Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
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 again, Äôm Grace Sells and welcome back for another
edition of Best Docs Network, the show that features some of
the best doctors in the Houston area that are really changing
peoplÄôs lives.
WÄôre going to get todayÄôs show started with head and neck
surgeon, 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, Äôd 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 doesÄôt
have enough oxygen.
He feels like hÄôs short of breath.
IÄôve been to several different doctors around Houston and
theÄôve 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 is
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 Äôm getting a really good nighÄôs rest every night.
It just seems really amazing to finally get that breath of air
that Äôve always needed.
AryÄôs 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.
Ms. Richardson, a wonderful woman, very busy and she was
just dizzy and she wanted to be checked out.
And we did our routine screenings of our patients where
we check the heart with ultrasound, the carotids
ultrasound, aorta, legs, all of those things.
What we found was large plaque in the carotid, large plaque and
with a very abnormal velocity of blood flow.
She sent me to have an MRI and they found something so they
sent me to a neurologist who ran tests and finally sent me to
have a CAT scan and found out that my carotid artery was
blocked so she sent me to St. LukÄôs to a doctor who put a
stent in.
People will have dizziness, sometimes there are no symptoms
so silence is not golden here, silence is deadly so thatÄôs
why iÄôs so important to be checked.
In the literature of course we know that the older we are, the
more oxidative stress, the more plaque formation occurs in the
vessels.
But I have found young people to have already atherosclerosis or
plaque formation.
So if we can find it at a younger age in their 20Äôs and
3Äôs that theyÄôre developing plaque we can protect them from
presenting like Ms. Richardson did, you know, with a severe
blockage that could only be fixed by surgery.
SheÄôs very personable, she has plenty of time to talk to you
and tell you what the symptoms are and what can be done and
sheÄôs very caring.
Carotid disease can also present with symptoms of numbness or
tingling, difficulty speaking, changes in the facial shape,
basically people not being able to smile or maybe theÄôve had
small strokes where they caÄôt move their face or speak or move
their arms or legs like they used to, so those things should
be checked even if theyÄôre subtle, should check with their
doctor.
When you find a doctor that you can recommend to your friends
and to your family, iÄôs great.
IÄôm not a big fan of doctors but I just love her to death.
To request an appointment with any of our amazing doctors, head
to our website, iÄôs bestdocsnetwork.com.
Go to the doctors profile pages and just click on the Request An
Appointment tab.
You can even request an appointment with our next
doctor, iÄôs wellness and functional medicine physician,
Dr. Sakina Davis.
Lethargy, just tired all the time.
Anxious, couldnÄôt let my mind relax.
Paranoia, and the paranoia was the thing that was destroying
me.
I just doubted everything that was said to me.
I didÄôt think I was being told the truth.
I was looking for anything I could find to prove that
something was wrong in my marriage.
I was completely convinced that I was headed towards the end and
trying to figure out my life.
Samantha came in with mood challenges.
She had a lot of issues right before her cycle.
About a week or two before it happened she would definitely
notice that her moods would change.
She would have more irritability, more anxiety.
From the moment she told me she could help me I think my mind
already changed a little bit.
Was I skeptical?
Yes.
But when I started taking the hormones, which is just
progesterone, I honestly believe it was then like a week or two
that everything started to change.
Around the mid thirties or even after wÄôve had one or two
children, we certainly notice a decline in how we feel and that
starts the imbalance of how our hormones start to change.
And so during that period of time we get a phase called
estrogen dominance.
So if wÄôre able to take that progesterone and rematch it to
the estrogen, wÄôre able to correct the heavy periods, the
PMS symptoms, the bloating, the irritability, the anxiety.
IÄôs been over a year that IÄôve been better and I will
never go off of these hormones if I can help it.
I know people think is this a short term fix, can I, once I
get better can I stop and you know Äôve been told that no,
this is it, these hormones areÄôt going to come back
naturally.
You have to continue and Äôm okay with that, IÄôm perfectly
okay with that.
