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It's a call that's telling me I'm here to serve. It's a need
to make a difference in the world. 24 hours day or night
these healing hands will make it right. Looking in their eyes I
know that I'm changing lives, changing lives, changing lives
for the better, for the better, changing lives. Hello everyone,
I'm Grace Sells and welcome back for another edition of Best Docs
Network, the show that's featuring some of the best
doctors in the Houston area that are really changing people's
lives. Now if you've ever had a time where you're having trouble
breathing, you'll know that It can be very stressful. Up next
we're going to hear about nasal congestion and inability to
breathe with ear, nose and throat specialist, Dr. C. T.
Nguyen. My symptoms were like I would always wake up in the
middle of the night having short breath and then on the baseball
field like I would just, I'd be the one bending over all the
time. I was the only kid on the team that would always be
slouched over trying to gasp for breath. And I would say that
that was my major, major symptom right there, my major problem.
Aryn is a young athletic teen whose mom brought him to see me
because he was not, never been able to breathe through his
nose. He feels tired all the time and he complains that he
doesn't have enough oxygen. He feels like he's short of breath.
I've been to several different doctors around Houston and
they've always like thought it was asthma or something else but
Dr. Nguyen has taken his time to actually look into my nose and
like go further into seeing what was wrong with me. When I
examined Aryn I noticed that he has a severe deviated nasal
septum combined with enlarged turbinate. The turbinate at the
swelling part on the sidewall of the nose which contributes to
more than 75 percent of his nasal obstruction. We discussed
those findings with his mom and him and decided upon a line of
treatment that consists first of correcting his septum and using
energy radiofrequency coblation to reduce the swelling on the
sidewall of his nose therefore increasing his nasal passage and
increasing his oxygen intake. Two months out of my surgery I
feel like I can breathe a lot better. I feel like my
performance in baseball has improved, it feels like I'm
getting a really good night's rest every night. It just seems
really amazing to finally get that breath of air that I've
always needed. Aryn's surgery was performed in an outpatient
surgery center. The procedure took around 45 minutes and Aryn
goes home the same day. Dr. Nguyen has forever changed my
life. From when I was born to now I could not breathe and now
I can. We just appreciate what Dr. Nguyen has done for my life.
As I was aging I guess, my teeth weren't as pretty as they used
to be so I found that I wasn't smiling as much as I used to.
You know Sandy's a very beautiful lady. A lot of the
patients I see, probably a majority of the patients I see
are women you know over the age of 40, who a lot of times you
know they take care of themselves, they stay in shape,
they look great but there's just some things they want to do to
try to look younger and for Sandy you know getting her teeth
whiter, straightened up a little bit with the veneers was perfect
for her. I've seen a lot of Dr. Lewis's work and have been so
impressed so I came to see him and I'm so glad I did because
now I smile all the time. It just really works great for a
lot of people and she was a perfect candidate for that. It's
amazing to me that doing the veneers like we did for her
which is a pretty simple two visit process two or three weeks
apart, what a difference it can make in how someone looks. I
mean literally 10 or 15 years younger. It's painless, it
doesn't take long. Dr. Lewis is very sensitive to your feelings
and how you want to look. He's a good listener. He listened to
how I wanted my smile and my teeth to look and he did exactly
what I wanted. It can be done so to where it's not like people
look at you and go wow where did you have your teeth done, but
they look at you and go man you look great, what have you done?
Have you been working out more or you just look, so it's a for
some people if their teeth are really bad yeah it's going to be
a noticeable change but for other people it's just one of
those things to where you just look good, you look more alive,
you look more refreshed, you just look better but it's not
just a glaring oh what did you do to your teeth? My family
would say, okay what did you do, something's different, you're
smile is beautiful, did you get your hair cut? I just feel so
good about my smile now. Smiling is good. I'm not a big fan of
going to the dentist so this was a big deal for me and I would do
it again in a heartbeat. Ricardo has a question for Dr.
Varughese. Do all heart attacks cause chest pain? That's a
fabulous question. Very important for people to know
that 50 percent of the time that people with coronary disease
don't even have chest pain, they don't have any symptoms. So
sometimes people can have a heart attack and not have chest
pain, sometimes people can have chest pain but not be having a
heart attack but just have something called angina or
decreased blood flow to the heart. Whatever the symptom is
whether it's chest pain, shortness of breath,
palpitations, just a funny feeling in the heart, oftentimes
women may say that they just feel less able to do the things
that they do, less able to take care of the things in their
household daily environment. So if people have symptoms
definitely they should be checked. If they don't have
symptoms but they just are worried about heart attack or
stroke or family history of heart attack just go and see
your doctor. Every physician is able to evaluate the heart. You
don't have to go to a cardiologist, you can start with
your primary care doctor, they can give great care. And then go
and see a cardiologist for further evaluation. If you
haven't read one of our Best Docs Network Magazines just head
to our website, it's bestdocsnetwork.com and check
out the digital version. Now up next on the show we're going to
be hearing about cool sculpting with Dr. George Davis. I've
always been slim or on the slim side, always had a little pooch
for a tummy but it wasn't anything that I couldn't you
know cover up in clothing or suck it in. And then like I wake
up one morning and just went what's this and it didn't matter
how much I exercised, I've always ate well, I could not get
that stomach to go down and it happened in the upper section
also. Our patient for coolsculpting came in for
abdomen treatment, very concerned about her stomach. She
had areas that she couldn't get off despite diet and exercise.
