Do you ever get fat ankles? Swollen ankles may not seem like a reason to worry. Your swollen ankles indicate unhealthy fluid retention!

Do you think, “maybe I just ate too much salt”?

It’s a good idea to remember that sugar causes you to retain fluid, too!

Unhealthy blood sugar levels have everything to do with fluid retention.

This article on HealthLine.com addresses this very common problem without quite telling you WHEN to seek help:

(image posted on HealthLine.com)

Foot, leg, and ankle swelling—also known as peripheral edema—refers to an accumulation of fluid in these parts of the body. The buildup of fluid is not usually painful, unless it is due to injury. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, swelling is often more apparent in the lower area of the body because of gravity. (UMMC)

Older people frequently experience this type of swelling. While it usually does not pose a significant health risk, it is important to know when to see a doctor since swelling may indicate a more serious underlying health issue.

(article originally published on HealthLine.com)

That’s my italics and bold to emphasize a point. 

You really do need to know when it’s important to seek medical attention for swollen ankles. Sudden significant swelling in your ankles is a sign of acute heart failure and CAN be life threatening!

Even when fluid retention isn’t life threatening, it ISN’T good! Even though fluid retention (meaning swollen ankles, puffy eyes, fat fingers, bloated belly, etc …) “usually does not pose a significant health risk” it does deteriorate your health if you don’t address it!

Unhealthy fluid balance in your body puts stress on your kidneys and heart. It’s easy to understand why that is so very important to your immediate well being as well as your long term health.

Western medicine really does not address this dangerous condition before it becomes a life threatening issue. 

Unless your doctor utilizes some alternative methodology, he/she likely has nothing to offer you for swollen ankles except diruetics (water pills).  Your doctor doesn’t want to use that option unless your blood pressure is high or you are drowning in your body fluids. 

(That rumble in your breathing is fluid your doctor WILL drug.)

YOU want to address this issue much more early in your disease process.    

You want more energy, NOW!

Your swollen ankles are telling you that your energy bank is being depleted!

Thank You to HealthLine.com,  For shedding light on this important issue!  

The Life Breath Coach wants to help you learn how to address your fluid retention issues, because you aren’t likely to get help from your doctor until you have reached the point of health crisis!  Please don’t wait that long!

Life Breath Club will teach you what you need to know now!  Please join us if you haven’t become a member of the community already!  

HealthLine’s editors nominated Heart Failure Solutions for

“Best Health Blog of 2013”!!

Grief is a very powerful emotion!

It seems to come in waves.

The first powerful wave tends to knock you off your feet.

It takes a while to get up.

Once you get your feet under you, the next wave can surprise you just as much!

Dog Gone!  You thought you had this under control.  You thought you were healing and moving forward.

Time heals.  However, healing tends to sets the stage for the next layer of grief to demand expression.

As much as you want to be done feeling like dung, you need to grieve when you need to grieve.

Do you see your grieving process somewhere in the list of the stages of grief?

No matter how many days or years have passed, you can likely recognize yourself in there somewhere.

The following article is from an old post here on Heart Failure Solutions, though the content is as old as Grief Itself.

The 7 Stages of Grief:

1.Denial and Isolation

This is actually very normal and expected.  The onset of grief causes you to withdraw.

Much like burning yourself, grief makes you pull back.

This process can happen within a few moments, or it can take much longer.

2.  Anger

Whether you feel mad at your loved one for leaving you, mad at the world for going on without them, or mad at God for a taking them, anger is a normal part of the grieving process.

It is also normal to blame yourself, even if it is unrealistic and irrational.  Perhaps nothing could have been done to alter the circumstance, even so, blaming yourself is not at all unusual.

3.  Bargaining

Your unrealistic and irrational feelings may take a while to work through.  Bargaining with God to take away your loss may sound nuts, but within the grieving process, this is also perfectly normal.

4.  Depression

When the intense onset of grief begins to subside, a numbness begins to replace overwhelming feelings.

The reality that you will never see your loved one again starts to set in.  It is normal to sink into a period of depression as you adjust.

Sharing happy memories can actually be helpful at this stage.  Though friends and family may avoid talking about your lost loved one, it might be exactly what you need.

Encouragement to “move on” or “get over it” is NOT helpful at this stage.

Resist the temptation to stuff your feelings to appease others.

Honor your healing process so you can heal.

5.  Turning the Corner

There comes a time in your grieving process where your physical symptoms begin to subside.  You may even find yourself feeling guilty for hurting less.

Be encouraged.  This upward turn is also a natural part of the grieving process.

