I had a mild heart attack on. 16 Nov. Echocardiogram did not show any problems. Angiogram showed minor deposits on arteries entering the heart, but not enough to slow down blood flow. No other problems found.
They sent me home with a new prescription for plavix. Plavix is a blood thinner that is prescribed to help keep artery stents clean of deposits.
I think the hospital cardiologist saw heart attack and angiogram, and put them together to read stent, and did not read the angiogram report.
I called my personal cardiologist to let him know about the attack and the Prescriptions. The triage team called back an hour later, thanked me for letting them know about the attack, and said I should take the Plavix to help with the stent. “But I don’t have a stent”, I replied. The nurse who had called was astounded at that, and only then looked up the angiogram report.
I got a call an hour later from my cardiologist’s nurse saying that I SHOULD NOT take the Plavix.
There were way too many assumptions made about my after-attack treatment. People need to be aware of their treatments, research them, question them when something seems wrong, and take charge of their own selves.
My previous post was a long way to say that there were way too many assumptions made about my after-attack treatment. People need to be aware of their treatments, research them, question them when something seems wrong, and take charge of their own selves.
This is what I encourage everyone to do. A little sanity checking helps everyone involved.
You CAN know more than your care givers, as you described. People are human.
In my experience, doctors I have dealt with as a relative advocate or a patient advocate have all concurred with my sanity checks and prescribed a different medicine (ARB instead of ACE-I, for instance) or kept someone overnight in the hospital, among other incidents.
In reality, doctors’ hands can be tied by everyone's insurance companies. Doctors often want to do something different, but may only be able to if the patient makes a request or case for something different from what your insurance company mandates as “standard care.” If you give them the reasoning (argument), they can write that down and use that against your insurance company, to your benefit.
Doctors are not trying to hurt people, but insurance companies are trying to get the lowest cost for what they think is an “adequate” outcome. Note that “adequate” may never mean “ideal,” or “best.”