SHOW TRANSCRIPT | S19E07

Announcer
And now America’s health care advocate, Cary Hall.

Cary Hall
Hello, America. Welcome to America’s HealthCare Advocate Show, broadcasting coast to coast across the USA. My producer, Mr. Darren Wilhite. I’m your host, Cary Hall. This is your show, America. Thank you for joining us and making us one of the most listened to talk shows throughout the United States. Our newest affiliate, KLIN and AM 1400, FM 99.3 in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Happy to be in the Cornhusker State, and we thank all those good folks up there for putting us on the air and becoming part of America’s Healthcare Advocate family. 296 affiliates strong and we’re still growing. Thanks to all of you. Amazed at the numbers. I see those of you that are downloading these podcast shows, especially the ones that you find very interesting.

The one we’re going to do today is going to be extremely interesting because we have two wonderful doctors in studio with us today, Dr. Tracy Stephens and Dr. Sarah Boyd from St Luke’s Health Systems here in Kansas City. You’re going to find this fascinating. It’s hard to get these two together like this and get them them in the studio.

So it’s real privilege to have them here. But this is one of those shows that you’re going to hear and maybe you’re going to want to tell somebody about. You’re going to see it up on that podcast platform. It’s one of the ones you certainly do want to listen to and download. So first of all, welcome. Thank you for both getting here.

We woke up this morning to what, three inches of snow out there and I texted you this morning, Dr. Stevens said, are you sure you guys are going to be able to make this free? He said, Well, I’m already in St Luke’s and we’re doing rounds this morning.

Dr Tracy Stevens
yes, we were ready.

Cary Hall
Yeah. So sorry. What did you get out of bed like 1 a.m. or something. Oh. So but we’re very happy to have both of you in studio. A little bit about both doctors. Dr. Stevens is a board certified cardiologist with St Luke’s Cardiovascular Consultants. She is on the staff at St Luke’s Mid-America Heart Institute here in Kansas City, Missouri.

Cary Hall
She is the Julia Irene Kauffman endowed chair for Women’s Cardiovascular Health here. Dr. Stevens received her M.D. degree at the University of Missouri, Kansas City School of Medicine. She completed her College of Cardiology Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic, and she was awarded Mayo Clinic’s Outstanding Achievement Award in Cardiovascular Disease. She is a member of the Alumni association. She is a mayo Clinic Alumni Association and the Donald C Bashford Award for Meritorious Research.

Cary Hall
So she is a learned specialist and doctorate and she’s been on this show before and we’re very happy to welcome her back. New to the show and happy to have her here today because it’s going to have a lot to do with what we talk about is Dr. Sarah Boyd. She is an M.D. and the system medical director for The Anti-Microbial.

I didn’t even screw that up. Do you believe that antimicrobial stewardship at St Luke’s health system? She is the infectious disease physician by training and a specialist in antimicrobial stewardship and hospital epidemiology. She serves as the system lead for infectious disease for COVID 19 and infectious disease responses for St Luke’s Health System and the Missouri Telehealth statewide. She is a member of the Infectious Disease Society of America, the Society for Care of Epidemiology and is the former president of the Kansas City Infectious Disease Society.

We welcome you here.

Dr Sarah Boyd
Thank you for having me.

Cary Hall
Well, it’s great to have you. And I want to kind of jump right into this because, you know, I told you off air here a minute ago, I was traveling here about a month and a half ago, and I was amazed when I got on the airplane. And I think there were five people wearing a mask. And I’m like, we’re sitting, you know, three inches from each other.