So we can have women who literally canÄôt leave their
house.
TheÄôre so anxious, theyÄôre so depressed, they have so many
mood challenges and with progesterone weÄôre able to
completely correct that.
Samantha, once she was treated, her whole life was completely
different.
She was able to function so much better, her family was much
happier and really that made a huge difference in her ability
to continue to function as a normal human being.
I mean, sheÄôs able to just go out there and do what she needs
to do and not have to worry about these severe mood swings
anymore.
Keeping your social networks alive and well may help benefit
your ticker over the long term.
Social support has been linked to a lower risk of heart disease
and people who do have heart attacks fare better if they are
socially connected.
Should you take over the counter cold medicines when you have a
bad cold?
Well, sometimes yes and sometimes no.
These medications will kill the germs but they will dry up the
mucus that acts as the food for the germs and then the germs die
sooner.
Antibiotics kill germs but antihistamines and decongestants
can dry up mucus that feeds the germs and then they die sooner
whether you use antibiotics or not.
Using nasal sprays may help if your nose is stopped up and you
canÄôt sleep.
Oftentimes using one of the over the counter nasal sprays will
help you sleep just donÄôt use it more than 3 or 4 days so you
donÄôt get hooked on it.
Also antihistamines can dry up mucus especially if itÄôs
accompanied by sneezing like allergy symptoms.
Decongestants are good too.
That dries up mucus, the non-allergic type mucus, the
infected type mucus.
Also some cough medicines although they donÄôt work very
well may make you feel a little bit better.
Now using anti-fever medications and anti-inflammatory
medications for aches and pains, those will help you too and help
you feel a lot better while your body fights off the germ
thaÄôs causing your bad cold.
For additional Medical Minutes with Dr. Honaker, head to our
website, bestdocsnetwork.com, click on Education and the
Medical Minute tab.
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 donÄôt go to bed at night with my legs aching.
I donÄôt go to bed at night just sometimes almost in tears
if Äôve 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, itÄôs made a big difference in my
level of activity.
For more information and to check out hundreds of videos,
head to our website, iÄôs bestdocsnetwork.com.
Up next wÄôre going to feature podiatrist, Dr. Gabriel Maislos.
I first started having some pain in my right foot after an
incident stepping out of a pool and I thought it was a simple
bone bruise but then I had some numbness and so I went to see
some podiatrists and initially they felt it was related to my
diabetes.
When he came into my office he complained of you know shooting
pain in his toes.
So after doing an examination and an ultrasound exam and he
exhibited signs of a neuroma.
A neuroma is essentially a nerve that is compressed by the size
of the metatarsal so the nerve courses in between and with a
neuroma it becomes inflamed and after a while it develops like a
fiber sheath and itÄôs no longer just inflamed, iÄôs
enlarged.
In terms of quality of life, IÄôm a big golfer and you know
it was really made every day and certainly the enjoyment of
playing golf a lot less enjoyable because of the
problem.
So Mr. Webber came in with symptoms of a neuroma and I
believe I treated him a couple of times with sclerosing
injections, orthodics were given to him and as well as
instructions on stretching and taking an anti-inflammatory.
And he just didÄôt get better.
So at that point he elected to have surgery.
Well I think certainly in my case as a diabetic and given
that the symptoms are so similar that this could happen to other
people.
I wasÄôt even aware of what a neuroma was and being a diabetic
so I think just awareness is a key to understanding that
numbness doesÄôt always mean diabetic neuropathy and it could
be an actual injury to your foot and you should see a podiatrist.
The procedure, itÄôs very rewarding because patients like
it and therÄôs minimal pain postop.
If anything thereÄôs some temporary numbness and then
after a while patients regain sensation.
My experience with Dr. Maislos, what I like about him is he is
very circumspect, so he doesnÄôt assume anything.
LetÄôs go through all the steps, heÄôs really interested
in finding a solution, very pleased with the care that the
doctor has given me.
