lessthanhalf said:
You are in the US, I realise, where cost limits access to what elsewhere counts as fairly basic healthcare. Much of the basics of cardiovascular prevention and care, though, requires neither exotic tests nor specialists. ( ideally a lot of cardiology is prevention rather than treatment. ) And it would make vastly more difference than any peptide except perhaps the GLP's. Once serious cardiovascular disease has developed it becomes much harder to avoid needing a cardiologist, but presumably at this point you do not know
Blood pressure monitors cost little and are fairly accurate, so checking it is easy; treating it is not difficult and any doctor can write the prescription - at worst the medication could be sourced from india, ideally after some medical advice. Lipids and blood sugar are the other items worth checking, and any doctor can treat those too. Basic investigations such as ECG and chest Xray are not very expensive, though from your description an ecg with a 24 hour halter monitor recording would be better, and none of those cost much. Stress tests, or angiography especially, are less cheap , but may turn out not to be needed. Whether your palpitations sit in normal cardiac rhythm or not is something even a smartwatch could tell you, and finding that out would be a good idea - and the only issue I see where the shorter term might matter rather than this being purely about long-term prevention.
Age, family history, smoking history, lipids and blood glucose are all you need to calculate or estimate 10 year absolute cardiovascular risk, either through an online calculator or by getting a doctor to do it , and that tells you whether statins or aspirin are needed for prevention.
Working out the cause of the palpitations is worthwhile, then - they can be nothing more than anxiety and often mean little - while checking that blood pressure, lipids and blood glucose are ok covers most of what is cheap and easy to do. Getting those three confirmed ok, or treated, can halve or quarter long term risks.
Appreciate it. An echo is something I have been looking into getting done, and I had no idea the cost could be so low. Reta and getting healthier have taken my blood pressure from Stage 1 hypertension down to the bottom of the range.
As you said, India is a great source of meds. Ideally with a specialist's input, though that waits until employment brings insurance. Telmisartan is what I am going to prescribe myself, and see how it goes.
The broad sentiment that specialist care outdoes any peptide or supplement, though, is one I have to disagree with. Plenty of doctors are poor, it is luck of the draw, and our medicine tends to treat symptoms rather than causes. Same mindset as those who imagine cold medicine heals a cold. It does not. Supplements can.
A doctor helps where the blind spots in what you can do for yourself get filled in. An ECG, as you said, will make a great starting point.
But exercising regularly and using things like SS31, TB4/5, Cardiogen, Propionyl-L-Carnitine and CoQ10 would, I think, likely place someone on the order of elite athletes with specialist care. The average doctor obtainable through insurance usually lacks the time, the education and the inclination to recommend, never mind prescribe, exotic treatments.
My last doctor comes to mind again, who told me my cholesterol was high; when I asked what that meant and what to do about it, the advice was to eat less fried food.
Had cardio and more dietary fiber been the advice, I would have acted on it.
Blood tests are coming very soon, so I can see for myself. Still, given that I now run 5-10 miles a week, avoid bad fat, take fish oil and supplement psilium husk regularly, even without a blood test I can infer that my cholesterol is likely stellar.
Sad that we have to, but such is the way of things for those with less money.
Chances are my cardio is trashed rn
