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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. Hi again everyone, I’m Kandace Krueger along with Jim Knox.
We’re back once again with another edition of the Best Docs Network featuring some of
the best physicians in the Houston area that are changing people’s lives. Exactly right
Kandace, you tuned in to the right program and we’ll start if off with our first doctor,
that is gynecologist Dr. Maurice Leibman. I started having heavier periods where I would
have to you know make sure that I was near a restroom and you know kind of got to be
about every hour to two hours I would have to check, have excessive bleeding and so I
would not wear anything that would you know have the ability to you know show any type
of accident which again is very embarrassing. It’s a very common problem. It affects about
one in five women. A lot of women think they just have to put up with it and that’s part
of being female and sooner or later it will stop but in fact it goes on for a long time
and it interferes with their work life, their exercise life, their sex life. It started
getting irregular too. It wouldn’t always be every four weeks. I mean sometimes I would
have it three weeks, sometimes five weeks so I couldn’t even anticipate if we were
going on a trip or you know. Again in the old days, ten or fifteen years ago it was
very common for the gynecologist to say well let’s just do a hysterectomy. This new minimally
invasive technology was developed called endometrial ablation referring to ablating or removing
the lining of the uterus. And Dr. Leibman gave me the alternatives and said it’s a
very short procedure. I trust him wholeheartedly, I mean I’ve known him for you know twenty
plus years and I would trust my life with him. She certainly didn’t want to have a
hysterectomy so when we talked about this minimally invasive procedure that involved
no cutting, no hormones, she was really interested. And so came in here, cannot stand needles,
cannot stand any procedures. I was in and out of here for sure in an hour and I mean
obviously I did get put under. The recovery is very similar, it’s going home, taking
a nap, having some pain medication and usually that night there is some cramping but the
following day almost everyone is up and about and doing what they need to do. And went home,
slept for maybe a day off and on and I was back at work the next day and ever since then
I’ve been perfect and feel wonderful. After undergoing a mastectomy Colleen turned to
Dr. Evan Feldman to help change her life. To find out more about Colleen’s life and
other life changing stories, logon to bestdocsnetwork.com. After having met with Dr. Rose, toured the
facility and saw the importance of the work on the early detection side I was compelled
to do something more. It’s kind of like once you have knowledge to do something then
you have to move forward and make sure that others know about it as well. There’s several
things that we’re looking for the foundation to do. One is continue to fund important research.
There’s always going to be more things that we can learn and do better. The number two
thing is to be able to educate both other physicians and the community, especially the
community so that people begin to understand and participate in the process of screening
because the sad thing is in recent years screening mammography especially in younger women has
decreased and now I see women show up who haven’t had their mammogram and they have
more advanced tumors. I hate seeing that. We also want to try to be able to raise enough
money to do more imaging care as well for those who need additional. So those are the
three main areas we’re targeting. What I love most is the fact that we’re educating
other radiologists to read these mammograms so that we can spread the word quickly and
also the amount of anxiety that the results of these tests provide. Very few people really
realize that almost all of the breast cancers are detected in the community. They’re not
detected at facilities like MD Anderson for the most part because most people are referred
with the diagnosis there. So the research foundation was based on that idea that we
could fund research in the community and do things that weren’t being done elsewhere.
Our work is so important. I feel that we can take a big bite out of breast cancer incidences
if we can move forward with this early detection. Women who are vigilant about having their
mammograms annually, using a 3D tomosynthesis procedure can certainly help themselves and
not just for women who are insured but we would like for every woman to have this available
to them. For those suffering from foot problems, our next doctor podiatrist Dr. Gabriel Maislos
can help. A bunion deformity is a deviation of the first metatarsal and the second metatarsal
so basically you know what people see of their big toe is this. So the big toe is pointing
this way and this bone is going out this way. When it’s not matching up well you get bone
growth. And so bone starts to build up right here and it also starts to build up top. I
spend about 85% of my time traveling so I’m in and out of the airports. As a training
manager I do a lot of facilitations so I’m on my feet a lot walking and it got to the
point where even flat shoes what most people would think is comfortable shoes became painful.
