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A HEARTFELT VALENTINE'S DAY GIFT
by Sherry A. Rogers, M.D. Do you rack your brain each year trying to decide how to show your love on Valentine's Day? How about a crystal ball? For roughly $200, you and your honey can see into the future to find out what tragedies may be looming on the horizon. The beauty of this forecast? You may be able to prevent the tragedy. Heart disease is the number one killer of both men and women. You can begin your forecasting process by having an ultrafast heartscan performed in St. Petersburg, Florida. There's no need for a doctor's prescription, you won't be confined to a daunting tube, you don't even have to remove your clothes, and, it takes less than ten minutes. This specialized scan shows if there is even the minutest streak of calcification in the coronary arteries. It's important to know that all scans are not alike. They're becoming more and more common in cities all over the United States, in shopping malls and even in business parking lots. Many of us have reason to travel to Orlando, Sarasota, or Tampa each year; they're certainly popular vacation, business, and conference destinations. Merely rent a car and drive less than an hour from any of those places to St. Petersburg, where I believe you can receive the best ultrafast heartscan that exists. There are a few reasons the St. Petersburg scan stands out among the rest. First, it has eight slices per second versus three. Would you have more of a chance of finding a marble-sized cancer with three slices through an egg or with eight? Also, recall the last time you had a chest x-ray. You're always asked to hold your breath so the motion of breathing does not obscure the accuracy, making it too blurry to be useful. This scan is synchronized with your heartbeat, so that it only takes the picture in the brief second that your heart rests in diastole. So, if you find another heartscan, be sure to ask the radiologist, before you schedule, how many slices per second it has. If the answer is three or they don't know, you don't want it. Next, ask if it is gated (meaning synchronized with the EKG). If it is, you have the state-of-the-art crystal ball to determine whether or not you are a candidate for a heart attack, and in what period of time. Once you have this information, there are specific blood tests which cardiologists rarely perform: MetaMetrix Cardiovascular Risk Panel, to assay such things as fibrinogen (how easy it is for your blood to clot), insulin, testosterone, CRP, lipoprotein (a), red blood cell magnesium (please, never settle for the worthless, inexpensive serum magnesium that is commonly done), vitamin E, beta carotene levels and much more. These tests are crucial for survival. What better present is there for the person you love than a glimpse into their cardiovascular future? |
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