6.  Reconstruction

When you see yourself facing the heart wrenching task of going on without your loved one, you know you are moving into the phase of restructuring your life without them.

As painful as this can be, it is especially important to honor this part of the process.  If your loved one lived a distance from you this can be a little more difficult.  It is harder to believe they are really gone.

A memorial or just a collection of pictures can help you to put life without them into perspective.  Do some journaling if it helps you to process.

7.  Acceptance and Hope

When you can remember your loved one with a genuine smile on your face you know that acceptance and hope have begun, and that is a true sign of healing.

(Article originally published in an earlier post here on Heart Failure Solutions)

Happy Memories are medicine!

Truly they are!

You can only hurt as much as you LOVE!

A Congestive Heart Failure diagnosis is a devastating piece of news to process.

Look up information online and you aren’t likely to feel very hopeful.

The bigger issue is that congestive heart failure can go UN-diagnosed for many years, so by the time you actually hear your doctor speak those words your disease process may be very advanced and your heart may have experienced a significant amount of damage.

Do you know the symptoms of congestive heart failure?

Heart failure symptoms

• Shortness of breath (dyspnea) when you exert yourself or when you lie down
• Fatigue and weakness
• Swelling (edema) in your legs, ankles and feet
• Rapid or irregular heartbeat
• Reduced ability to exercise
• Persistent cough or wheezing with white or pink blood-tinged phlegm
• Increased need to urinate at night
• Swelling of your abdomen (ascites)
• Sudden weight gain from fluid retention
• Lack of appetite and nausea
• Difficulty concentrating or decreased alertness
• Sudden, severe shortness of breath and coughing up pink, foamy mucus
• Elevated blood pressure
• Profuse sweating
• Chest pain, if your heart failure is caused by a heart attack

(Article originally published on MayoClinic.com)

You can see that most of these symptoms are typical for multiple health issues.

Can you understand how your doctor might miss the clues?

If you don’t ask to be tested, you may not even hear the term “congestive heart failure” until you are in the midst of a health crisis.

Statistics show that this condition is often mis-diagnosed or just plain undetected by doctors for years!

An excerpt from the book Bypassing Bypass

Most people first hear the terrifying term “congestive heart failure” when they are hospitalized for heart problems.

Though recently it has been noted that the death rate from heart disease and cancer in the U.S. are dropping, the number of cases of congestive heart failure has doubled during the same time that all other heart disease rates have been decreasing.

The Weakened Heart
The heart is just like other muscles. When it is weakened, it becomes enlarged, congested, flaccid, and often prolapsed (dropped from its original position in the chest). It is not unusual to require a stethoscope placement three to five inches below the normal area when listening to a weakened heart.

In addition, a weakened heart simply cannot contract forcibly enough. Imagine if you had a weakened forearm and hand. Or imagine someone cutting off the nerve impulses to your fist. Now try to squeeze a tight fist. It becomes impossible. And in the end, you can only contract your hand weakly. The same thing happens with the muscle of your heart. Only in this case, due to a weak contraction, the blood entering the heart cannot be pumped out completely.

When this occurs, congestion takes place in the body. Your body is robbed of blood, nutrition, and oxygen. You become weak, tired, exhausted, and mentally spaced out. Your heart will often try to compensate by beating faster (trying to get the blood out with faster but weaker beats). When this happens, the condition becomes complicated by the tachycardia (racing heart).

Since nutritional deficiencies causing heart problems are rarely considered in the field of medicine, you are placed on powerful drugs that attempt to keep your heart beating and try to keep the congestion from becoming overwhelming. When your heart starts to race, more drugs are used to control your heartbeat. Meanwhile, you are getting weaker and weaker as your heart starves for the correct nutrition.

(Originally posted on MNWellDir.org)

There are 4 Stages of Congestive Heart Failure.

Unfortunately, you can be all the way in the 3rd Stage of Heart Disease and still have relatively few symptoms.

On WebMD.com they describe a person in Stage 3 of Heart Failure as:

Patients with known systolic heart failure and current or prior symptoms.

Most common symptoms include:

• Shortness of breath
• Fatigue
• Reduced ability to exercise

(Information originally posted on WebMD.com)

However, a patient in Stage 3 of Heart Failure can also show up in the emergency room having never been told that they have ANY heart issues what so ever!

You may not even notice your symptoms of heart failure!

If you do, it is very likely that you will chock them up to something else … like getting old!

There is an epidemic of congestive heart failure ravaging the planet.

The Life Breath Club is dedicated to helping you recognize trouble before it threatens your well being.

Your free membership helps you evaluate your health care decisions and your Masters Membership will help you make the changes you need to make to AVOID health crisis!

