high blood pressure and you could be one of them. While the cause of 90-95 percent of high blood pressure cases is unidentified, it is frequently controllable and easily detected. I always encourage patients to be educated about blood pressure, know their numbers and work to manage it.
What is high blood pressure?
Blood pressure is the pushing of blood against the walls of your blood vessels. High blood pressure is dangerous because it makes the heart muscle work overtime to pump blood to the body, which can lead to the hardening of your arteries and eventually heart failure, heart attack, kidney disease and stroke.
Managing Holiday Stress
In the midst of holiday season, one of the biggest gifts we give to ourselves is stress. This year especially, families are struggling financially, emotionally and physically. I have patients come in with very common symptoms such as aches, pains, headaches, anxiety, weight gain or trouble sleeping. Although stress is a common culprit of these symptoms, it can often be avoided. My goal is to help you learn to cope, and even prevent, stress.