00;03;19;29 – 00;04;21;15
Cary Hall
And I had a guy one one in the window and I was on the aisle seat and he was coughing like crazy. And I’m like, and not no mask, not covering up, not anything. And it just made me think about the fact that, you know, COVID is not behind us. And having said that, I’m going to read a little something here that’s kind of some interesting information. 1. COVID 101,000 cases in the USA, 1.1 million deaths, seven day average for hospitalization, 40,000. ICU, 5000. XBB1.5 variant. We’re going to talk about that today. I’ve done a show on this in the past, but we’re fortunate today to have both doctors in studio to talk about this 28% of current US COVID cases and growing fast. We’ll talk about that in a minute. Flu 19,000 hospitalized per week, 12.8 Mortality rate 2432 deaths per week. 2018 Flu season. There were 28,000. RSV was 75% of pediatric hospital beds full and 80% of pediatric ICU beds. You know what? You don’t hear a damn thing about this in the media anymore. Dr. Boyd…

00;04;21;15 – 00;04;44;08
Dr Sarah Boyd
Definitely COVID is still around. We’re seeing it frequently. Certainly that first couple of years we had a lot more hospitalizations, but there’s still almost 300 deaths a day in the United States from COVID. And so as you look at that, that seems like a lower number than it’s been. And I think most people are sick of some of the things we did trying to protect ourselves. And so I’ve kind of moved on.

00;04;44;08 – 00;04;48;12
Cary Hall
Yeah you say COVID fatigue. But the problem with that is it hasn’t moved on.

00;04;48;22 – 00;05;14;01
Dr Sarah Boyd
Right? And certainly for those 300 people, their families, their loved ones and their friends are going to miss them. And and I think the other part we don’t talk about enough is what those people that get infected and survive go through to get back to hopefully where they were before they had COVID. But there’s certainly a growing number of people that have post-COVID conditions that never get back to their baseline or it takes months.

00;05;14;01 – 00;05;16;04
Cary Hall
And those are called COVID long haulers, right?

00;05;16;05 – 00;05;29;09
Dr Sarah Boyd
There’s a lot of different names, long COVID long haulers, post-COVID conditions. You know, I think over the next few years, you’ll start to see that really kind of coalesce into a better definition. But we’re still learning about those cases.

00;05;29;17 – 00;05;53;03
Cary Hall
So Dr. Stevens talking about that, and talking about the long hauler situation and how how does that affect people with cardiovascular issues? I mean, if you’ve got a heart condition, like my wife Lauren does, and, you know, you know, how significant is that in terms of becoming an issue for someone that is like has had COVID, what you know, and I don’t send me the emails, if you choose to be a non-vaxxer, that’s your choice.

00;05;53;03 – 00;06;03;13
Cary Hall
But, you know, if you didn’t get vaccinated, you know, you don’t have the kinds of safeguards that those of us that did get vaccinated to do. How much of a risk is that for people that have cardiac issues? Dr..

00;06;03;29 – 00;06;29;03
Dr Tracy Stevens
I think that it’s a significant risk and we see a number of symptoms after or during COVID. Certainly it’s one of the most common reasons we get consulted in the hospital for patients who are not there for heart reasons, but the heart manifestations of a lot of these viral infections, including COVID in the clinic. We’re seeing a lot of symptoms related to the heart in patients who have just had a viral illness.

00;06;29;03 – 00;07;03;09
Dr Tracy Stevens
COVID being a very popular one, and so the symptoms are certainly shortness of breath, lots of skipped heartbeats arrhythmias, palpitations. You know, the heart’s run on electricity and we can see disorders of the electricity of the heart. We can see chest pain where the sac around our heart, the pericardium becomes inflamed. And that’s severely uncomfortable. The heart muscle itself can be involved, what we call myocarditis or pericarditis or myopericarditis it where the heart muscle is involved and it can cause enzyme release much like a heart attack.

00;07;03;18 – 00;07;13;23
Dr Tracy Stevens
In some patients we see cardiomyopathy, a weak heart muscle, and not to mention high blood pressure that we’re seeing skyrocket too, during this this time as well.

00;07;14;17 – 00;07;26;02
Cary Hall
So all of those things are directly affected. COVID, if it directly affects all of those things and exacerbating that situation, if you have that particular issue or maybe even bringing it on.

