New Cardiologist

I have been looking for a new cardiologist.  I had an appointment with a new doc yesterday but had to cancel due to snowmageddon here in the Kansas City area.

How do you go about finding a cardiologist when you are 44?  It is not like I can ask my friends who they see.  When I ask my friends, I am saying "Hey, what cardiologist does your mom or dad see?"  When I go to the cardiologist, there are several people my age there but they are all bringing their parents to the doctor.

My first cardiologist that I met in the ER in the midst of a heart attack was a very gifted surgeon and he saved my life.  I didn't care much for his follow up care.  I chose a new doc because he was less than five minutes from my office.  I really liked him and he did a fabulous job when I had to go back to the cath lab.  I would have kept him as my doc because he was at least halfway open to the diet I have chosen and he was funny.  I like funny docs.  He chose to change his hospital affiliation and now he practices in Topeka.  That is just too far for me to go.

So, I got on Cigna's website and pulled up cardiologists in the Kansas City area.  This is a fairly good sized city and there I sat looking at a long list of cardiologists and not one inkling of who to choose.   I have heard good things about the cardiology group at Olathe Medical Center.  I have had a couple docs from there recommended to me.  Turns out, neither one of them will take 44 year old women that are 16 months post MI as new patients--go figure.  Of all things, my heart problems are not bad enough to see them. So, I chose a woman doc.  She is 41 by her bio.  I hope I like her.

The biggest thing I want out of a doc?  I want a doc to acknowledge the link between nutrition, inflammation and heart disease.  I am not talking about just the watch your salt kind of nutrition.  I am talking about the link to nutrition and all kinds of diseases.  I have an auto immune disease (psoriasis).  Auto immune diseases cause inflammation and that contributes a lot to heart disease.  When I went vegan, my psoriasis went away.  When I slipped cheese and a little other dairy back in over the late summer and early fall my psoriasis came back. As I have taken it back out and gone totally vegan again, the psoriasis has gone away.  If I can control that, I can control a lot of the inflammation in my body.  I want a doc that does not dismiss all of this.

So many docs just want to treat with medicine.  I have been told by two docs that the medicines I take are standard treatment for heart attack patients.  I am not really sure I like that no matter what changes you make in your life that it is just the same standard meds.  Should I have to take the same standard meds as a heart attack patient that smokes and eats chicken fried steak and gravy?  I am not so sure about this and I have yet to meet a doctor that has been 100% convincing.  My appointment with my new cardiologist is now moved to April 1.  We will see how she does.  My greatest hope is that she is more open to treating with nutrition than my other docs have been.