Do you notice signs of trouble?

Your doctor prescribes yet another drug for you, this time it’s Beta Blockers.

Do you take it?

Is it responsible to question your doctor before swallowing?

It’s tough to feel confident enough to question your doctor, but if you don’t ask questions, do you know what you are risking?

First, let’s take a look at the side effects you might expect from taking Beta Blockers:

Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) associated with the use of beta blockers include:

• nausea
• diarrhoea
• bronchospasm
• dyspnea
• cold extremities
• exacerbation of Raynaud’s syndrome
• bradycardia
• hypotension
• heart failure
• heart block
• fatigue
• dizziness
• abnormal vision
• decreased concentration
• hallucinations
• insomnia, nightmares
• clinical depression
• sexual dysfunction, erectile dysfunction
• alteration of glucose and lipid metabolism.

Clinical guidelines in Great Britain, but not in the United States, call for avoiding diuretics and beta-blockers as first-line treatment of hypertension due to the risk of diabetes.

(article originally published on News-Medical.net)

WOAH!  Hold the phone!  Is it worth risking all that?

Your doctor will tell you that Beta Bockers will reduce your risk of death, but there is good reason why the clinical guidelines in Great Britain warn against using beta-blockers IF they can be avoided!

Reducing your risk of death might sound worth risking the nasty side effects listed above, but before you swallow those pills, you probably want to consider the following information:

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Beta blockers are busted – what happens next?

(Published November, 2012)

They have treated heart disease for 40 years, but it now seems that beta blockers don’t work. What went wrong?

IT IS very rare for new evidence to question or even negate the utility of a well-established class of drugs. But after four decades as a standard therapy for heart disease and high blood pressure, it looks like this fate will befall beta blockers. Two major studies published within about a week of each other suggest that the drugs do not work for these conditions. This is a big surprise, with big implications.

The first beta blocker, Inderal, was launched in 1964 by Imperial Chemical Industries for treatment of angina. This drug has been hailed as one of great medical advances of the 20th century. Its inventor, James Black, was awarded the Nobel prize in medicine in 1988.

The 20 or so beta blockers now on the market are very widely used – almost 200 million prescriptions were written for them in the US in 2010. They are standard issue for most people with heart disease or high blood pressure. This may now change.

A large study published last month in The Journal of the American Medical Association found that beta blockers did not prolong the lives of patients – a revelation that must have left many cardiologists shaking their heads (JAMA, vol 308, p 1340).

The researchers followed almost 45,000 heart patients over three-and-a-half years and found that beta blockers did not reduce the risk of heart attacks, deaths from heart attacks, or stroke.

While this is not definitive, it’s pretty damning, especially when another study – published just days earlier – found pretty much the same thing (Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, vol 60, p 1854).

The goal of this second study was to examine the effect of drug compliance on death rates in patients who had had heart attacks. About half of patients complied with their drug regimen. Unsurprisingly, these people were nearly 30 per cent less likely to die than those who did not comply.

This was to be expected, but there was one big surprise. While the result held for the standard classes of heart drugs – statins, anticoagulants and antihypertensives – it did not for beta blockers. Regardless of whether or not patients stuck to their regimen, their risk of dying was the same. Taken together with the JAMA study, it becomes very reasonable to question the benefit of beta blockers for treating these conditions.

To understand what is going on, consider how they work. Like many drugs, beta blockers target receptors embedded in the surface of cells. Receptors are “molecular switches” – when a specific molecule binds to them, they change shape and send a signal to the cell to perform a certain function. Beta blockers target beta receptors, which respond to the “fight or flight” hormones adrenalin and noradrenalin.

In humans, there are two principle types of beta-receptor – beta-1, primarily found in the heart, and beta-2, located at multiple sites, including the smooth-muscle cells of the bronchial tubes and in veins.

When adrenalin and noradrenalin bind to beta-1 receptors, they signal the heart to beat faster and pump harder. Binding to beta-2 receptors causes smooth muscle relaxation, especially in the airways, explaining why beta-2 activators are used as asthma drugs.

Beta blockers bind to both types of receptor, but do not activate the cellular response. This blocks adrenalin and noradrenalin from reaching their target and activating the response. By preventing the normal hormone-receptor interaction, the beta blockers slow the heart and cause it to pump less forcefully, lowering blood pressure.

The premise of beta-blocker therapy has been that giving the heart a rest will diminish the frequency of heart attacks. In the light of the two new studies, it is clearly time to question this.