Her surgery was an Austin Bunionectomy but it was a little bit different because on the
x-ray I discovered that she had severely arthritic joint. She had fracture fragments. So these
fracture fragments never healed and because they were constantly moving it was severe
pain. It caused an enormous amount of bone growth on the top and on the side. So I was
really excited to do her surgery because I knew it would provide immediate relief. I’ll
be wearing a boot for at least another 4 weeks and then I’ll come back for another reassessment
and then he’ll determine then whether I can take the boot off and then just start
walking in normal shoes. People always ask you know why do I have this problem and the
biggest component, genetics. So, if you look at your parent’s feet or your grandparent’s
feet, it’s basically telling you that if you see a bunion forming that chances are
your feet are going to develop these structural deformities. And then obviously for the females,
it’s wearing the high heels. You know, there’s a price to pay for high fashion. You wear
the high heel it puts your foot in a position which predisposes you to a bunion forming.
I would love to be able to get back out there and be pain free. A lot of times, I couldn’t
wait for the day to end because I would be in so much pain. So I’m looking forward
to being able to be on my feet for longer period of times pain free. The look on the
patients face when they come in and they see the results and they’re happy with the results
and they see that instead of having a crooked toe that it’s actually straight and that
the pain that they had before is gone so that’s the rewarding part to me. Meningitis can be
a bad disease. There’s three or four different kinds. The main kind is viral meningitis.
That’s relatively mild and doesn’t really harm people, it just makes them sick for a
while. Bacterial meningitis can be very bad. That’s the one that can make you very, very
sick, wind you up in the hospital, can even kill you. There’s also things like fungal
meningitis. This is the one that we recently heard about with the contaminated steroid
shots. How do you tell if you have meningitis? Well you have to be pretty sick to have meningitis.
For example, your fever is usually pretty high, not low. Generally you have the headache
usually described as the worst headache of your life. If you have a mile or moderate
headache that’s one thing. If you have the worst headache that you’ve ever had in your
life then you’ve got to think meningitis. Also, you may have a rash, you may have a
stiff neck and generally people with meningitis just look horrible. So if you have a little
bit of a headache and a little bit of a fever and feel a little bit horrible that may just
be a regular old virus. If it’s real bad on the headache side and real bad on the fever
side then you’ve got to think about meningitis and obviously you should see your physician.
With the gastric sleeve operation for example he’s going to lose the majority of the weight
in the first year and he should see quite a bit of benefit in terms of how his joints
feel, his ability to bear weight and the axial loading on his spine. Before surgery is approved
Paul has to clear several tests. First a visit with cardiologist Dr. Nasser. So the purpose
of the evaluation is to make sure the heart muscle is in good shape, the valves in good
shape so from a cardiovascular standpoint we do all this to tell Dr. Marvin’s surgeon
that your patient is in good shape and we expect no problems from the cardiovascular
standpoint when he goes through surgery. A comprehensive sleep study was then performed
to properly diagnose his sleep apnea. Wanted to offer this service to Paul because in the
situation in which his weight and always been a big person there’s some adverse effects
to that and wanted to diagnose the level of apnea that he may be experiencing so that
he can get the proper treatment for whatever needs to happen. We just want to make sure
that we diagnose everything and get him where he needs to be. Paul was now cleared for the
surgery that would forever change his life. Good morning, I’m here, it’s about 5:30
in the morning. I’m getting ready for my pre-surgery prep which starts in just a few
minutes. My surgery starts at 7:30 AM and I come here, I’m fixing to meet with the
doctor in just a few minutes and I’m very excited you know. I’m looking forward to
this day you know. You know everyone has, we all make decisions where we look back on
our lives and say I’m glad I did that. I already know in advance it’s going to be
one of those decisions for me. Look back on my life a few years from now and say I’m
so glad I did this and I’ll always remember this day, October 25, 2012 when my life got
better for infinitely. If you’ve had a doctor help change your life we’d love to hear
about it. Send us an email at info@bestdocsnetwork.com. Kimberly was born premature so we had quite
a bit of time in the hospital, about 6 weeks after birth and it was about two weeks into
that that there was some discoloration to her left cheek and her lower lip and that
later started to grow and we found that it was hemangioma. Kimberly was born with a congenital
hemangioma which is a blood vessel tumor. It involved the skin of her face and it also
involved deep structures as well. Coming to Dr. Eisemann and him explaining that it would
be a process but there would be a time that we really wouldn’t be able to look at her
and know the starting point with regards to the growth. You know we basically like to
tell them in advance what we’re planning on doing and in her case it’s a stage procedure
and it was planned just that. If you try to do too much at one time it can even be dangerous
as far as the bleeding is concerned so we tell them in the beginning that we’re doing
as much as we can at that time and we’d probably remove maybe 20 – 30% of it probably
the first operation and she’s had 5 or 6 operations since. I was excited because I
thought I actually look like this. At first it was like all around my face but it was
now that I look back at it, I’m actually really excited and happy. There has been times
that she came in after surgery that from the point of entry we would hear Kimberly’s
here, Kimberly’s here, Kimberly's here and people would come out, you know and just hi
Kimberly, how are you Kimberly? That means so much and especially for an 8 or 9 year
old who’s bandaged from surgery, you know, it just goes without saying that his office
staff is so supportive and so caring. It makes me feel nice that he cares or that he has
like that he is nice enough to ask me how am I doing or how is life going for me now.