00;07;26;17 – 00;07;53;08
Dr Tracy Stevens
Right. And this the symptoms I just mentioned and what we’re seeing clinically are commonly in people who have no underlying cardiac condition, but in those who have to your point or question about an underlying cardiac condition, it brings out that condition. So we see a lot of myocardial infarction or heart attacks coming in where it’s where they have acute COVID infection and that makes plaque rupture and creates the crisis as strokes.

00;07;53;08 – 00;08;01;13
Dr Tracy Stevens
So we see a lot of cardiac emergencies that may not have occurred had it not been stirred up by an active COVID infection.

00;08;01;17 – 00;08;15;27
Cary Hall
I think you’re getting a little understanding of where we’re going to go with this broadcast today and why this is so important to get this information out to people across the country so you understand this thing is not behind us. So stay tuned. We’re going to be back after the break. The doctors are in the house. We’ve got a lot more to talk about.

00;08;16;04 – 00;08;26;05
Cary Hall
You’re listening to America’s Healthcare Advocate broadcasting here on the HIA radio network Coast to coast across the U.S. Stay tuned. We’ve got more and more.

00;08;26;05 – 00;08;37;20
Music
That won’t be long before a lot to will be.

00;08;37;20 – 00;08;58;16
Cary Hall
Welcome back. You’re listening to America’s Healthcare Advocate show broadcasting coast to coast across the USA. Here on the HIA radio network. You can find out more about us by going to the website America’s Healthcare Advocate dot com (americashealthcareadvocate.com). By the way, we’re videotaping a lot of these shows. This particular one is videotaped. It’ll be posted up on YouTube. It’s also going to be on all of the podcast platforms that we talked about.

00;08;58;16 – 00;09;15;24
Cary Hall
So you can listen to it. You can also watch it and watch the doctors and I go back and forth here in the studio, my producer, the always perfect Mr. Darren Wilhite. I’m your host, Cary Hall. In studio with me, Dr. Tracy Stevens and Dr. Sarah Boyd from St Luke’s Health Care System here in Kansas City. We are very fortunate to get their time.

00;09;16;09 – 00;09;39;23
Cary Hall
As I mentioned, the opening segment, Dr. Stevens was making rounds around 630 this morning. So they’re they’re extremely busy, but they carve time out to do this. So I read those statistics, Dr. Boyd, at the beginning of the broadcast. So you’re 101,000 cases, seven day average. It’s particularly acute on the East Coast. There’s talk about it’s moving, you know, through the Midwest where we are and further out west.

00;09;39;23 – 00;09;44;06
Cary Hall
What what are your feelings about that, your observations and what’s it like at St Luke’s right now?

00;09;44;08 – 00;10;04;05
Dr Sarah Boyd
So from the variant standpoint, we definitely have seen where those variants sort of start in one region and will kind of move across the country. And I think the biggest thing that’s come across with with the newer variant is that we’ve lost some of our monoclonal antibody treatments that we used to use. So that certainly has been a big development.

00;10;05;07 – 00;10;27;17
Dr Sarah Boyd
Additionally, I think when you look at just the hospital in general, we were talking on the way out here, you know, that very first large winter wave of COVID, we were dealing with patients filling up the hospital with COVID. The next wave. We really dealt with staff being ill and staff being out with still large volumes. And now we’re really seeing there’s still a steady amount of COVID in the hospital.

00;10;27;25 – 00;10;41;26
Dr Sarah Boyd
In addition to all of our other medical things that we take care of in the hospital on a given basis. And then you add in extra flu cases, you add in a bit of a surge of COVID after holidays, and certainly the beds are full.

00;10;42;03 – 00;10;57;16
Cary Hall
So go back to that comment you made. So this XBB1.5 what I have read about this is significantly more contagious. It’s much easier for people to get this than than than the other variants in the past. So is that accurate?

00;10;57;25 – 00;11;28;14
Dr Sarah Boyd
So as all of these variants come, there’s ones that they say are more contagious. And when you think about viruses and and variants, they’re evolving to basically do their job, which is to infect other people, make people sick, have plenty of hosts to infect. And so, you know, we see that. I think the other part, too, is no matter how infectious or more or less infectious a variant might be, the total volume of people who become ill and certainly percentage of those that are high risk and will need medical services.