So I just went hmm clothes aren't fitting, I can't go on
like this and so I started researching and I decided on the
coolsculpting simply because it's noninvasive, I didn't want
to go under the knife. The coolsculpting procedure will
take about an hour. It is noninvasive. When the procedure
is done you can go about your daily activities. You'll see the
most results at about 2 months so the whole concept is, is you
can take the skin and the soft tissues to a lower temperature,
freeze the fat, which actually kills the fat but it leaves the
surrounding tissues intact. Of course you get you know the list
of what could happen and I didn't have any cramping. I did
have just ever so slight bruising, not purples and blues,
just a little red and a little tender and that was it. It is
permanent. The affected area will kill about 25 percent of
the fat cells. The recommendation these days is do
two treatments within a month, that way you can get about 50
percent reduction of the area. Some patients just need one and
are happy with it. A lot of patients can get two and get
better results. I had it a year ago last January, yes, and I'm
just really thrilled that I had it done. My clothes fit again. I
could not wear this skirt a year ago. And it was cheaper to have
it done than going out and buying a new wardrobe, simple as
that. I would say I'm a victim of fashion and I like feeling
good in my clothes. I like to look good and so yeah there's a
little vanity in there and the hubby kind of likes it too.
Let's talk about gluten sensitivity. You hear a lot
about that. People with gluten sensitivity tend to get
bloating, gaseousness but it also can cause things like
anemia or fatigue because it washes out your nutrients in
your body and causes changes in everything from your energy
level to your tests in your doctors office. Gluten
sensitivity is caused by the absence in your small intestine
of a enzyme that digests gluten. Gluten is like wheat, breads and
that kind of thing and starches. If you don't have that enzyme
you build up gas from all the gluten that we tend to get in
our diet. How can you tell if you're gluten sensitive? Well,
one way is to just take gluten out of your diet. All you have
to do is look in the internet and you'll find gluten free
diets. If you get better from your symptoms that worry you by
being on a gluten free diet then you probably do have gluten
sensitivity and just keep on keeping on that way. Now one way
to tell for sure is you can get a biopsy done at a doctor's
office with a scope down your throat but that's not the best
way to do it. Just get a blood test done if the dietary
restrictions don't work. I came for treatment of my toenails
most of all but all my nails, all my toenails were bad, really
bad. They were in bad shape and they were discolorated like some
white stuff on them. How to say they were disattached from the
nail bed in one place especially and it was kind of yellowish
too. Inna came to my office complaining of fungal toenails,
very common thing especially you know you see it in summertime,
it's very prevalent. It's a fungal infection of the nails,
the nails are discolored and she wanted them treated. I keep my
body in shape and I want to be healthy and I want to have you
know everything perfect so it's one of the things when I found
out that something is wrong I couldn't go for some time
because I was busy, busy, busy but I talked to myself, no I
have to. It's basically a YAG laser and it creates this
intense heat and it kills fungus, bacteria, virus and it
kills it at the root of the nail. That's where the nail
begins. From that point on we have a protocol in place that
prevents recurrence because most of the problems that have
occurred in the past is even prior to the laser with the oral
medication, you would get rid of the fungal infection and then it
would come back. So you also have to do your part to make
sure that you don't get a recurrence because once you're
susceptible to fungal infections you remain susceptible the rest
of your life. I figured out that I have good results because when
I could see my nail grow or my nail growing, the new nail will
come pretty and it doesn't have anything. Like no fungus
nothing, no discoloration. It was pretty and nice and healthy
nail. The risk of a fungal infection is not just of
appearance and so you don't want to wait on it. You want to make
sure you come in early because you don't want to go to that
severe category where you might require multiple treatments.
It's better to treat it early on and not only that the nails when
they become fungal they become yellow, thickened, discolored,
hypotrofic and you can develop ingrown toenails. That's a
serious risk because you know that's an infection and that
requires a surgical procedure. I got new nail bed, new nail and
it was pretty healthy. For more information and to check out
hundreds of videos or request an appointment with any of our
amazing physicians, head to our website, it's
bestdocsnetwork.com. Now up next we're going to hear about
irregular heartbeats with interventional cardiologist Dr.