Which raises the question: why has it taken so long to find out? It is worth noting at this point that this is not yet another case of a drug entering the market only to be withdrawn later because of lack of efficacy or even adverse reactions which could have been noticed with longer or larger trials. It is simply a new medical revelation. The authors of the JAMA paper provide a reasonable explanation of the conflict between their results and earlier studies.

The key word is “earlier”. Most clinical trials on beta blockers took place before reperfusion therapy became standard treatment following heart attacks. Reperfusion involves opening the blocked artery by surgery or pharmaceuticals, and has been shown to significantly reduce damage to the heart.

Damaged hearts are more prone to fatal irregular beats, and beta blockers are useful in controlling this. But with the advent of reperfusion therapy, people who survived heart attacks suffered less cardiac damage, so the frequency of fatal arrhythmias was lower. Put simply, the beta blocker effect was significant before the advent of this improved treatment, but the beneficial effect has since disappeared.

Additionally, newer and better drugs such as anticoagulants, statins and antihypertensives are now routinely used in heart disease. These more effective therapies swamp any smaller benefit that the beta blockers might provide, minimising any measurable effect.

What comes next is impossible to predict, but we may well be seeing a rare case of medical wisdom being overturned almost overnight. Beta blockers are not dangerous and have been in use for such a long time that it is unlikely that we will see an immediate cessation. But these results are hard to ignore, and cardiologists will be paying careful attention.

(Article originally published on NewScientist.com)

Here we are a year later and there has really been no noticeable decrease in the number of Beta Blockers being prescribed.

Back in 2007 there were significant reviews being published that questioned the use of Beta Blockers as a first line treatment.  They were pretty much ignored and the completion of the 2 studies last year got no more respect than the reviews did 6 years ago.  Profit drives drug prescriptions long after science has shown us the error of continuing to push dangerous drugs and drugs that have outlived their usefulness.

The New Scientist says Beta Blockers “are not dangerous and have been in use for such a long time that it is unlikely that we will see an immediate cessation”.  Though it’s true that we are not likely to see this profiteering stop … just HOW safe are these drugs?  (They also sight “better drugs” but we will be addressing that error in another blog post.)

You’ll find evidence online that suggests that Beta Blockers are good medicine for Heart Disease and Anxiety.

Let’s take another look and see just how truthful those statements are:

Are Beta Blockers Good Medicine For Heart Disease?

• Beta blockers can worsen heart failure in some situations. However, beta blockers are also useful for the treatment of heart failure. If you have heart failure, your healthcare provider may need to monitor you very closely while you take beta blockers. Let your healthcare provider know immediately if your heart failure symptoms seem to worsen.
• Beta blockers can worsen breathing problems such as asthma or COPD. If you have breathing problems, check with your healthcare provider before taking a beta blocker. Even “cardioselective” beta blockers (which are designed to have less of an effect on the airways) can cause problems, especially at higher doses. While people with well-controlled, mild asthma or COPD may be able to safety take a beta blocker, beta blockers should be avoided in people with severe breathing problems.
• If you have an upcoming surgery, make sure your surgeon and anesthesiologist know you are taking a beta blocker, as it may affect the choice of medications used during the surgery.
• Beta blockers can mask some of the symptoms of low blood sugar (hypoglycemia), particularly the “racing heart” feeling. This can cause serious problems for people with diabetes, who need to be able to sense that they have low blood sugar (in order to correct it before it becomes life-threatening).
• Beta blockers can mask some of the symptoms of an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism). Stopping beta blockers suddenly could cause symptoms of a “thyroid storm” (a sudden and severe worsening of hyperthyroidism symptoms).
• For most beta blockers, the kidneys and liver help remove the medication from the body. If you have kidney or liver disease, your healthcare provider may need to monitor your response to the beta blocker more closely (and a lower dosage may be recommended).
• Beta blockers could potentially cause problems for people with poor blood circulation in the brain (such as people who have had a stroke or transient ischemic attack) or the legs (such as with peripheral artery disease). If you have had such problems in the past, check with your healthcare provider before taking a beta blocker.
• If you have an anaphylactic allergy (the type that affects the entire body and often interferes with breathing), beta blockers may make you more sensitive to the allergen and can make the usual treatments (such as epinephrine or an EpiPen^®) less effective.
• Beta blockers might worsen myasthenia gravis. If you have this condition, you may need to be monitored more closely.
• Beta blockers are considered pregnancy Category B, C, or D medications (depending on the particular beta blocker). This means that they may not be safe for use during pregnancy, although the full risks are not currently known (see Beta Blockers and Pregnancy).  Most beta blockers pass through breast milk.

(Article originally published on Senior-Health.emedtv.com)

Are Beta Blockers Good Medicine For Anxiety?