Even in 2013 stress incontinence and urinary incontinence in
general is a very big concern for a lot of women.
Often starts with child bearing, progresses as women get older
and by late forties, early fifties a woman may be noticing
sheÄôs leaking urine when she coughs or sneeze, when she
jumps, when she exercises or for a lot of women the problem is
that she caÄôt sleep at night because she has to wake up and
urinate frequently.
If you have stress incontinence, a very simple outpatient
procedure will allow you the ability to exercise without
losing urine and may free you from pads and diapers that you
may be wearing, but just have to talk about it.
In certain other types of incontinence may require just
medications to help.
And Dr. Imtiaz can also treat her patients with a simple and
common outpatient procedure.
So for urinary stress incontinence, my most common
procedure that I do is something called a transobturator tape.
IÄôs a little mesh thaÄôs placed just inside of the ***
and it sits like a hammock around the urethra.
Urethra is the little tube that you urinate out of and in stress
incontinence, the control mechanism to, excuse me, the
control mechanism out of the bladder is weak.
A woman doesnÄôt have the ability to control when urine
comes out.
When we place this little hammock at the right spot, she
will be able to hold urine and be able to cough and sneeze
without losing urine.
Thanks to Dr. Imtiaz and these procedures patients no longer
have to live with this very correctable problem.
Now the interesting thing is that even in todaÄôs day and
age, women arenÄôt talking about it and itÄôs a very
common problem and the funny thing is itÄôs a fixable
problem, very easy fix.
For more information on some of the best doctors in the Houston
area and to watch other life changing stories, logon to
bestdocsnetwork.com.
Welcome, today we have with us Dr. James Willerson whoÄôs the
president and medical director of the Texas Heart Institute.
Dr. Willerson, weÄôre so thankful that youÄôre with us
today, welcome to our program.
Thank you.
We know that you had a long history here in Texas with
regard to the advancement of cardiovascular services.
Would you tell us a little bit about the Texas Heart Institute.
The Texas Heart Institute was founded in 1962 by Dr. Denton
Cooley as a research and education entity.
And I think he dreamed that it would train many doctors who
wanted to be heart doctors, cardiologists, surgeons,
electrophysiologists, pathologists and so on.
But it would also do research which would be important in
preventing cardiovascular disease and making it easier for
people to tolerate it when they already had it and thatÄôs the
way iÄôs worked out over the last 50 plus years.
IÄôs ranked number 6 in the United States, itÄôs been
ranked in the top 10 for each of the last 22 years consecutively.
There is no other heart center in Texas for which that same
thing has been true and we have educated thousands of doctors in
all areas of cardiovascular disease.
I know that your great passion is teaching and IÄôve been able
to sit at your feet and actually learn from the master and I just
thank you for that.
Thank you.
In front of the world, you are an amazing teacher.
Thank you.
And I know that you have taught many probably thousands of
students in internal medicine as well as cardiology.
We want to thank you for that.
What would you tell the world about those who have that love
for cardiovascular medicine and to study medicine?
What would you tell those students?
Well it is a passion but itÄôs based on the reflection that
heart and vascular disease are the number one killers of men,
women and children not only in the United States but in the
world.
Cancer is a distant second.
For instance, as a woman youÄôre more likely to die of
heart and vascular disease than you are of all cancers combined
and as a woman yoÄôre 5 times more likely to die of a heart
attack than you are of breast cancer.
And as a man, 1 out of 2.5 men worldwide will have some form of
heart and vascular disease during their live.
A person dies in the United States every 26 seconds, 24, 7
of heart and vascular disease.
So we want to let students know around the world to continue
reaching for their passion of saving lives.
And we thank you for being a leader in that Dr. Willerson.
Thank you very much, youÄôre very kind.
You are a tremendous, tremendous person.
I just thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you.
We have young, young people who are already having thickening of
their heart muscle.
TheÄôre already not quite having normal function and
iÄôs the earliest signs that thereÄôs a problem there, that
the heartÄôs working against a large, extra load that it
normally wouldnÄôt have to.