00;11;28;14 – 00;11;41;18
Dr Sarah Boyd
Whether that’s a visit to an urgent care, an E.R. or a hospitalization, a less virulent variant with a large number of people, it infects at the same time can still overwhelm health care systems.

00;11;41;18 – 00;12;00;29
Cary Hall
All right. And then you also said that the monoclonals that have been used in the past aren’t effective against this. And I’ve also read that the vaccine doesn’t necessarily stop you from getting this. And I didn’t vaccinate four times. I’ll be the first guy in line when the fifth one comes out because I think it’s made a hell of a difference.

00;12;00;29 – 00;12;13;11
Cary Hall
I’m 73 years old. I’ve had it once, but I’ve had it for four days and it didn’t knock me down like it has so many other people. So what? What is it that you’re not able to use that you were able to use before with regard to monoclonal deals?

00;12;13;21 – 00;12;27;03
Dr Sarah Boyd
So monoclonal antibodies? We’ve had several different ones. As the variants have changed, there’s new ones, but with the newest variant, the XBB1.5, we don’t have any active monoclonal antibodies. We don’t.

00;12;27;03 – 00;12;27;17
Cary Hall
Have any.

00;12;27;17 – 00;12;55;06
Dr Sarah Boyd
We don’t have any. So good. If someone gets infected, that’s high risk previous variants, they might have been able to get a monoclonal antibody infusion, which is essentially acting like their immune system, boosting that antibody protection and preventing them from hospitalization or from death. But now we don’t have any. And then additionally, we used another long acting monoclonal as a prevention for people like our heart transplant patients that might not mount a good vaccine response.

00;12;55;18 – 00;13;01;27
Dr Sarah Boyd
And that’s no longer effective either. So those immunocompromised people have lost that extra layer of protection.

00;13;02;13 – 00;13;22;05
Cary Hall
So basically that means all of this is off the table now and you’re basically relying on hopefully the vaccine that it doesn’t, you know, get completely out of hand and cause bigger problems. Dr. Stevens how much more important is it that people do safeguards? I made the comment about being on that Southwest flight and there were five of us that wore masks.

00;13;22;05 – 00;13;39;28
Cary Hall
And I had the guy who was coughing his head off and not wearing a mask, and you’re holding his hand up to say something like this isn’t really working. How much more vigilant do people need to be when they’re in public spaces now, especially given what Dr. Boyd just said, that, you know, we don’t have the tools we had before.

00;13;40;12 – 00;14;04;07
Dr Tracy Stevens
It’s very much common sense. And so if you’re in that environment, it’s so important to put a mask on. You know, when I’m on hospital service, which I round a lot, very commonly, I’m consulted to see people with influenza and now COVID during that it was interesting during COVID, the big thrust of it in the hospital, I didn’t get consutlted on a single patient with influenza.

00;14;04;18 – 00;14;27;19
Dr Tracy Stevens
And why is that? It’s not is because of wearing masks. And I respect people’s feelings about masks and but they work. And I think you don’t want to get sick. You don’t want to get others sick. And so we encourage still in our clinics, we require the mask and for patient care in the hospital. And Dr. Boyd is leading our way at St Luke’s on what we do, what kind of PPE.

00;14;27;19 – 00;14;39;06
Dr Tracy Stevens
Fortunately, we’ve had plenty of that for our staff. And so I think the basics don’t forget the basics. Wash hands, use common sense and wear your mask.

00;14;39;13 – 00;14;58;23
Cary Hall
Yeah, and I don’t wear a mask anymore in public places. I mean, just I use a product called Triology which is a natural kills covered 99.9% of the time. Spray it in your mouth, on your face, whatever the case may be. I’ve done multiple broadcasts on this thing, but I use that stuff religiously. And I also make sure I hand sanitizer if I’m in the grocery store or I’m at a restaurant.

