Targeted Care Makes a Distinction: Girls’s Coronary heart Well being Program

Coronary heart illness in ladies isn’t the identical as it’s in males. Girls usually don’t have the identical signs. And, their dangers for it may be totally different. This will result in missed or delayed diagnoses, making coronary heart illness in ladies much more harmful.

That’s why it’s so necessary for girls to get coronary heart care centered in your particular wants. And UVA Well being’s Girls’s Coronary heart Well being Care program does simply that.

Targeted Look after Girls’s Coronary heart Well being

This specialty service, led by Patricia Rodriguez Lozano, MD, brings personalised care aiming to:

• Stop coronary heart illness in ladies
• Discover it and deal with it as early as attainable
• Educate you and your neighborhood about ladies’s coronary heart well being

Two Tales of Compassionate Care

Right here, we share the tales of two ladies who bought wanted care from Dr. Rodriguez Lozano and her workforce within the Girls’s Coronary heart Well being Care program.

Lengthy Street to a Tough Analysis

Right here, sufferers aren’t only a title on a chart. For Christine Evans, 62, UVA Well being is a former house. She labored as a affected person care supplier in eye care earlier than she had was pressured to cease on account of an autoimmune illness.

Together with her historical past of excessive ldl cholesterol, she knew chest tightness and bother respiration meant she ought to get checked quickly. Apprehensive, she stopped doing workout routines that had been serving to to maintain her wholesome. These signs and the concern of a attainable emergency prompted her to e-book a health care provider’s appointment.

After seeing her major care physician after which getting checks from one other heart specialist, she wound up in Dr. Rodriguez Lozano’s examination room.

Inspiring Confidence

There, she really felt like she was being listened to. “I felt so assured in her care. She has this stability of being extremely educated but additionally very approachable. That’s uncommon,” says Christine. “She labored with me fairly a bit. She was very affected person.”

Dr. Rodriguez Lozano discovered the foundation of Christine’s signs: a microvascular situation. Microvascular illness impacts tiny blood vessels that ship blood to the guts. “After I first heard the prognosis, it was overwhelming. However Dr. Rodriguez Lozano broke it down step-by-step, so it didn’t really feel as scary.”

Christine remembers, “She didn’t go away something to probability and made certain we had a transparent understanding of what was taking place with my coronary heart. She informed me precisely what was happening with out sugarcoating it, however she did it in a approach that didn’t really feel intimidating or hopeless.”

Whereas beneath Dr. Rodriguez Lozano’s care, her signs have gotten a lot better. She follows a care routine that addresses her particular wants, together with taking medication daily, maintaining a healthy diet meals, and getting again to the bodily actions she loved. “I don’t even take into consideration chest tightness or shortness of breath anymore,” she says. “It’s such a reduction.”

Care That Accounts for All of You

Even the clinic employees made an impression on Christine”. “Dr. Rodriguez and her employees are superb,” she says. “After I go there, I really feel like I’m crucial,” she says. “They deal with me very effectively and go above and past. They be sure to’re taken care of in each approach.”

“She didn’t simply deal with my coronary heart; she cared about my complete life,” notes Christine. “She requested about my household, my work, how I used to be coping—issues no different physician ever requested me about.”

“Her follow-up is what impressed me most. She made certain to examine in and see how I used to be doing after each go to. It felt like she was as invested in my well being as I used to be.”

Discovering Solutions When It Is not Indigestion

When chest ache pressured Alyce Pollock, 66, to cease on a protracted staircase alongside the Appalachian Path, she thought it was indigestion. However her husband, a heart specialist, wasn’t so certain. “He stated, ‘Sit, now, that isn’t indigestion,’” she recalled. That second marked the beginning of a difficult journey to uncover the reason for her signs. And, the start of her relationship with Dr. Rodriguez Lozano.

“I’m very, very proud of having her as my physician. That’s the primary factor: I’m in good arms,” she shares.

Placing Collectively the Full Image

Her journey started with a whirlwind of checks and opinions from 4 totally different cardiologists. Every of them, although expert, did not piece collectively the total image of her situation. “Different docs stated, ‘This doesn’t meet the extent of concern,’” so they might simply put her on medication, she defined. “Dr. Rodriguez stated, ‘We’re going to maintain going till now we have a solution.’”

Dr. Rodriguez’s tenacity paid off. After in depth analysis, she was recognized with vasospastic angina. Attending to the underside of her signs allowed her care workforce to tailor a therapy plan only for her.

A Customized Plan Makes the Distinction

Past addressing quick signs, Dr. Rodriguez Lozano seemed on the larger image. “I’ve an odd lipid profile,” she famous. “Different docs stated, ‘All of your different numbers are nice, so we’re going to disregard this one.’ However Dr. Rodriguez inspired me to see a geneticist to raised perceive the excessive LDLs that run in my household.”

Though the genetic testing was inconclusive, it added one other layer to her understanding of her situation. “The distinction in having a youthful girl physician who’s obsessed with discovering solutions in your case—it’s unimaginable,” she stated.

“Dr. Rodriguez took a number of tries to discover a remedy that labored, however she promised me all alongside that she wouldn’t stop till we discovered that mixture,” Alyce stated.

At present, her therapy plan contains remedy mixed with a dedication to health and climbing. “My coronary heart can sustain with my legs,” she stated proudly. “I climbed each Previous Rag and The Priest in November.”

Girls’s Coronary heart Well being Program: Care & Help Targeted on You

These coronary heart well being journeys spotlight the significance of personalised coronary heart care, particularly for girls. At UVA Well being’s Girls’s Coronary heart Well being program, we perceive that honoring our variations results in higher take care of all.

As Dr. Rodriguez Lozano says, “I am actually obsessed with ensuring ladies have wholesome hearts and that everybody will get equal entry to healthcare. By means of my work in analysis and medical care, I am devoted to discovering higher methods to deal with coronary heart issues in ladies.”