Well, it’s changed her life you know? I can’t imagine her going on life the way
she was before without having had surgery and I don’t think she can either. I would
say that people don’t stare at me or talk about me or anything like that. They treat
me nicely and now I just feel really excited and happy to see that I can do all these things
confidently because of Dr. Eisemann. Don’t’ forget for more information on
any of the great doctors you see on today’s show, head to the website, it’s bestdocsnetwork.com,
bestdocsnetwork.com. That’s right and now it’s time to head to our next doctor, plastic
surgeon Dr. Greg Bancroft that talks about a special skin care line that he provides
his patients. Because of my history and being out in the sun a lot and not using sunscreen
and not using glasses I knew that I needed to do something and do a little bit as you
get older and then you’re not dealing with a big mess when you’re 60 or 70. Due to
her career that she worked previously, she enjoyed a good life where she worked at ClubMeds
around the world but obviously you’re going to get a lot of sun exposure and with that
sun exposure comes changes and disorder in the collagen and the pigmentation of the skin.
You want to rejuvenate that skin and then you want to protect it from further damage,
and then you also want to even out the tone to kind of correct some of that sun damage
that she’s occurred over the years. I came over and I talked to Dr. Bancroft and he said
you know I really think that my new cream that I’ve made in my compound pharmacy would
really, really help you. In terms of the skincare products that we have here, we have basically
a compounded cream. We’re basically taking the cream and adding it to specific levels
of the active ingredients for each patient. So you can have someone who has more of an
issue with controlling pigment or needs more rejuvenation. You can work your way up to
the level of Retin-A that’s appropriate for that patient. I started using the cream
probably about 5 or 6 months ago and immediately noticed a difference with the texture of my
skin, the feel, the way that it looked and the glow that it gave me. You know when you
talk about things like sun protectant, that’s the kind of stuff that’s working from that
point forward. But those damages that you’ve had, those fine lines, those wrinkles, the
pigments, the age spots, those kinds of things obviously the ingredients in the skin care
products we use can help even out the skin tone for that and then the rejuvenating component
will build more collagen, build more proto aminoglycans, other protein structures within
the skin. As you get those built up they allow your skin to hang on to moisture better. Skin
that hangs on to moisture better will appear plumper. Skin that is plumper won’t have
those fine lines that people complain about and so it really will start to freshen and
turn the skin around so it can look better. You look so youthful, your skin’s glowing
and I call it the magic cream. So I let people that have asked me know that I’ve been seeing
Dr. Bancroft and that he has this wonderful cream that I call the magic cream that has
worked magically on me and several of my friends have come here and are using it and have noticed
a great difference as well so it’s a lot of fun. Many of us live with pain, but you
don’t have to, PAMA’s here to help. Whether it’s sports injuries, arthritis or joint
pain, the physicians of PAMA are dedicated to your wellness and getting you back to pain-free
gains. So what are you waiting for, go to pamainc.net and find a physician or orthopedic
specialist who can help you stop pain and live life to its fullest again. PAMA, pain
freedom, go to pamainc.net. I lost a couple and the rest of them started getting loose
and it was something that took about five or six years to happen. It just suddenly came
on though. Yeah, George, his teeth were in an end stage in that they were decayed and
he also had periodontal disease, bone loss around his teeth. His teeth were chronically
infected, they had become loose. Also, there was a cosmetic problem with his teeth and
George is a very outgoing person and likes to smile and has a great smile and so his
smile just didn’t suit his character not to mention the health of his teeth. It was
really driving him down. I was king of getting to the point where things that required real
chewing particularly in the back of my mouth was getting more and more difficult. With
George what we did was removed his teeth. Now in him we focused on his lower jaw and
from a financial standpoint many individuals decide to maybe focus in one jaw versus the
other. Now granted with him we could have done both of them simultaneously but for whatever
reason and oftentimes it’s schedules, their busy work schedules, also finances that they’ll
sometimes stagger the case to suit them better and with George we focused on his lower jaw
