Hi, Ron.

How are you today?

Good.

How are you?

Good.

Good to see you.

Is there anything specific I can help you with today?

where I had one in the fall where I had a cough.

days and then it's like if, like not getting better than this year, it's time to go again.

Yeah.

I mean, that's typically my rule of thumb.

I'll say, you know, at that seven day point, if you're just not getting better or you're getting worse, it's probably time One of Doctor Martin's challenges in today's world is medical misinformation.

I've been seeing a lot of patients discontinuing medications that are very important for them to stay on.

Based on maybe things that they're hearing online or snippets that they're seeing on TV stating that certain medications are dangerous to stay on.

And so what I've seen happening more frequently than I have previously is that patients are taking that advice without talking to their health care provider and making decisions on what to do with those medications without appropriate guidance from from their providers.

We discussed three common medications that are causes for concern for primary care providers and their patients.

The first aspirin.

a few years back, we learned that it maybe was not as safe as we thought it was for patients to stay on aspirin.

So I had a lot of patients see that and stop using aspirin based on maybe what they were seeing on the news, seeing on Facebook, thinking like, ooh, I've been taking that for a long time.

I better stop that medication.

So those patients came in and told me, oh, based on what I heard, I stopped my aspirin.

And then I had to inform them, like, well, you really need to be on that aspirin because you had had a stroke a few years back.

And and once you've had a stroke for this specific patient situation, they needed to stay on their aspirin.

Or maybe they had had, an irregular heart rhythm that they needed to remain on that aspirin for.

So certain conditions.

We don't want patients to stop their aspirin necessarily.

In other situations, maybe they shouldn't have been taking it at all.

And it's perfectly fine for them to stop it.

But what really had me concerned when that guidance came out, and I do feel it was very appropriate guidance.

It's just people acting on it, maybe not fully understanding why they were on it in the first place.

the next example, heartburn medications.

There was some literature that come out that talked about possible risk of kidney damage, risk of increased pneumonia, based on taking certain the certain heartburn medication long term.

So I'd have patients stop that and then come to me and have maybe recurrence of some of the symptoms that they had had previously.

And sometimes those medications do need to be continued lifelong.

If there's any precancerous changes that were found in the esophagus.

And so those are the situations where sometimes it's probably okay, but there are situations where those medications really need to be left on long term.

few years ago I was diagnosed with acid reflux, which sometimes gives me digestive discomfort.

I was prescribed omeprazole, but I wasn't good about taking it because of concerns about side effects.

Unfortunately, that decision worsened my problem.

And you got back on the on that first.

Yes ma'am.

Okay.

And we're going to continue the on my Brezza.

Yes ma'am.

And there's no side effects to the all members.

All that you've noticed.

No not per concerned.

I had perfect it blocks the proton pump receptors in your stomach, so it slows down acid production.

And so patients who maybe have, like, pre-cancerous changes to their esophagus or bad heartburn, it can slow that down.

So it's not coming up and bathing the cells of the esophagus and acid.

And that acid causes a chronic inflammatory state.

And so that's where we see patients who maybe have those pre-cancerous changes.

We don't want them to have that acid coming up.

Next up, the Stanton class of medication.

that is used for patients who have heart disease, high cholesterol, to help lower cholesterol, and in patients maybe who've had a heart attack or stroke help to make sure that we don't have another one or whatever cholesterol plaque is, is in the arteries.

Keep it where it is or help to get rid of some of that.

There's a lot of concern about side effects for the medications.

I've heard, patients concerned about, muscle aches, which that can be a side effect of the medication.

But in all the patients that I've seen on that, actually very few actually have cramping or aches associated with the medication.

And if we try different medication within the class, sometimes they're fine.

The other thing I've heard is it's going to give me diabetes.

So a lot of patients who have high cholesterol already do have risk factors for diabetes.

So to say that the medication caused my diabetes, a lot of times it's, you know, everything kind of going on in your body beforehand that maybe led to that, diagnosis of diabetes.

The other thing I hear a lot about is a concern for dementia risk.

But that's another situation where a lot of people who struggle with high cholesterol, that high cholesterol can get to the very small arteries at the very end of your brain and decrease blood flow to those sections of the brain.

And then we can run into risk of dementia because you had high cholesterol, not because the statin was on board.

So it's really challenging to say, that a statin causes when the condition that's being treated actually down the road can lead to that diagnosis.