Beta blocker medications for anxiety

Beta blockers are a type of medication used to treat high blood pressure and heart problems. However, beta blockers are also prescribed off-label for anxiety. Beta blockers work by blocking the effects of norepinephrine, a stress hormone involved in the fight-or-flight response. This helps control the physical symptoms of anxiety such as rapid heart rate, a trembling voice, sweating, dizziness, and shaky hands.

Because beta blockers don’t affect the emotional symptoms of anxiety such as worry, they’re most helpful for phobias, particularly social phobia and performance anxiety. If you’re anticipating a specific anxiety-producing situation (such as giving a speech), taking a beta blocker in advance can help reduce your “nerves.”

Beta blockers include drugs such as propranolol (Inderal) and atenolol (Tenormin). Common side effects include:

Light-headedness Sleepiness

Nausea Unusually slow pulse

Anti-anxiety medication safety concerns and risk factors

Beyond the common side effects, medication for anxiety comes with additional risks. While the tranquilizing anti-anxiety drugs are relatively safe when taken only occasionally and in small doses, they can lead to severe problems when combined with other substances or taken over long periods of time. Furthermore, some people will have adverse reactions to any amount of anti-anxiety medication. They are not safe for everyone, even when used responsibly.

Drug interactions and overdose

Used alone, anti-anxiety medications such as Xanax or Valium rarely cause fatal overdose, even when taken in large doses. But when combined with other central nervous system depressants, the toxic effects of these anxiety medications increase.

Taking anti-anxiety medication with alcohol, prescription painkillers, or sleeping pills can be deadly.

Dangerous drug interactions can also occur when anti-anxiety drugs are taken with antihistamines, which are found in many over-the-counter cold and allergy medicines. Antidepressants such as Prozac and Zoloft can also heighten their toxicity. Always talk to your doctor or pharmacist before combining medications.

(Original article published on HelpGuide.org)

You learned in the opening of this article what those common side effects are.

On top of top of all the devastating side effects, psychiatric medication taken in combination with beta blockers for anxiety could propose a significant risk to your well being!

Please be careful if you choose to drug yourself!

Let’s look at one last detail surrounding the use of beta blockers as a first line of treatment.

This is kind of important.

Beta Blockers Effects on Morbidity and Mortality

It is somewhat ironic that after 3 decades of using beta-blockers for hypertension, no study has shown that their monotherapeutic use has reduced morbidity or mortality in hypertensive patients even when compared with the use of placebo.

In some of the early trials like the British Medical Research Council study in the elderly, beta-blocker monotherapy was not only ineffective, but whenever a beta-blocker was added to diuretics, the benefits of the antihypertensive therapy distinctly diminished. Thus, patients who received the combination of beta-blockers and diuretics fared consistently worse than those on diuretics alone, but they did somewhat better than those receiving beta-blockers alone.

Even in the more recent trials like the ASCOT-BPLA (Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial-Blood Pressure Lowering Arm) study of 19,257 patients with hypertension and at least 3 other coronary risk factors but no clinically overt coronary artery disease, atenolol-based treatment resulted in a 14% greater risk of coronary events and 23% greater risk of stroke when compared with an amlodipine-based regimen.

(Article originally published on MedScape.com)

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Increased risk of diabetes is no joke and mixing anxiety medications could be deadly.

Unhealthy blood sugar levels fuel heart disease.

Thinking that you must risk diabetes to avoid heart disease just does NOT make sense.

Anxiety is a crippling emotion to live with, but is it worth risking your life with drugs?

Taking a look at how beta blockers effect mortality over all, it really begins to look like benefit is questionable.

Is there really a simple alternative to Beta Blockers?

“Your Sacred Breathing Hand Book” offers insight into how to use your breathing to quickly shift your bio-chemistry effectively relieving your anxiety, addressing your shortness-of-breath and chest pain, and even preventing stroke!

Dr. Majid Ali says that this very basic form of breathing is so remedial that it can mean the difference between “a heart attack and no heart attack”, the difference between “a stroke and no stroke”.  This is powerful medicine!

You get personal attention and unlimited email access to the Life Breath Coach with your purchase from the Heart Failure Solutions Blog.

Click on the link below to upgrade to Masters Level Membership, if you haven’t already.

If you have already upgraded, your download is available from the Members Dashboard.

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Metformin has become down right fashionable!

Everybody is taking it!

Has your doctor offered you Meformin yet for your “pre-diabetes condition”?

Before you decide that you can’t risk high blood sugar and you need to take the drug your doctor is pushing, you really should take a look Metformin side effects.