00;14;59;04 – 00;15;03;21
Cary Hall
Those are those these are basics like Dr. Steven just said. Yes.

00;15;04;07 – 00;15;24;24
Dr Sarah Boyd
Yes. And certainly those that are immunocompromised are much higher risk. They may need to take extra layers of precaution and using kind of what’s going on in the community with case levels and how many cases there are to help guide some of those adjustments that you might make. If there’s a lot of COVID circulating and perhaps you’re going to an indoor activity.

00;15;25;03 – 00;15;43;25
Cary Hall
Does the same thing apply to the RSV flu that we see out there that is raging, that is raging? I’ve got six grandchildren. They’ve all had it. Their parents have added. They gave it to me when I was up in Pasco, Washington, with with my daughter, who has four children. When I left, I was sick. It’s the second time that’s happened.

00;15;44;06 – 00;15;51;03
Cary Hall
She’s like, dad, mom, think of what you come up for anymore if you keep doing it. So. So how how significant is that right now?

00;15;51;18 – 00;16;13;08
Dr Sarah Boyd
So influenza certainly this year has been much more active than we had earlier, the last couple pandemic years. And I think some of that is the masking and the social distancing and lower you know, people were not having as many people in a small space. All of those mitigations help us for all those other respiratory illnesses like RSV and influenza as well.

00;16;13;08 – 00;16;16;11
Dr Sarah Boyd
So as some of those peeled back, we certainly saw more cases. Yeah.

00;16;16;13 – 00;16;36;10
Cary Hall
And unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like this isn’t going to be over any time soon. And we come back from the break. We’ll talk about, you know, how this is, what happens now. We’ll talk about what’s going on now and we’ll talk about what people can expect for the rest of the year and what can we expect, you know, as we march forward through 2023.

00;16;36;10 – 00;16;59;19
Cary Hall
So we’ll be back after the break. You’re listening to America’s Healthcare Advocate broadcasting here on the HIA radio network Coast to coast across the U.S.A. If you want more information on this or anything else that we do on the broadcast, the website AmericasHealthcareAdvocate.com all 12 podcast platforms and YouTube, they’re all up there. Stay tuned. We’ll be right back with more.

00;16;59;19 – 00;17;19;18
Cary Hall
Welcome back. You’re listening to America’s Healthcare Advocates Show, broadcasting coast to coast across the U.S. Here on the HIA Radio Network. You can find out more about us by going to the website America’s Health Care Advocate dot com. This show be posted up there on all the podcast platforms. If there’s a podcast platform we’re not on, somebody needs to tell me because I think we’re on everyone that’s out there.

00;17;19;23 – 00;17;38;19
Cary Hall
My producer, the always perfect Mr. Darren Willhite, I’m your host Cary Hall, in studio with me. We are very fortunate to have Dr. Tracy Stevens and Dr. Sarah Boyd from St Luke’s health care system. You know, it never ceases to talk about vaccines for me. It never ceases to amaze me the conspiratorial theories that are out there. And that was really good.

00;17;38;26 – 00;17;59;27
Cary Hall
During the break, I made the comment about I read a story about the fact that Microsoft was putting chips in in the vaccines. This is something was actually out there and then Dr. Boyd said and the Chinese balloons just came over was checking all those chips to see who got chips with the vaccine being. It is remarkable to me the nonsense.

00;18;00;16 – 00;18;23;23
Cary Hall
You know, I saw a story the other day about babies are dying because they took the vaccine. Where is this stuff coming from? I mean, look, I get it. If you don’t want to take a vaccine, yippee-ki-oh-ki-yay that’s your choice. Okay, everybody gets to make a choice. But what drives me nuts is this constant badgering of a people that did take the vaccines.

00;18;24;02 – 00;18;33;00
Cary Hall
Okay? And be this these these fantastical stories that have actually no medical history or data behind them.

