Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to True north, your destination for better health, brought to you by North Mississippi Health Services.
Each episode, we sit down with experts from across our health system to explore the topics that matter most to you and your family.
From prevention and wellness to the latest treatments and healthcare innovations, we're here to provide trusted information that helps you make informed decisions and live a healthier life.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Welcome back to another episode of North Mississippi Health Services Podcast. I'm Morgan Roe, brand strategist, here with nurse practitioner Margo Allgood. How are you doing?
[00:00:43] Speaker C: Doing great.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Good. We're so glad to have you.
[00:00:45] Speaker C: Glad to be here.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Tell me a little bit about yourself and what clinic you work with and what you do.
[00:00:50] Speaker C: Sure. So I am a nurse practitioner and I work at Amory Cardiology, so we treat patients with general cardiac conditions.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Okay.
And I know a big conversation right now is heart disease. Tell me a little bit about heart disease and how we can prevent it.
[00:01:08] Speaker C: Sure. So think of heart disease. It is a progressive inflammatory process that often starts decades before you even get symptoms. So there's a lot of risk factors that you can kind of address early on. And I would say that's why early prevention is so important. Early detection, specifically.
So if you know that you've got a family history or you have evidence of cardiac disease early on, there's a lot of variables that we can treat to kind of halt that process and slow it down.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: What are some of those early signs?
[00:01:45] Speaker C: So, like I said, a lot of times, the body starts developing heart disease way before you even have symptoms. So you can have no symptoms for decades and not even know you have heart disease. But I would say the classic one is going to be chest pain. And what I want to say about that is a lot of times it's not chest pain. It's more of a pressure, a tightness, a squeezing, a heaviness, or even a burning in the chest. Or some people describe it as fullness or any indigestion like pain.
And it can be in a generalized chest region, radiate up into the jaw, down one or both arms, into the armpit area, or even between the shoulder blades. And on occasion, I have some patients that'll complain of the discomfort in those locations and not necessarily in the chest.
So that's kind of your classic presentation.
You can get shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting, or sweet sweats with that as well. So that. And then more rarely, you can have some patients complain of increased shortness of breath with activity, not necessarily with chest pain and a decreased exercise capacity. You just can't do what you normally could do.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Okay, what about some risk factors? What are some of the big ones?
[00:02:55] Speaker C: So I'd say some of the big ones, definitely smoking. All right. High blood pressure, elevated cholesterol markers in diabetes, especially uncontrolled diabetes.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Is there a certain age we're talking here, or could it be anybody?
[00:03:10] Speaker C: So anybody. So, you know, what I would say is a baseline of just kind of knowing your risk. Starting in your early 20s, get an idea of what is your blood pressure, what does your cholesterol look like, what is your waist circumference, and kind of get an idea there about, you know, family history is certainly important as well, and then go on from there.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: How do you know the difference between maybe anxiety pressure and heart pressure?
[00:03:38] Speaker C: It can be hard to tell, honestly. So, I mean, I think just having a visit with a cardiology group is important to kind of decipher that. There's a lot of things we do when. When we see you as a new patient, we're going to ask you a lot of questions. And when we listen to your story, we're taking into account other things as well, such as your family history and your other risk factors, and that can kind of help us kind of guide future treatment. But it can be sometimes not super clear.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: And I think it's important to know yourself, right. And know what you're capable of. Margo, what role does lifestyle play in heart disease?
[00:04:16] Speaker C: So it plays a big role. And so I think we should be encouraged in the fact that we can modify a lot of the things that drive heart disease.
So, for example, diet, the Mediterranean diet is probably the best studied diet in terms of improving your heart health.
It's going to be a diet high in vegetables and fruit, lean protein, olive oil, nuts, but just to even make it more simple, just to kind of eat things in their original form. I often tell my patients to shop the parameter of the grocery store, so stay away from those middle aisles that are highly processed. Try to eat things in their original form, and that's a really good start.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:04:57] Speaker C: And then going on to exercise.
It's probably one of the best tools we have to improve cardiovascular health just because it benefits the arterial health so well, makes those arteries stay nice and flexible and healthy.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: And let's talk a little bit about how big of an impact just walking can have.
[00:05:15] Speaker C: 100%. Yes. So, you know, when we talk about a lot of my patients haven't ever exercised before. And so the idea is just to move, you know, it doesn't have to be a gym Membership. It can simply be something as taking a 10 minute walk after meals or, you know, if you can only walk 10ft and we get up only twice a day. Well, let's, let's try doing that three times a day or even, you know, a pedal, those pedal exerciser machines that you can sit and do.