Annie Varughese. I was quite tired and I travel considerably
and at that time I would go through an airport and I'd have
to stop and rest and so I realized that I needed to check
in with a doctor and see what was going on. So Mr. Richardson
has cardiomyopathy, ischemic cardiomyopathy from coronary
artery disease, multiple blockages that really weakened
his heart over time and that's how I found him many, many years
ago, about 15 years ago. Pretty common that you neglect
yourself, you think nothing's ever going to be wrong but I
found out I had high blood pressure and I was border
diabetic and did a CAT scan and during that time they found out
that I had an irregular heartbeat. So at that time I was
told I needed to go to the emergency room and next thing I
knew I was having a quadruple bypass. We were able to
intervene on his cardiovascular disease, coronaries, fix those
but what happened was the heart was so weak so he ended up
needing a device which is different than a pacemaker, it's
a shockbox. A defibrillator is put in under the skin and again
like the pacemaker the wires will go to the heart but then
this box is able to protect the patient, shock them if the heart
stops or if the heart goes into ventricular fibrillation or
ventricular tachycardia. I'm able to carry on my daily work
duties and I can travel. I'm not so sure if I hadn't had this
great care that I would have been able to do that at my age.
I'm going on 71 and still working everyday so I give Dr.
Varughese lots of credit. She's helped me sustain a good life.
He's been able to function normally and it has actually
improved the function of his heart. He can walk around, he's
not short of breath. He can take care of his thousands of
employees and customers and what a blessing that's been for him.
Universal General Hospital is a hospital like no other with
state of the art medical treatments and an inviting
environment that pampers patients and families and
encourages relaxation and healing. I kind of came to a
realization that I obviously was not healthy and it got to the
point where it was kind of borderline embarrassing going
shopping and I would shop for clothes and I would cry in the
dressing rooms and I realized at that point it wasn't five pounds
that I had put on, it wasn't 10 pounds, it was, I had gained
about 100 pounds without really even, I can't say I didn't know
it but I think I was kind of in a state of, well, denial.
Stephanie's lost all of her extra weight, so that's ideal.
That's not, we don't expect that, we hope for that and she's
achieved that. She's achieved it because the surgery's given her
a lot more control but she's exercised that control. I got
the surgery March 5 of 2012 and currently I've lost about 115
pounds. She's really changed how she eats and limited it to very
healthy things, natural things, local organic things all of
which have pretty much a low glycemic index. She's cut out
almost all the animal fat out of her diet and that's ideal.
Everything has changed. There's a different joy. My kids are
proud of me and at work, working is easier. I realize that it was
absolutely the best thing that I ever did, not only for my life
right at this moment but for my life forever. Her whole approach
to eating has changed and she's involved her family and friends
and co-workers in that and that will produce an effect known as
the halo effect which is the patient having the weight loss
surgery can actually transmit better lifestyle to some of the
people around them and those people actually benefit from
that. And so everything has changed. How I saw myself, how I
see myself, how I see food, how I cook, how I shop, everything
totally, like, I feel like a totally different person. The
Best Docs Network is all about doctors helping change people's
lives. It's educational, informative and real. Logon to
bestdocsnetwork.com. Eating potassium packed picks such as
bananas, cantaloupes and oranges may help you to be less prone to
high blood pressure. In addition, reducing sodium intake
and taking other heart healthy steps will also help to manage
your blood pressure. Did you know that you can request an
appointment with any of our amazing physicians that you'll
see on the show today. Just head to our website, it's
bestdocsnetwork.com. And you can even request an appointment with
our next physician. It's plastic surgeon, Dr. David Altamira. I
had a double mastectomy and they needed to round out one of the
*** with more tissue so they took it from my stomach. She had
always been bothered by her stomach. Her stomach was kind of
bulging and out of proportion to the rest of her body and she
thought you know I went through this trauma with the breast
cancer now it's time to do something nice for myself and so
she elected to go ahead and have the tummy tuck to improve the
shape of her stomach. I have had four children, 2 naturally and
then 2 cesarean and you start to get a, what would you say, a
pouch and scar tissue build up so you know I want to look sexy
again, feel sexy. A tummy tuck can really benefit a wide
variety of people. Usually what we see is women who just have
extra loose, saggy skin in the abdominal area. Oftentimes it's
from either from pregnancy or from weight gain. They've tried
dieting, they've tried all the gyms and working out and they
still have that just loose, sagging skin or that little just
pooch or bulge in the lower abdomen that they just cannot
get rid of. The difference is looking at myself and not seeing
a stomach protruding, where I can put on clothes and I feel
good, you know I feel sexy. You know, I can wear a bikini where
I couldn't do that since 4 children ago, so you know, it
just brings that sexiness back. She had a dramatic improvement.