00;18;33;00 – 00;18;59;12
Dr Sarah Boyd
Dr. Boyd Well, certainly when the vaccines M-RNA or messenger RNA vaccines debuted, you know, people had a lot of concerns and there were conspiracy theories and all the things and certainly from a perspective of monitoring vaccine response, vaccine side effects, you know, this has been the there have been billions of vaccines given with really close monitoring.

00;18;59;12 – 00;19;17;24
Dr Sarah Boyd
You know, a lot of us that got vaccine had signed up for an automated system. And you get a text message and every once in a while checks in, Have you been sick? Have you gotten pregnant? Because they’re tracking and monitoring. You know, do we have any safety signals that seem out of the ordinary? And it’s an extremely safe vaccine and it’s been very effective.

00;19;18;22 – 00;19;39;12
Cary Hall
Hugely effective, 90, 90, 97% effective in this country. I did a broadcast, with these numbers a couple of weeks ago. Meanwhile, the Chinese vaccine is 63% effective. And the way they know that now, because the Chinese are telling us that because Brazil used it and they actually did a study on it and it was a disaster and they’ve stopped using it.

00;19;39;17 – 00;19;53;05
Cary Hall
And well, by the way, now you can get, you know, our vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine, the other vaccines, you can get them in Hong Kong. You can’t go to mainland China, but you can get them in Hong Kong if you want to pay for it. So, you know, they were they are extremely effective, are they not?

00;19;53;17 – 00;20;16;23
Dr Sarah Boyd
And I think one thing when we kind of when the vaccine originated, people were thinking like some like smallpox, you know, you get vaccinated. Measles, very people don’t really get that usually after they’ve been vaccinated. But our respiratory illnesses, you may still get infected. But those vaccines were designed to keep people at high risk from dying or winding up in the hospital with COVID.

00;20;16;23 – 00;20;25;01
Dr Sarah Boyd
And those have been very effective at that goal of of really protecting people from that severe illness or death from COVID. Yeah.

00;20;25;01 – 00;20;44;26
Cary Hall
And and as I mentioned earlier, you know, I’ve had four, four vaccines four times I’ve been vaccinated. Again, I’ll be like I said, I’ll be the first guy in line for the fifth one because I believe, especially when you’re over 60, these things are make a huge difference in protecting both. And I got it. Laurie was a lot more affected by than I was.

00;20;44;26 – 00;21;07;22
Cary Hall
But regardless of that, she had had the vaccines and she has a very serious heart condition that I think things would have been a lot worse if she didn’t have it. So, you know, again, everybody has a choice. You know, you’re a non vaxxer, God bless you, that’s your choice. But what drives me nuts is when I see these pieces out there in the media and people make these fantastical claims that there is just no data to back this stuff up.

00;21;07;22 – 00;21;08;29
Cary Hall
Am I right or wrong about that?

00;21;09;17 – 00;21;37;18
Dr Sarah Boyd
There’s a lot of data that you can look at that really, you know, that they have tracked on the safety signals and it’s a very safe and effective vaccine. And, you know, some people get kind of the messenger RNA kind of took a lot of that conspiracy theory market early. But we do have NOVAVAX, which is a protein subunit made vaccine made with a different method that we’ve used for other vaccines, and that’s available as well.

00;21;37;18 – 00;21;46;11
Dr Sarah Boyd
And so I do think as we you know, as people sort of look at vaccines and what their vaccine options are, I would encourage people to still be vaccinated.

00;21;46;11 – 00;22;04;16
Cary Hall
Yeah. And the M-RNA, which was MODERNA’S, were the folks that actually pioneered that and were working on it well before the COVID came along, and I remember I bought the stock the minute I read the story about that they were going to go forward and do this because I really believed it was either going to work or is going to fail fantastically.

00;22;04;16 – 00;22;20;06
Cary Hall
And I remember the CEO saying, We’re burning the boats if this don’t work out of business. And I thought, boy, if he’s willing to take that risk, I’m willing to risk to buy this stuff. And it turned out to be a great stock. But the point of the story is they’re coming out with a brand new vaccine, an RSV vaccine that’s going to be available in early 2024.