Below is an article posted on Drugs.com listing the side effects of Metformin.

The yellow highlighting is my efforts to point to the alarming part, and the (translation is mine).

Metformin side effects are GOOD reason to do all you can to improve your “insulin sensitivity” in order to avoid drugging yourself for this condition.

You might think, “I can’t afford to ignore my high blood sugar!  I don’t want to end up on insulin.”

The issue with that philosophy is that science is now finding that Metformin is NOT supporting your bodies ability to process glucose.  It is actually mimicking it!  Using drugs to do what your body is suppose to do will lead you to insulin sooner not later!

Fixating on numbers instead of addressing issues is a vicious cycle of suffering.

(The Life Breath Club will be presenting the “Sacred Food Workshop” very soon!)

Food is definitely a big part of addressing “pre-diabetes” conditions as well as living with diabetes.  It’s tough to know what you should eat, right?

Try a grain vacation and eat lots of fruits and veggies if you have any reason to be concerned at all!

Let your body find some balance and you may find you can rotate grains back into a diet with a wide variety of foods, but processed foods are never a good thing!

It’s a good thing to remember that it isn’t just what you eat that makes a difference in your blood sugar.

One thing to keep in mind that might make all the difference in the world is ACTIVITY!

That dirty “E” word … “Exercise”.

If you can get to the place where activity becomes a joyful part of your life, it helps even more than suffering through exercise.

Moving your body and standing up every 20 minutes, all day long can make a HUGE difference in your blood sugar!

Give the big “E” (exercise) some consistent attention and see if your blood sugar numbers don’t get better!

You don’t have to move fast, but move!  Move it or lose it!  See for yourself how this effects your blood sugar readings.

One thing to keep in mind for better health and well being is to KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT while you exercise.

Breathing through your nose is important.  Do it and you’ll see a difference quickly!

• More energy right away
• Mood elevation
• Insulin sensitivity that lasts for days

Lots of good bio-chemistry happens when you breathe through your nose while you move your body!

If you’d like to understand why breathing through your nose offers so many healthy benefits and/or how to better tolerate nasal breathing with exercise, check out the Life Breath Coaches book about “Sacred Breath” by clicking on the link below …

Healing begins with more stable blood sugar

Many blessings,

Carrie Tucker, RCP

The Life Breath Coach

Heart Failure Solutions

PS– Remember everyday:

• Relax and Release tension
• Exhale Slowly
• Be active in a way that adds Joy to your life

Plus pure water ~whole foods~sunshine~and laughter

If you are searching for information on blood oxygen saturation you are likely facing some huge health issues. Normally folks first hear of this phrase from their doctor. It is likely that low oxygen levels have been causing health issues for quite some time before you or your doctor observed and evaluated them. There is a reason heart disease is killing so many. Lack of oxygen to your cells will kill you.  Though until it becomes life threatening, low blood oxygen saturation isn’t routinely assessed. The signs and symptoms of chronic inflammation, the cause of heart disease, are largely ignored.  They are chalked up as “signs of aging” Low oxygen happens way down the road, but we ignore all the warning signs.  

If you are looking for blood oxygen information, be encouraged! Yes, I just got done telling you that low blood oxygen saturation levels are very bad news, but implementing supplemental oxygen to enhance sleep and exercise can offer huge rehabilitative support EVEN if you aren’t sick with low blood oxygen saturation levels! You have discovered one of the most powerful healing tools you can utilize to improve ANY health concern including pain, weakness and emotional distress!

Seriously!  Even after you have deteriorated and lost your health, you can reverse your disease process and rid yourself of the so many of the symptoms you suffer with by effectively utilizing supplemental oxygen. Plenty of research has been done around oxygen therapy.  It isn’t extremely profitable, so you will likely be discouraged from utilizing it, but none the less, it has been proven to be a very powerful healing tool! Even your well meaning doctor is not likely to urge you to use supplemental oxygen.  I’ve frequently wondered why.  Perhaps they are concerned that the oxygen source may pose a fire hazard.  If this is truly your doctor’s fear, it is not well founded.  Home oxygen therapy is perfectly safe. It’s not a good idea to light a cigarette with a hose of oxygen wrapped round your hears and under your nose, but otherwise you can feel perfectly comfortable cooking while taking advantage of this nurturing therapy.  There is nothing to be afraid of.  

5 Facts to Remember About Blood Oxygen Saturation Levels

1.  When oxygen saturation levels fall below 92%, the pressure of the oxygen in your blood is too low to penetrate the walls of the red blood cells. So, oxygen is unable to access transportation to your cells, tissues, and organs. It is a matter of gas laws. Use supplemental oxygen to prevent oxygen starvation or suffer drastic consequences!