Before the surgery she had just a very thick layer of fat on her
stomach, she had stretch marks, loose bulging skin pretty much
all around her entire waistline. After the surgery we were able
to remove a great deal of skin and fat, give her a nice, smooth
flat contour, a great deal of the stretch marks were removed.
Everything was nice and firm and tight once again. Oh after
having 4 kids I always wanted to have a tummy tuck, I just you
know wanted to get back to me, got my sexy back. For dry skin
incorporate more avocados into your diet. They're rich in mono
saturated fat and Vitamin E both of which promote healthy skin.
Try them on salads and sandwiches and even in
smoothies. The ideal patients for dental implants are ones
that have been through lots of restorative procedures and where
these procedures just aren't predictable and so we're able to
give them their third set of teeth with the use of dental
implants. I had an accident when I was 10 years old and I fell
down on my face and I dislocated my jaw. And I didn't know that
then, but started looking for the oldest doctor or the one
with 35 years or more of experience so I went to the
facility on Gessner and I saw Dr. Metz and they said this is
the guy who's going to have to be working on you. I had to
decide if I wanted to go through with it and I did research. He
graduated top in the class. So in Teco we were able to move his
upper jaw forward and set his lower jaw back so as to help
line up his skeleton so that his teeth meshed together well. We
as specialists in oral surgery are uniquely qualified to
provide these procedures. I just figured out this is the best
facility, this is the best doctor and I truly believe that
you know. Dr. Metz and his team they know what they're doing.
With these patients, we know when they come down the hallway,
when we see them after this procedure, we see their level of
confidence has gone up tremendously. We can tell by the
smile on their face as well as their dress. They're dressed
sharply and they're holding their chin up. You can certainly
tell that they are happier individuals afterwards.
Technology today you know has really revolutionized how we
practice implant dentistry. We have comb beam CT's which allow
us to take a CT of the patient in the office and in about 20
seconds we have 360 degrees of bone around the implant. So we
know ahead of time whether we need to graft and also the type
of grafting that we need to do ahead of time. So patients are
better prepared for the experience and know more of what
to expect afterwards. We are able to do this in a safer
fashion. It's much more rapid. The procedures are much more
rapid and the recovery is much easier as well. High cholesterol
is a major problem in this country as well as in many
countries around the world. High cholesterol leads to
atherosclerosis, blockage of arteries that affect many organs
throughout our bodies. So how can we effectively treat high
cholesterol? There are medications, but sometimes
medications can cause multiple problems for patients, multiple
side effects, muscle pain, weakness, breakdown of muscles,
liver dysfunction to name just a few. So, we know that natural
has always been the best and we look for natural therapy with
regard to cholesterol reduction. There is something that we use
called Bios Life Slim which is a fiber product created at
Stanford University about twenty years ago to treat high
cholesterol in those patients who are intolerant to
medications. It's been there for twenty years but not many people
know about it. We use it in our practice and we've taught many
doctors how to use this effectively to lower
cholesterol. LDL is lowered by 30 percent, triglycerides
lowered by about 50 percent, so ask your doctor about Bios Life
Slim. Look for it, it's an amazing therapy and it will help
you to change your life. Debbie presented with severe swelling
and large bulging veins in her legs, one leg much worse than
the other. She had coexistent severe, very advanced
osteoarthritis in her knees so she really had some big problems
with both of her legs. Every morning and every night I would
measure my ankles just below my knees. I would have a difference
of sometimes as much as an inch and three quarters bigger
between morning and evening. And when I saw Dr. Morgan he
discussed the options with me and then as I said having double
knee replacements and three doctors who I highly respected
all said get it done before you have your knee replacement
because it will do so much in aiding the healing. Before
having her knee surgery she came in to us to have her veins
treated. We did ablations on her legs. Her swelling improved, her
varicose veins improved substantially and her legs felt
much better and she ultimately went on and had knee
replacement. I don't go to bed at night with my legs aching. I
don't go to bed at night just sometimes almost in tears if
I've had a real active day because my legs were so swollen
and ankles were so swollen. It made a huge difference for me.
The patients that I dreaded seeing previously in my practice
now I enjoy seeing them because I know that almost all of them
have been seen and treated by numerous other physicians
unsuccessfully and I know that I can treat them successfully. Not
only for their wounds but if they have swelling, pain,
bulging veins, heavy, tired legs, all of those things can be
successfully treated. About a month ago my great niece was
over and wanted to ride bikes and we ended up riding four
miles that day. I could not have done that previous to not having
the vein surgery because it just, it's made a big difference
in my level of activity. Well, it has been an amazing episode
of Best Docs Network, the show that's featuring some of the
best doctors in the Houston area that are really making a
difference in people's lives. If you have a question or a comment
we would love to hear from you. Just send us an email at
info@bestdocsnetwork.com. And to check out hundreds more videos
and any information that you could need, head to our website,
bestdocsnetwork.com. Thanks for tuning in and I'll see you next
week.