Self-examination is an important part of maintaining breast health. It is important to not only women, but men as well. Men can also get breast cancer, although it is not as prevalent.
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Tag Archives: Miami Integrative Medicine
Stressed Out?
When you are feeling stressed, try some aromatherapy. Studies show that the body reacts to scents. Orange can be invigorating, while lavender or vanilla can calm frazzled nerves.
Keeping Options Open
Those who practice alternative therapy choose to use only holistic medicine when caring for illness, and excluding any kind of modern medicine. Here at Miami Integrative Medicine, we choose to keep options open to both traditional and modern medicine for patients from Bal Harbour and other cities.
See Our New Video
Jump on over to You Tube and check out our new video for Miami Integrative Medicine. Whether you live in Little Havana or Hialeah, Dr. Bordenave and his staff will teach you how to live a healthier, happier life.
Heart Bypass Surgery Treats Blocked Arteries
Heart disease is a major killer of people in the US, and according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, it is what kills one in four people in the US every year. It also costs the US more than 100 billion dollars in health care, medicine and lost time from work.
Heart disease can occur due to many reasons. Some of these are due to blood vessel problems such as atherosclerosis, when a substance called plaque forms in the blood vessels it can clog them up. Since these vessels are what carry nutrients and oxygen throughout the body, when they are clogged, your body will be starved of those vital components. This problem is often due to a poor diet, being obese, smoking or not exercising. All of these can lead to someone having heart disease and possibly needing heart surgery to repair their heart.
Coronary Artery Problems
In cases where a person’s heart disease is caused by blocked coronary arteries, they have coronary artery disease. A cardiologist may need to create a new pathway for the victim’s heart through heart bypass surgery. This means that a special type of surgeon who studied in cardiology will redirect the blood flow of the heart areas that are restricted and may have to put a graft into the heart to restore good blood flow.
If the proper blood flow isn’t restored to the heart, the person could end up having congestive heart failure, which means they could have a heart attack and possibly die. So, 
the heart bypass operation, which is actually very common in the US, is done to prevent this possibility. The graft for the heart sometimes is taken from a blood vessel in the victim’s legs or arms or even their chest. It all depends on how bad the heart is clogged and how much of the existing blood vessels are blocked or ruined.
What is Done Prior to Heart Bypass Surgery?
Before someone undergoes heart bypass surgery it is likely the doctor will check out the heart using tests like an echocardiogram to check the heart, plus any needed blood tests or other tests. They must also make sure that the body is strong enough to withstand the rigors of heart surgery.
You may also be asked to change your diet so that your health will improve either before or after the surgery. This alternative therapy will help to get your arteries unclogged through eating a nutritious and healthy diet and limiting things like too much fat, which can cause a rise in ‘bad’ cholesterol. This contributes to the build up of plague in your arteries and causes heart disease and cardiomyopathy, which is another word for heart attack. If you find out you have an enlarged heart, this shows that your heart has been working too hard and the tissues have stretched out in an attempt to be able to pump all of the required blood throughout your body.
Heart disease is not something you want to have and in some cases it can be very hard to treat. However, if you end up having to get heart bypass surgery, this operation can help to save your life.
Contact Dr. Jorge Bordenave at Miami Integrative Medicine and set up a health care consultation. He can discuss with you ways to improve your heart health and general wellbeing using natural methods whenever possible.
Mammograms: Are They Really Necessary?
Mammograms are a special kind of x-ray procedure used to scan the breasts and take a picture so that it can be read by a radiologist to check for breast cancer or other types of breast problems. Some women get them every year as part of their women’s wellness checkups. However, some people question if getting these tests are really needed annually and if the radiation danger warrants not getting them that often.
Who Should Get Mammograms?
Health providers encourage women to get mammograms for several reasons, most especially if a woman has found a lump while doing monthly self-breast exams. Also, it is a good idea to get mammograms if there is a history of breast cancer in the woman’s family, as this can make her more prone to getting breast cancer during her life. If any woman in their family was diagnosed with breast cancer, then the women in that family should get screened for breast cancer annually, unless otherwise recommended by their doctors.
A woman or her doctor won’t be able to feel a lump until it is at least a few centimeters in size, and once that occurs, the breast cancer has already gotten to stage two out of the four stages of cancer. A mammogram, however, can find a lump long before this and so the woman would have better odds of surviving breast cancer as a result of the medical information gotten from the scan.
Women who are post-menopausal should also get mammograms at least every two years, as this procedure works well in detecting breast cancer in this type of women. They should also continue to do breast exams every month as part of her health and wellness activities. Another group of women that mammograms work well for are women who are over 40 years old.
A study done in Sweden showed that 29 percent of the women who got annual mammograms in their 40s, and 10 percent over 50, were able to have breast cancer detected early and at a stage where it could be successfully treated.
Should Younger Women Get Mammograms?
While studies have shown that mammograms may be valuable for women over 40, it is not certain how valuable they are for women under 40. There are mixed reviews in answering this question. On one hand, women under 40 have breasts that are denser than older women, therefore a mammogram might not work as well on them as it will on an older woman.