2. Your insurance company may not pay for oxygen unless your levels fall to 88% oxygen saturation. This has nothing to do with what is best for you, it is just the point at which your insurance is willing to pay. Your doctor CAN order supplemental home oxygen even if your insurance won’t pay for it!

3.  Every time your oxygen level falls below 92% saturation the cells of your body are oxygen starved! The problem is that if you don’t look for evidence of this vitality draining issue, you will not find it! Low oxygen levels are identified most commonly during a hospitalization for the severe issues that are CAUSED by low oxygen. You have likely been experiencing the effects of periodic low blood oxygen LONG before a health crisis gets your attention.

4. Low oxygen levels may be present only at certain times.

•  when retaining excessive fluid

•  when airways are reacting to irritants

•  with respiratory illness

•  while sleeping (with or without sleep apnea)

•  about 3:00am when you wake gasping for air

•  with activity

5. The first sign of low oxygen levels is often a health crisis and that crisis is often heart failure! Whether your low oxygen levels are caused by lung disease or fluid accumulation issues, the long term effect is the same. The long term effects of low oxygen are loss of eye sight, short term memory and muscle strength. The possible short term effects are stroke, heart attack and sudden death.    

Low Blood Oxygen Saturation Levels are a serious health condition! Don’t wait for your doctor to be proactive! Get your own pulse oximeter for around $20 on Amazon.com and keep an eye on your levels. If you see a reason to be concerned, keep making noise until you get the care you need! If your doctor won’t listen, find another! Though, it’s also a good idea to remember that you can utilize supplemental oxygen even if your doctor won’t write a prescription and qualify you so that your insurance company will pay. Oxygen concentrators require a prescription but oxygen generators do NOT!  

Oxygen Monitors are affordable on Amazon.com

Get your blood oxygen monitor on Amazon and watch for signs of trouble! Look when you’re active, and look if wake in the middle of the night.  Check your levels and watch for any reading below 92%. Come on back and get guidance from the Life Breath Coach when you need it! Get Your Blood Oxygen Monitor Ordered Today!     Many blessings, Carrie Tucker, RCP The Life Breath Coach Heart Failure Solutions  

PS– Remember everyday:

• Relax and Release tension
• Exhale Slowly
• Be active in a way that adds Joy to your life

Plus pure water ~whole foods~sunshine~and laughter  

Are you having trouble projecting your voice?

You will get the standard diaphragmatic breathing instruction from a speech coach.

Your doctor might prescribe a gadget to help you strengthen your breathing muscles.

Everyone can agree that it’s important that you don’t strain your voice.

However, if you can’t get enough breath in your lungs, all the “how to project your voice” tips in the world are not going to help you!

Whether you are trying to communicate socially or professionally, if you can’t be heard you strain your voice to get louder.

It isn’t difficult to injure your vocal chords if you do this too very often!

Once you’ve hurt yourself, you will really have trouble being heard.

The article below is meant to help you speak with more volume.

Take a look at this information, and then let’s discuss something they don’t address.

Straining your voice causes vocal health problems.

Nobody will argue with that fact.

So, just don’t do it.  If you need to be heard over a crowd, use a bell, whistle or silverware on a glass!

What ever it takes!  Just don’t strain your voice.

You won’t be heard and you will hurt yourself!

Staying safe is important while you address you volume issues.

The issue that the article didn’t address is fluid.

Tension definitely is a big issue when it comes to voice volume.

If you can relax and use your belly when you speak, you won’t have difficulty being heard in the back of the room.

However, if you are dealing with fluid in your lungs, you can relax until the cows come home and it won’t get you a bigger breath or more volume!

If you want to know how to project your voice, you’ll have to address the fluid in your lungs first!

Do you have fluid in your lungs?

The tell tale signs of fluid:

• Rattling sound with breathing
• Difficulty breathing if lying down flat
• Productive cough of clear mucous

Do you notice any of these symptoms?

I don’t want to alarm you, but if you do, you should be concerned for your health!

Never mind the volume of your voice!

Take care of the fluid in your voice before it takes care of you!

Why in the world would you have fluid in your lungs?

If you’ve done much reading around here, you know that heart failure is a progressive weakening of the heart muscle.

A weak heart can’t pump as much blood as it needs to and the excess volume backs up into the pulmonary artery and into your lungs!

Fluid in your lungs causes MUCH more damage than low voice volume!

Fluid in your lungs prevents you from absorbing oxygen the way you need to.

