Vim & Vigor - Spring 2014 - North Mississippi - (Page 4)

Cardiac Caretakers New chest pain center saves lives I n 2006, Gail Grice of Baldwyn was returning home from a shopping trip to Tupelo when her left arm began tingling. As she got closer to home, the pain grew more intense. Eventually she called her daughter who, unbeknownst to her, called an ambulance. "The paramedics arrived about the same time my daughter did," she says. Once in the Emergency Department at North Mississippi Medical Center, Grice had an electrocardiogram (EKG) and lab tests, which both came back normal. Still, the cardiologist felt something was amiss and opted to do a cardiac catheterization. "He found one artery was completely blocked and two others were partially blocked," she says. The doctor implanted a stent to open the blocked artery and prescribed medication to help keep the other two open. "They said that they caught it in time before anything bad happened," Grice says. "If the cardiologist hadn't been there and acted as quickly as he did, it could have been a lot worse." REPEAT OFFENDER HEARTS COME FIRST HERE I n addition to customary procedures to treat and prevent heart disease, the NMMC Heart Institute leads our region with state-of-the-art, complex procedures. Here you will find the latest, most advanced procedures typically found only in university hospital settings. Whether the procedure involves surgical or percutaneous techniques for aortic stenosis, valve replacement or repair, treatment for atrial fibrillation and peripheral vascular disease, or more advanced therapies such as genetic testing and stem cell therapy, NMMC has you covered. 4 SPRING 2 014 Needless to say, Grice won't soon forget that episode. So when she started having chest pain in October 2013, she went to NMMC's Emergency Department to be checked out. Again her EKG and lab tests came back normal, but because of her history, the cardiologist had doubts. He referred her to NMMC's new Chest Pain Center for further evaluation. Open 24 hours daily in the hospital's Heart Institute, the unit is equipped with the latest diagnostic technology to help cardiologists determine whether the patient has already suffered a heart attack, is in danger of a heart attack, or the chest pain is not heart-related. The Chest Pain Center works like this: A patient who comes to the Emergency Department at NMMC or another facility is examined by the Emergency Department physician. The patient has blood tests and an EKG, a test that records the heart's electrical activity through 10 small electrode patches attached to the skin of the chest, arms and legs. If the patient's EKG is abnormal, indicating poor blood ﬂow to the heart, the patient is admitted to the hospital. If the EKG and lab tests are normal, the patient is no longer

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Vim & Vigor - Spring 2014 - North Mississippi

Vim & Vigor - Spring 2014 - North Mississippi
Contents
Opening Thoughts
Cardiac Caretakers
Mending Hearts
Occupational Hazards
The New Rules of Play
Shopping for Two
Back to Basics
Burn, Baby, Burn
Angelina Jolie
Rock Your Health
Breaking Up with Salt
Disgusting! (or Not?)
Virtual Health
One Day at a Time
The Doctor Will See You Now
Catch the Spirit

Vim & Vigor - Spring 2014 - North Mississippi