When I originally started to even look into this after I had
talked to my friend, I was probably between 335 and 340.
I had been that for 10 or 15 years, been over 300 pounds for
at least 15 or 20 years.
WÄôre giving them back some of that control in that one area
where theÄôve had a problem.
But iÄôs a dangerous area.
You canÄôt walk around at 310 pounds and think everythingÄôs
going to be okay for very long, itÄôs not.
ThereÄôs been times when IÄôd lost weight before.
IÄôve gotten down to 225 before but 6 months later Äôm back at
300 and that was always my issue.
And after you do that 2 or 3 times you know why do you want
to do it again because you know whatÄôs going to happen.
I actually had a buddy of mine that did the surgery probably a
year before I started looking into it and he had had great
results.
His weight loss was incredible from what IÄôd seen and Äôd
known the guy for several years, so and he was completely,
completely happy and excited with everything, so thaÄôs
when I started looking into the surgery myself.
Buck has lost 115 pounds in about 6 months after having a
sleeve gastric.
I mean thatÄôs a good, good outcome so far.
WÄôre only partway through, wÄôre gonna expect more weight
loss beyond that.
Although heÄôs clearly getting down towards his ideal body
weight which is what wÄôd ideally like to happen.
I started off at 335 or 340 January of 2011 and iÄôs what
February of 2012 and IÄôm at 186.
IÄôs like being reborn.
Before I guess I just kind of just muddled through life, no
excitement, just do what I had to do to get by, no energy, no
fun.
Now, I mean excitement, fun, romance, social life, things
that I didnÄôt have before.
He changed my life.
IÄôs a whole new world every day.
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.
My teeth needed to all be extracted, they were crumbling,
they were breaking, I couldÄôt chew my food.
HÄôs a professional, an accountant and heÄôs certainly
concerned about finances and how to structure his budget and he
was the guy that his lower teeth were worse off than the uppers.
And so that was an area that he decided to focus on.
I guess this started in 2009 and this really happened in kind of
in two settings so that in 2009 we did the lower and in 2011 we
did the upper.
The bottom is all done and IÄôm in the midst of having the
prosthesis on the top done.
And also with David his concern regarding his budget.
We were able to do this without grafting.
Previously in the upper jaw because of the maxillary sinuses
we would have to graft those areas in the majority of cases
that we were replacing a full jaw worth of implants.
But with the advent of cone beam CT we are able to look at
individuals from a 3 dimensional standpoint radio graphically
ahead of time so as to know where the bone is so that we can
position implants within that bone and avoid the need for
sinus grafting and subsequently lower his overall cost
significantly as well as increase the predictability.
No longer do I have to make sure that everything is in place
where iÄôs supposed to be in place.
IÄôs, I have, I have a new chance at a brand new set of
teeth and they doÄôt hurt.
IÄôs satisfying to see him come back smiling, see him
walking down the hallway standing upright with their chin
up, smiling and being much more confident so from a
psychological standpoint outside of the health benefits that you
see, the mental health benefits are significant.
IÄôm a CPA, I meet with clients and high net worth clients.
Appearance is important to me, iÄôs certainly not of the
utmost importance, but itÄôs important to me and I donÄôt
want to be embarrassed by a crumbling smile.
IÄôs a wonderful, wonderful solution.
A recent study in the Journal of Periodontology shows that 2
ounces of yogurt a day may protect you from gum disease.
The typical container of yogurt holds 6 ounces and the good
bacteria in yogurt helps fight germs in your mouth.
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 iÄôs 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 itÄôs from either from pregnancy or from weight
gain.
TheÄôve tried dieting, theÄôve 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 couldÄôt 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.
It is so great to see these doctors really making a
difference in peoplÄôs lives.
ThaÄôs going to wrap up todayÄôs show of Best Docs
Network.
If you have a question or comment we would love to hear
from you, send us an email at info@bestdocsnetwork.com.
Thanks again for tuning in and IÄôll see you next week.