Parents asking medical questions?

[closertofine]

Yikes, I'm guessing this must be a common thing for med students? I'm only starting 2nd year, so I feel like I know essentially nothing in terms of actual clinical medicine. But neither of my parents is in the medical field, so I guess it's understandable that they'd think I should know something...

And sometimes I know just enough to be kind of concerned about the treatment my parents are getting, but not enough to give advice about it! Like just recently, my mom was telling me about her visit with her doctor... she's taking Lotrel for hypertension...and her BP was measured at 120/90. And her doctor apparently "got upset" about it and doubled her dose of meds!

So she thought that must be a bad blood pressure...at least I was able to tell her what "normal" BP is...but still, I can't understand why a doctor would increase her meds when her BP was basically normal. All I could tell her was that it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, and that maybe she should check with the doctor's office again...anyone know anything else?

Oh well...guess I'm off to go study so I will eventually know something!

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[Supercluster]

Yikes, I'm guessing this must be a common thing for med students? I'm only starting 2nd year, so I feel like I know essentially nothing in terms of actual clinical medicine. But neither of my parents is in the medical field, so I guess it's understandable that they'd think I should know something...

And sometimes I know just enough to be kind of concerned about the treatment my parents are getting, but not enough to give advice about it! Like just recently, my mom was telling me about her visit with her doctor... she's taking Lotrel for hypertension...and her BP was measured at 120/90. And her doctor apparently "got upset" about it and doubled her dose of meds!

So she thought that must be a bad blood pressure...at least I was able to tell her what "normal" BP is...but still, I can't understand why a doctor would increase her meds when her BP was basically normal. All I could tell her was that it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, and that maybe she should check with the doctor's office again...anyone know anything else?

Oh well...guess I'm off to go study so I will eventually know something!

All of this is totally off the top of my head--as you can see I'm only a lowly first year--but I feel like there's been a fair amount written recently that suggests that 120/80 may be a little high (not 'normal') for women and thus does increase risk of heart disease. Combined with the high diastolic number, maybe her doctor thinks there's a legitimate risk & her blood pressure should be lower?

And I like your username...mmm Indigo Girls...but I digress

 

[SkylineMD]

Ive been getting a lot of quetsions since my mom is concerned about her "low" BP. From what I remember, she has always hovered around 100/60 but since our family doc told her that its low, she is freaked out. I personally think my family doc is a ***** but my mom swears by her and refuses to go elsewhere. So no matter how many times I tell my mom that her bp is normal since shes always been that low, she doesn't believe it. I just told her to drink some water and measure it 1/2hr later (at least she'll believe her BP is "normal" this way).

 

[chinesegordon]

well, while doubling the dose for 120/90 seems aggressive, a diastolic BP of 90 is still hypertensive, and the doctor may have several visits in a row where the BP has been mildly elevated, implying the current dose isn't enough. I doubt he'd up the dose based on an isolated reading.

 

[LevatorAni]

My uncle was recently hospitalized for sepsis caused by a perf'd colon. They called me asking all about his condition and what his prognosis was. He's OK now, but had to have 1 foot of his colon resected. I told them what I knew, but strongly recommended talking to his doc for more answers.

Yesterday, at my son's football practice, two parents from another team (one grade level higher than my son's team) came to me with their sons who both had broken hands. One had a 90 degree dislocation of the PIP joint on his 5th digit and the other had a fractured proximal phalanx of his thumb. The kid with the dislocation, upon xray, had fractures of his medial carpal bones and had surgery today. The other is in a cast. My advice to them was "take them to the hospital for xrays". I think I did the right thing.


Your mom: The cardiologist I shadowed this summer stressed that diastolic HT could lead to atrial fibrillation, so he aggressively treats diastolics above 85. AF allows clots to form in the auricles of the heart that can lead to strokes. Hope that helps.