The American Cancer Society says that women ages 20 to 40 should do monthly breast exams to check for lumps or other signs of breast cancer. The best day to do this is the day after their period ends each month. They recommend starting at 40, to get a mammogram, but if there is cause for getting one prior to this age, such as family history, it should be discussed with their doctors to see if the risk of radiation from the mammogram is worth the possible risk of breast cancer.
All women should follow a nutritious diet and exercise program and talk to their doctors about whether or not they should get an annual mammogram. Integrative medicine is a proponent of regular mammograms, especially for those with a family history of breast cancer.
To learn more about how to eat right and attain health and wellness for your body and mind, contact Dr. Jorge Bordenave today at Miami Integrative Medicine and set up an appointment for a health care consultation.
Take Care of Your Heart
It’s never too late to start taking better care of you heart. If you’re living in Key West, some mild exercise can work wonders, as well as eating foods known to help promote heart health, like whole grains.
A Heart Doctor
A cardiologist is a heart doctor, and they know all there is to know about the anatomy of the human heart. Living in Miami or Coral Gables or anywhere else doesn’t matter when it comes to coronary heart disease. Call Dr. Bordenave for a consultation and see how integrative medicine can help you be healthier.
What About Fasting?
Fasting doesn’t always mean going without food for days. As part of a health and wellness program, your fasting could simply be 16 hours out of every 24. For eight hours, you eat a healthy diet, then for the next 16 hours, you don’t eat. Living in Little Havana or Key West, fasting can be done anywhere.
Natural Cures for Ringing in the Ears
Ringing in the ears, or tinnitus, affects nearly 12 million Americans. The noise can sound like a high-pitched hum, a roar, whine, squeal, hiss or click. For most people, tinnitus comes and goes and is not much more than a temporary nuisance. However, for more than one million people, the problem is severe enough that it interferes with their daily lives. For some, it is so distracting that it blocks out normal hearing, and they cannot work and sometimes not even sleep. Tinnitus usually occurs in people over 40-years old and men experience it more often than women do.
What Causes Tinnitus
If you have suffered from extended periods of tinnitus, you know all too well how disturbing the disorder can be. It is very difficult to block out the sounds in your head and concentrate on the ones coming from outside. Achieving wellness seems nearly impossible. If you are like the majority out there, the tinnitus will go away on its own. However, if it lasts for more than a week, check in with your doctor of general internal medicine.
Most tinnitus is caused by damage to the microscopic hair-like structures in the inner ear. The hair-like structures vibrate, sending signals to the nerves in response to outside noise and the information is translated by the brain.
There are multiple causes for the tinnitus. It may or may not occur with hearing loss, but
aging is the most common cause. However, a large proportion is caused by working or living near loud noise. Loud music is a very big culprit. Other reasons for tinnitus may be:
- Excessive alcohol or caffeinated beverage consumption
- A buildup of earwax (which blocks normal sound waves)
- Injuries such as a blow to the head or ear, whiplash
- Dental or mouth problems such as tempormandibular disorder
- A fast alteration of environment, such as occurs in an airplane
- Exercise when the neck is hyperextended, like with bicycle riding
- Some medications, especially large amounts of aspirin or antibiotics
- Ear infections or eardrum rupture
- Blood flow problems such as high blood pressure
- Nerve trouble including multiple sclerosis or migraines
- Thyroid disease
- Diabetes
- Tumor
How to Cure Tinnitus
There actually is no cure for tinnitus, but it can be treated. Harvard educated Dr. Andrew Weil, founder of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, suggests an integrative medicine method. Take the supplement ginko biloba for a two-month trial period: two pills of standardized extract, with meals, three times a day. Ginko can help increase blood circulation to the head and neck.
CoEnzyme Q10 (CoQ10) has been shown in clinical trials to be beneficial to people suffering from tinnitus. CoQ10 is believed to energize the mitochondria in cells, which helps to prevent heart disease, as well as tinnitus. This supplement has been widely 
advertised as an antioxidant and can be helpful with coronary heart disease.
Other natural methods and recommendations for helping to reduced tinnitus are:
- Most important: avoid loud noise and protect your ears with ear plugs or muffs if you can’t avoid it
- Add a lot of fresh pineapple to your diet for better blood circulation
- Add fresh garlic to foods or take an odor free supplement. It increases blood circulation and reduces inflammation (also good for cardiovascular disease)
- Eat more raw fruit and vegetables for the vitamins and minerals that can help reduce inflammation
- Avoid salt and get high blood pressure under control
- Don’t smoke or drink alcohol (these constrict blood flow)
- Reduce or eliminate your consumption of caffeine
- Get adequate rest
- Use oil from cypress, rosemary, lemon and roses for aromatherapy and general health and wellness
It is important to note that if you are having ringing in the ears, you should consult with your doctor because tinnitus can be a symptom of certain diseases, or as mentioned, could be caused by some medications. If there is an underlying medical problem, treating that disorder should take care of the ringing. Be sure you provide your internal medicine doctor with all of your medical information, including any supplements you take.
Miami Integrative Medicine and Dr. Jorge Bordenave invite you to visit us and see what a difference complementary medicine can make to your health and how it can improve your life.
Published by Axiom Health Care Marketing