General Medical issues thread

[VPS]

Does anyone have any experience with a watch with fall warning. I know apple watch does but they need charging daily and looking for something for an elderly friend. She does have the pendant but if she knocks herself out then can't press the button

 

[Aeryn]

I think you will find that even the dedicated medical alert watches (so not apple or samsung smart watches) still require charging every 1-3 days. Anything with a inbuilt gps and 2 way voice drains small batteries pretty fast.

The pendant type have larger batteries.

That said i only need to charge my samsung smart watch every 4-5 days since i dont make calls from it.

 

[Quickstatus]

She does have the pendant but if she knocks herself out then can't press the button

New ones have an inbuilt falls detector that automatically ring preprogrammed phone numbers and will continue to call until someone answers.
look for "Falls alarms with inbuilt falls detector"
Pendants dont have to be charged as often as the smart phone based ones but generally a charging routine is preferable.

I believe most if not all of the pendant ones are one payment only without recurring fees

 

[ellen10]

Drain the fluid in the pleural space around the lung and not the lung itself. Not usually a space with volume in normal circumstances but a potential space that can be filled up with fluid. The fluid causes atelectasis - collapse of the lung preventing parts of the lung from expanding with breathing causing shortness of breath.
Draining it will make breathing easier..

Did MrEllen10 have AF before the mitral regurgitation repair
AF is common after mitral valve repair. the goals of treatment here is stroke prevention due to blood clots and slowing down the heart rate
The fluid is due to the inefficiency in heart pumping due to the AF

Thanks @Quickstatus your wealth of knowledge and information is most appreciated. You explained it better than the cardiologist (whom we are going to change after all this is sorted and finished).

Mr Ellen10 said when he donated blood years ago they said he had a bit of a funky heartbeat and wanted him to see a cardiologist. But the cardiologist said it was ok and come back in 12 months and then another 12 months etc. He was still right to give blood, plasma and platelets. This went on for a few years.

In the following years his GP was a bit concerned with his high blood pressure ( but not high enough for medication, just lose a bit of weight and exercise, which he did).

The problem with the mitral valve seemed to occur after he had pneumonia at the end of last year and coughed and coughed. Coughed up blood.
After that his breathing went downhill in the new year, where his GP started the wheels in motion towards the Mitral valve repair. Which his latest chest X-ray pointed out was good.

We see the surgeon next week before the cardiologist the following week. Hopefully the surgeon might sort out the AF.

 

[Quickstatus]

Hopefully the surgeon might sort out the AF.

Generally it's due the inflammation after the surgery if there was no AF prior to surgery. However, there is a chance the AF does not go away.
Coughing is an early sign the lungs were affected by the Mitral regurgitation - which causes blood to back up in the blood circulation in the lung - see plumbing below:

In any case, AF is common with mitral regurgitation even without surgery.

The blood plumbing in the heart:

Starting from the Left Ventricle >> Aortic valve >> Aorta >> arteries going to rest of body >> Capillaries

Capillaries >> Veins >> Vena Cava (main vein going back to heart)

Ven Cava >> Right atrium heart >> tricuspid valve >> Right Ventricle >> Pulmonary Valve >> Pulmonary artery

Pulmonary Artery >> Pulmonary cappilaries in Lungs whose main function is to absorb oyxgen from the airside of the lung and release carbon dioxide >> Pulmonary Vein

Pulmonary vein >> Left atrium >> Mitral valve >> Left Ventricle

Rinse and repeat

So Mitral regurgitation means the mitral valve is leaky causing blood to backflow into the right atrium and then pulmonary vein and capillaries.
This causes sensation of coughing, sometimes coughing with blood usually due to coughing trauma and actually not due to blood leaking out of pulmonary veins

AF means the Left atrium is beating irregularly fibrillation - hence atrial fibrillation, and not efficiently pumping blood through the Mitral valve into the left ventricle. So for the same reason blood backs up in the pulmonary veins and pulmonary capillaries.

The net effect of the backup in blood is the pressure in those pulmonary capillaries increase causing pulmonary edema - instead of blood, fluid leaks out into the air side of the lungs, or sometimes pleural effusion - fluid leaking out into the space surrounding the lungs, and often fluid in the rest of the body - typically puffy legs and buttocks. Fluid leaks out rather than blood because the capillaries act like a filter blocking the blood cells from coming out but is leaky enough to let fluid through.