Heart Health
 

One day (1986), I was sitting next to my dad at the pool and while I was looking the other way, I heard a snorting sound. I jerked around immediately to see his head flung back making a gutteral sound. He fell backwards and his head bounced off the concrete. I administered MtM but (after neary 20 years) still can't talk about what happened next.

That was it for him. The doctors let me off the hook.

I've been looking after my heart health ever since. I fight the urge to obsess.

Oh beestie thats terrible, but a good wake up call for your own health i'm sure.

i have a very big history of heart problems in my family, one grandfather died of a heartaack, the other 3 grandparents are still alive but have ALL had attacks and 2 of those have pace makers. My dad has had a heart murmer and my mum has had 6 minor heart attacks so far.

so i look after my heart too! I try to do a lot of cardio exercise, mostly on the weekends by hiking and bushwalking, also rowing. I drink 30 mils of chlorophil daily to keep my cleased, also i take a multivitamin and i try not to eat too much greasy foods (although the last one can be a little tough!)

Beestie, I'm sorry.

You did what you could. What is often not mentioned in CPR classes is that it works less than 2% of the time on a witnessed heart attack.

Oh, and that other thing? That always happens too.

So sorry Beestie. Can't even begin to imagine what that must be like. I don't know to what extent heart problems are hereditory but you're doing the right thing by looking after yourself. I'm sure if he could give you one piece of advice that would be it. :)

In fact, it works so rarely that ILCOR just recently changed the way it's taught; we now teach people not to bother finding the "right place" to put their hands, because it just makes them worry about being in the wrong place and then they don't try. In reality with CPR, you're really aiming to keep blood circulating long enough for a defib to arrive with EMS or from somewhere local.

All anyone can do is their best, and hope and hope and hope.

On a more positive note, we're now seeing AED defib units springing up in supermarkets, cinemas, pubs and nightclubs over here in the UK for "layperson" use. There are charities and the like funding them, and the supermarkets are dotting them around all over.

Hopefully, it'll reduce the shockingly high incidence of heart-attack related deaths by a significant margin.

I've seen several in public places in the US ... all in locked plexiglas cabinets to which no one available has the key ... another problem with the AED units is battery life.

The batteries go dead while you're waiting to have the devices used.

The batteries cost nearly as much as replacing the units. (I've talked with the head of EMS for our county, and that's the biggest problem with them).

What exactly is that supposed to do for you?

makes your leaves greener

Yeah, yeah, and if I weren't such a vampire I wouldn't have to eat as much either... smartass.

I'm actually very concerned about my father's health, but there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it. How do you approach someone and tell them, "Hey, I'm afraid that what you're doing is going to kill you someday soon" repeatedly and look on to see them never do anything about it? I got the usual reply that "you only live once, might as well enjoy it" on a number of ocassions.

For awhile, I thought this was horribly selfish of him to say such things, as if he thought his death wouldn't affect anyone around him or his family. Its like he's afraid of it and afraid to acknowledge that it is most likely his habits that will do him in. So how to you get someone to start doing something about their health? When it is entirely correctable through exercise and better eating, how do you pull the person out of the mood they're in that constantly tells them to not do anything to get back on track? Its almost like some kind of depression.

Getting him to see a doctor about it is something else entirely. Shit.

I used to tell my father to quit eating all that greasy Southern food but he wouldn't. He wouldn't take his heart medication either so don't pin your hopes on getting your dad to go to the doc - that's only half the battle.

Don't give up but I think some folks get a perverse pleasure out of living a lifestyle that endangers their health - sort of like they're teasing death or something. Its really kind of selfish.

Keep trying. Maybe even get really mad about it. Conduct yourself in such a way that if things don't work out, you won't regret not doing or trying something.

Do you have kids, Kitsune? Playing up the grandkid factor can be a good motivator for many older men to shape up their lifestyle.

Do you have kids, Kitsune?

I can answer that with a question: judging by my posts, do you think its a good idea for me to have kids? :)

Playing up the grandkid factor can be a good motivator for many older men to shape up their lifestyle.

Since this isn't an option at the moment, I think I need to keep pushing the "family button" a bit more. He's beginning to improve and I just need to make sure he continues down that path.

before my mom went on blood pressure medicine (medicine that she sorely needed for YEARS) I used to tell her-Look, don't think I'M gonna be the one to clean you up and wipe both ends--coz it won't be me. That got her to the doc and on the meds. Harsh? Yes. But it worked. She is faithful about her BP meds. Her own mother died of a stroke...

3 years ago, I thought I was having a heart attack and went to the ER. Fortunately, it was just a bad muscle strain, but that apparently wasn't much of a wake up call to me. Even though I was 26, severely overweight, had a poor diet and was smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day...

3 months ago, my doctor noticed an irregular heartbeat. That did it. I quit smoking less than a week later cold turkey, I exercise 30 minutes a day and I'm trying to eat better. And the funny thing is...the irregular heartbeat was most likely caused by the allergy medicine I was taking--the cardiologist I went to found nothing.