and we removed all of his teeth upper and lower but we put the implants immediately
in his lower jaw. I’m feeling fine now. I’m back to the point of eating anything,
that’s no problem. We’ll continue on. I’m not quite through with all the procedures
but just about. And that is a misconception that we’re seeing right now with the advertising
where it talks about get this all done, completed in one day. Reality is the final is usually
done later down the road once the body has fused to the implant and the textbook answer
for that is at least three months. But it can be as long as anywhere from three to six
months but standard of care is to keep the patient in a provisional, a prototype if you
will, for a period of at least three months. According to my experience no question about
it, don’t be waiting on it. The earlier you start some treatment, clearly the better.
Up next we’ll meet Dr. C. T. Nguyen who helps individuals suffering from sinus problems
with a unique procedure called balloon sinuplasty. The symptoms is I had headaches, a lot of
congestion and infections in the throat, a lot of mucous in the back, ear aches, so much
stuff going on. Jenice Martinez is a patient who came to my office complaining of nasal
obstruction, facial pressure, constant headache. She has been treated under multiple medications
including antibiotics, antihistamine, nasal spray without really, without any good success.
I went on but then I started getting infections and I was on antibiotics for four months in
a row that they kept giving me. So I was like this is not good. So when we examined Ms.
Jenice Martinez we found that her natural sinus drainage pathway is obstructed by chronic
inflammation, chronic infection so we offered her the option of doing balloon sinuplasty.
The best part was the breathing. I could breathe again. The headaches little by little started
going away. Now when I sleep I would breathe real loud. My husband would always say that
and I don’t do that no more. So when you have a chronic sinus disease that passage
is obstructed, it’s narrowed by chronic inflammation, chronic infection. So what we
do is we put a small balloon in the passage and we open up, inflate the balloon and open
up the natural passage preserving the normal anatomy. And I don’t sound like I have colds
all the time. Before I was like I was sick all the time. And now I’m doing great. I
can go out, do everything and I feel good. One of the advantages is the quick recovery.
There’s really no down time to balloon sinuplasty. The procedure can be done in the office under
local anesthesia or topical anesthesia with some nasal spray. There’s not really a recovery
time for balloon patient. Can you know go back to the daily activity the next day, and
compared to traditional surgery which recovery can last to a week. Twelve year old Kyle loves
to play baseball but it was hard to do due to allergies. That is until he met Dr. Lynn
Dickens. To find out more about Kyle’s story and other life changing stories, logon to
bestdocsnetwork.com. Well from a standpoint of non-invasive treatments of the face such
as the botox that helps reduce the wrinkles so you want to prevent them before they actually
establish themselves long term. So that’s what the botox is going to do. It’s going
to paralyze those muscles that cause the wrinkles. Therefore you don’t get the wrinkles. Botox
is more for like the fine lines that I have around my eyes or my forehead or especially
you know in the zone where we make the little snooty face and over time you know the creases
get worse. In addition anybody who has the aging process which is the natural creases
or folds in your face that’s where the filler can come in. The filler I come in for my lips
just to soften the area right here where it starts to wrinkle. That didn’t happen until
after my mid-thirties. I started getting a little fine lines around my lips. So she comes
in it’s really not to have big lips. It’s just to soften this area and in my folds right
here. There are different types of fillers on the market now. The most common is a high
uronic acid type filler which means it is a protein that’s normally found inside the
skin and by injecting this type of filler it attracts water to the area and therefore
plumps the area out. If I get a botox procedure I can come in on my lunch break. It’s very
quick I can go back to work. I don’t look crazy or weird. Anybody can be a good candidate
for botox and fillers as long as they’re not on any blood thinners or if they have
any allergies to any specific medication such as the botox or the fillers. I believe the
non-invasive route is the better route and then if that doesn’t help then you may have
to have some type of plastic surgery done. But there’s all kinds of things that you
can do now between the lasers and the chemical peels and really good products and injectables
I believe that you can do a lot and you don’t have to so far go as far as getting cut on.