So what activity level you can do and you just kind of build upon it. But what I would say to most people is to pick something that you like. If you hate it, you're probably not going to do it. But if you love it, it's something that you can continue doing. It's not as much about intensity as just getting up and moving and continuing to do that throughout the years rather
[00:06:05] Speaker B: than sitting and not if someone is listening. And maybe their mother or their father or grandfather or somebody in their family had heart disease but they haven't had any symptoms, maybe they're in their 20s or 30s, what should they do?
[00:06:20] Speaker C: Yeah, so I think it's really, I think what stands out with family history is specifically family history of premature heart disease. So that is going to be a first degree relative that has, if you're a man, heart disease under the age of 55 or a female under the age of 65. So if you have that in your family, then I would say you need to be a little bit more proactive at knowing your own personal risk factors. So certainly starting, you know, in your early 20s to kind of, you know, check the blood pressure, waist circumference, cholesterol. I am checking a lipoprotein A on patients now. It's a once a lifetime cholesterol particle and think of it as just kind of a sticky cholesterol particle that can get into that arterial wall and damage it and cause inflammation and then potentially plaque formation. So that can be checked at that time. And then starting at the age of 35, you can get a coronary calcium score.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: Okay. I know a lot of people may be taking all of this information in and it might be overwhelming.
What's the first step they should take? And then what, what can they expect from an appointment their first time seeing you or one of our specialists?
[00:07:28] Speaker C: Yeah, so I think just make an appointment. You know, we, I will also work with Lauren Holloman, the other nurse practitioner in our clinic. So you can make an appointment with either one of us. But we're going to go through any symptoms that we find concerning from a cardiovascular standpoint. We're going to obviously do a thorough physical and then check different labs that are associated with an increased Risk of cardiovascular disease and then go through your personal medical history and your family history as well. And we'll just take a look at all that and decide what can we do to improve your overall cardiovascular health and prevent things from happening down the road.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: I know it might be intimidating or scary to some people, but taking that first step and just making the appointment is better than nothing at all.
[00:08:13] Speaker C: No, it is. Because a lot of people are like, I shouldn't have come. I'm like, no, I think everybody should probably come at some point. Yes, you only have one heart.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: That's very true.
Let's talk about screenings. What is a heart screening?
[00:08:25] Speaker C: Sure. So it is a preventative screening offered at several locations with North Mississippi. And it is a coronary calcium score, an EKG and a lipid marker.
So the coronary calcium score, super easy. You just lay in a CT scanner for about five minutes or less. And it's basically trying to pick up calcified plaque within the coronary arteries. And so it's detecting heart disease before symptoms occur. All right.
And I wouldn't recommend this test for somebody that is having concerning symptoms. This is only for people that just want to know more about their cardiovascular risk.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: Kind of a baseline.
[00:09:05] Speaker C: A baseline, okay.
But if you have established heart disease, I would not recommend a calcium score. There would be other things we would do. If you know you have heart disease, a calcium score is not going to pick up soft plaque and it's not going to tell us how much blockage is there. But it is a great baseline. If you don't have symptoms, but maybe you've got several risk factors or a strong family history.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Do you have to go to Tupelo to get this test?
[00:09:30] Speaker C: It is offered in Tupelo, but we have it in Amre now as well, which is great.
We have it in Ayuka, Ponto, West Point, Hamilton, Alabama as well. There might be another one.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: So you really don't have to travel far. You.
[00:09:45] Speaker C: No, no. And you can get a North Mississippi, Mississippi's website.
And I think you just choose the location and sign up. It is not covered by insurance. I want to say it's about $95, but during the month of February, which is heart month, it's actually offered at a discount price.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Great, great. And I think if it's something that you know you need to do, you can budget for that and make it a priority to go somewhere close to home.
[00:10:10] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: Who needs a heart screening and how often?
[00:10:13] Speaker C: So I would say if you have a strong family history or if you have multiple risk factors for heart disease. Or if you just want to know, you know, I mean, I would say starting at the age of 35, you can do it. If your score is zero, which is low risk, then you would repeat it every five years.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: Margo, what is your true north?
[00:10:35] Speaker C: So I would say my true north is to have a collaborative relationship with my patients in the sense that it is really important to me to take kind of the somewhat difficult concepts of cardiology and break them down in a way that is understandable. I want my patients to understand their cardiac conditions and the why, you know, why am I giving them this medication or recommending lifestyle changes? And I think patients do very well once they understand the reason behind things. So it's important to me that that happens.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: Well, thank you, Margo, for your time today. You've made it very easy to understand the risk factors and screenings. We look forward to seeing you on our next episode. At North Mississippi Health Services, I'm Morgan Rowe.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to True north, your destination for better health. For more information and resources related to today's episode, visit the links in our show notes. Until next time, stay healthy, stay informed, and remember, you are our true north.