Oxygen is important for life let alone health and vitality!

The volume of your voice is the least of your concerns.

Please become a member of the Life Breath Club join the discussion to figure out what you need to do NOW!

Join Life Breath Club

If you are already a member, re-read your free ebook from the Life Breath Coach.

“Increase Your Oxygen” contains information that can transform your life!

Many blessings,

Carrie Tucker, RCP
The Life Breath Coach
Heart Failure Solutions

PS– Remember everyday:

• Relax and Release tension
• Exhale Slowly
• Be active in a way that adds Joy to your life

Insulin resistance has become a new buzz word.

It’s “PRE” diabetes, as they say.  So, you might feel like you don’t need to worry … yet.

You don’t have trouble with your blood sugar, you are just “insulin resistant”.

What the heck is insulin resistance?

Put it this way.  If you have any “pre-diabetes condition”, you have reason to be concerned about blood sugar.

You need stable blood sugar to fuel your body.

High blood sugar fuels the inflammation that causes all chronic illness.

You don’t want to feed bad gut bacteria, and you don’t want to feed inflammation.

Too much sugar in your blood stream feeds both!

What do you do to control your blood sugar short of drugging it?

You might be surprised to learn that one of the biggest problems contributing to your dysfunctional insulin is SITTING.

Yes, sitting!

Do you sit a lot?

Chances are you do!

These days technology has us looking down AND sitting down far too often!

Dr. Joan Vernikos, former director of NASA’s Life Sciences Division and author of Sitting Kills, Moving Heals, wants us to know why sitting has such a dramatic impact on your health, and how you can simply and easily counteract the ill effects of sitting.

Dr. Mercola is offering a recent interview with the brilliant doctor from his web site.

Below you’ll find an excerpt from the article, and the link to the video of the interview.

It’s well worth your time.

Dr. V found out:

• the act of standing up is more effective than walking for counteracting the ill effects of sitting
• the key is how many times you stand up
• it’s actually the change in posture that is the most powerful signal, not the act of standing in and of itself
• the key to counteract the ill effects of sitting is to repeatedly interrupt your sitting

The key is frequent intermittent interactions with gravity.

Standing up 35 times at once will provide only a small percent of the benefit of standing up once every 20 minutes.

Do you tend to make things harder than they have to be?

Maybe you are trying to completely change your diet to address your insulin resistance or “pre-diabetes condition”.

It’s great to eat more whole foods and less processed foods!

However,  you’ll find that being diligent to STAND UP every 20 minutes all day long can completely change ALL your blood data!

No joke!  Something this simple, really can be that powerful!

Be extra careful and add Sacred Breathing to your plan.

Create a bio-chemical shift and support the foundation of strength you are building by Standing Up!

If you are blown away by what standing up can do for you, check out what Sacred Breathing will do!

Click on the link below and discover how harmful rapid shallow breathing is.

Is shortness of breath your first sign of trouble?

Many blessings,

Carrie Tucker, RCP
The Life Breath Coach
Heart Failure Solutions

PS– Remember everyday:

• Relax and Release tension
• Exhale Slowly
• Be active in a way that adds Joy to your life

It’s a very sad day in the United States.

Has your conscience been quickened?

I know mine has.

Your heart may ache, but it’s important to Stand In Truth while you process your emotions.

National tragedy can cause anyone to lose heart.  Stress and sorrow can weaken you, especially if you already have issues going on with your health.

Violence and loss are difficult to process.  Healing from or succumbing to heart failure has a lot to do with the way you process over whelming emotion.

Denying the truth won’t bring about change.

Are you hungry for change?

The video below is a wonderful message that calls each of us to hold ourselves accountable.

Please take 15 minutes to hear what needs to be said.

We talk a lot about solutions for heart disease here on Heart Failure Solutions.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan is a story about the most powerful Heart Failure Solution there has ever been or will ever be.

Your Loving Kindness blesses your life just as much as it blesses others.

Fifty years ago scientists proved that a small community in Rosetta Pennsylvania prevented the occurrence of HEART DISEASE in its citizens simply by LOVING each other!

They cared about each other.  They cooked for each other, they celebrated with each other and they listened to each others’ sorrows.

There was NO other explanation for their lack of suffering.  The citizens of Rosetta Pennsylvania just didn’t suffer from heart disease!

Rosetta Pennsylvania was a Village that knew how to BE a Village!

Where every life matters, every life thrives.

The Life Breath Club is all about making every breath matter.

The bio-chemical shift you can create in a single moment can save your life or the life of another.

Please become a member if you haven’t already.  (Membership is free.)

Life Breath Club Details