Mine is to really look refreshed and you know nice. I’m not trying to look 20. I just
want to age gracefully. Are you having trouble sleeping, do you wake up rested? Sleep is
important. It’s a time when we consolidate memory, we resolve conflicts and we rest those
aching bones and muscles and help our mind get back to normal from the wear and tear
of the day before. So what’s the best way to get a good night’s sleep? First of all
avoid caffeine after 5 or 6 PM in the evening. Avoid alcohol near bedtime. Although it may
make you feel sleepy, you’re not getting quality sleep when you drink alcohol. And
you’re also not getting all those things about consolidating memory and resolving conflict
when you drink alcohol to help you get relaxed to sleep. There’s lots of medications for
helping you sleep, however, the prescription medicines are ones that should not be taken
on a regular basis. They can become a little bit habit forming. Some of the best medications
for being able to sleep are the antihistamines that you can buy over the counter. There’s
many brand names and they work in a wonderful way. Plus you don’t get addicted to them.
So have a good night’s sleep, don’t snore too loud and exercise regularly. That’ll
help you sleep a lot better. People go for snoring but they need to figure out if they
are treating snoring or if they’re treating a real medical problem like sleep apnea so
that they treat the cause of their snoring instead of the noise. Dr. Ludwick’s in-house
state of the art sleep lab allows him the opportunity to evaluate his patients in a
comfortable setting. Well, people don’t come see me for a test, okay? They come see
me because they feel a certain way. They don’t want to feel that way anymore or they don’t
want to have this symptom like snoring anymore. Testing is a means to an end. It’s a means
to understand what is going on with you so that I know how to treat you, okay. So we
have to have the test to know if I’m treating someone who just makes a noise or someone
who actually has a medical condition that causes heart attacks and strokes and as you
saw on the nightly news if you watch the nightly news, you can increase your chance of cancer
now. So it’s a real medical problem, so I do the testing. The testing is necessary
for the treatment, okay? If we decide that you need treatment let’s say for sleep apnea
then we have to figure out how we’re going to treat you. There are lots of different
treatment options. You know, there’s surgical ways to treat sleep apnea, there are non-surgical
ways and it just depends on the person, their anatomy and their overall health status which
way that we want to help them. The good thing about coming to an ENT that does sleep is
that sleep apnea is an upper airway problem, you know, it’s not a lung problem. Okay,
you don’t have a lung problem, you have a kink in the air to the lung problem, yeah.
And so that’s why it’s good to go to an ENT because then we can address all the anatomic
issues you may be having. Because these guys have other things like deviated septums or
big turbinates or big tonsils or huge palates, big tongues, things that we can help surgically
manipulate those structures so that they’re not causing obstruction or if they are causing
obstruction cause you know less obstruction. And also use these other non-surgical techniques
like CPAP or oral appliances or things like that. From initial testing and evaluation
to a successful treatment plan, Dr. Ludwick provides his patients with a one stop solution.
That’s the purpose of us building a relationship. It’s not something we can fix in one visit,
you know, it’s a journey, you know. We’re going to evaluate you, find out what the problem
is, pick some options and lets see how you do. And then we can always change the plan,
I mean it’s not written in stone. Well that’ll do it, that’ll wrap up another edition of
the Best Docs Network featuring some of the best physicians in the Houston area that are
helping to change people’s lives. And the good news Kandace, for more information on
any of these great doctors you’ve seen on today’s program, everybody can head to the
website, bestdocsnetwork.com. Absolutely, and if you have a question or comment for
us or if you have a doctor that has helped to change your life, we’d love to hear from
you, send us an email at info@bestdocsnetwork.com. So long everyone, we will see you next week.