Good.

Okay.

Big deep breath.

In and out.

One more time.

Big deep breath.

Big deep breath.

In and out again.

Very good.

Lungs sound nice and clear.

I think everything has worked its way out.

So I think you're good to go there.

histamine blockers too, in those and in testing.

So, we're initiating proton pump inhibitors or your So I think there's it's multifactorial.

We've had the explosion of social media, of internet and, you know, the classic doctor Google.

You know, you have something wrong with me with you have people automatically go to Google to see what's wrong with me.

So that's happened.

And then when the pandemic happened, you know, everything was happening.

So quickly.

And information was changing and near daily basis that it was hard for us as clinicians to keep up with, let alone general public.

So I can see where there's maybe some concern about, you know, do do these providers really know what they're talking about?

Based on my experience through Covid, I don't know.

But the reality is, is we just had so much information coming at us on a daily basis, and we were all trying to keep up.

But I do think that probably led to a little bit of distrust of the medical community, just based on the fact that we didn't have 100% certainty in what we were telling patients to do.

We were just doing the best with the information that we had at hand.

Doctor Martin has some advice on how to boil down and distill all the medical information that's out there.

there's five tips that I want to give.

So when you're looking at an article on Facebook that comes up and makes a claim, I think it's really important, to be able to review literature with through the lens of if they're trying to scare you, if the article is trying to say, like if you don't do this, you're not going to make it to C tomorrow.

That's a claim that is sensationalizing something, something that's going to be maybe a good option for you to consider is going to be calm.

It's going to bring you evidence.

It's going to make, make a cautious statement and also recommend for you to talk with this with your doctor.

Another thing to consider, if it says doctors and experts can't be trusted.

I would always question that, because that's a lot of ways that some of, some influencers try to encourage you to not listen to what the best evidence is and not listen to those who have spent their life working, to improve the health of a community.

So I would be very cautious about a claim that's made stating that, also the if the article you're reading has no sources, no credible sources to it.

I would I would question that, if they offer a quick fix or a miracle cure, in medicine, while it would be amazing to have miracle cures, they take, it takes time to investigate, to treat.

There is no miracle cure.

And if I found it, I don't know if I would be sitting here in the middle of a ten degree day in winter in Michigan.

I'd probably be on a beach somewhere.

And then also, is this article trying to sell me something?

So you read something like, oh man, this looks really good.

Like this talks about weight loss and this, this gives me an exercise, idea.

And then you scroll all the way down and there's.

For more information click here.

And then they take you to a sales pitch.

So that's another thing.

If they're offering a sales pitch really they can't give you unbiased, evidence towards what, what they're trying to promote.

So those are five things just to keep in mind as you're reading through some of these articles, some of these claims that are made just to take care of yourself, take care of your pocketbook, because a lot of the things that are being sold are expensive.

And just make sure that your health is not being, worsened by some of the, options that may be available to you on social media.

histamine blockers too, in those and in testing.

So, we're initiating is one Pepcid is another one.

Those act a little differently still.

Same idea though.

You're suppressing acid.

it's interesting because my brother just texted me yesterday, I'm going to see a new doctor.

Can you look him up and see if he's legitimate?

I'm like, well, I can, but until you get in and see him, I think it's hard.

Like for me, I've been in practice here now for 11 years, so I've gotten to know my patients.

My patients know me.

They know how I've recommended them to do things in the past and whether it's served them well or not.

So I think the benefit of having.

I'll give a plug for my primary care providers the benefit of having a primary care provider who you bandwidth for a long time as you start to develop that rapport.

And that is worth its weight in gold.

Because you can determine like, okay, this provider seems to have my best interest at heart.

So I'm going to start putting some trust in them.

But ultimately that's up to us, right?

As providers to to gain the trust of our patients.

The other thing, you know, obviously there's a lot of reviews, online that you can look up, but those are depending on you can look at a restaurant review and somebody had a bad meal and it looks like the place is terrible, but, you know, it's great.

So, I think talking to people in the community about maybe what their experiences with the provider, looking at background of a provider, because normally you can see where they're, you know, what their educational background is, making sure they've completed their boards.

Those are ways that you can just kind of see, you know, what's the training of of my provider.

And, and that can give you some insight, too.

But in my mind, a long term primary care provider that you feel that you can be transparent with and you can trust that is, again, worth its weight in gold.