00;22;20;06 – 00;22;31;27
Cary Hall
And it’s M-RNA again, and it looks like the this M-RNA technology that they have developed and now other other other pharmaceutical companies have. It is going to make a big difference going down the road. Am I right or wrong?

00;22;31;27 – 00;22;47;20
Dr Sarah Boyd
I do think it’s going to it it’s it’s been a revolution from a what can we do for other other disease illnesses. You know, our typical flu vaccine is still made in eggs. It’s incubated and and it takes away a.

00;22;47;20 – 00;22;49;17
Cary Hall
Little bit that’s made in eggs.

00;22;49;27 – 00;23;10;24
Dr Sarah Boyd
And we you know, you have to kind of predict what what strains are going to be circulating. And they make the vaccine well ahead of time, six months or more ahead of time to be ready for us to have when you show up in the fall and it’s time for your flu vaccine with messenger RNA, that that manufacturing process is different.

00;23;10;24 – 00;23;31;07
Dr Sarah Boyd
We don’t rely on that culture and growing and the slowness of that. And so I do think we’ll see different vaccine technologies and different vaccine approaches moving forward as as they were able to scale this at a much larger and faster production rate because of the technology and the method of a vaccine developed.

00;23;31;07 – 00;23;47;15
Cary Hall
I think it’s remarkable. That’s remarkable how it got done. I think it was remarkable how quickly it got done and more remarkable the effectiveness of it, especially in people in preventing people from getting dying as a result of this and making their symptoms rest, you know, a lot less. And what it would have been. I want to switch gears a minute, Dr. Stevens,

00;23;47;27 – 00;24;05;13
Cary Hall
So there’s an issue now where, you know, people have had COVID, they’ve got or they’ve had RSV and let’s get right back in the gym or let’s get our kids right back out on the soccer field or back to basketball practice. So talk a little bit about that and why that may not be such a good idea. I mean, you think, yeah, I need this so I can get myself back to where I was?

00;24;05;24 – 00;24;07;19
Cary Hall
Maybe that’s not the smartest thing to do.

00;24;08;02 – 00;24;28;28
Dr Tracy Stevens
You’re absolutely right. And thank you for bringing this up, because this is a big conversation we have in our clinic, you know, with being ill and with what we’re talking about, viral infections, COVID people are down and they’re resting. They’re recovering. And it’s that human nature, they want to go 0 to 60 and 2 seconds to get back to their fitness program.

00;24;29;08 – 00;25;04;23
Dr Tracy Stevens
And that needs to be approached with caution. And so just from that, the general public wanting to get back into an exercise program, get back into it gradually if you’re still having symptoms and there’s some great guidelines on this now, if you’re still having symptoms, really wait till resolution. A population that we’re concerned about are the athletes. So whether they’re really high school, okay, Little League athletes and certainly the athlete himself or herself is wanting to get back into their sport because they want to not miss tryouts.

00;25;04;23 – 00;25;09;16
Dr Tracy Stevens
They want to make the team. One of our biggest frustrations are parents who want their.

00;25;09;16 – 00;25;10;09
Cary Hall
Gee theres a suprise

00;25;10;23 – 00;25;29;29
Dr Tracy Stevens
Back or their coaches to get that athlete back because they’re the next, you know, elite athlete and it’s a risk. So I really encourage our community to look at the American College of Cardiology guidelines for return to sport. And it’s based on, you know, how sick was that person, what was were their symptoms, what’s the time frame for?

00;25;30;15 – 00;25;45;07
Dr Tracy Stevens
And that’s really nice for us because it’s not an emotional parting where we have a document we can show parents about when that athlete can return to their sport. And it’s great for coaches of schools, high schools, Little League schools to utilize that as a guideline.

00;25;45;12 – 00;25;50;16
Cary Hall
Are schools utilizing it as a guideline doctor? I mean, are they even aware of it? Is it something they’re paying attention to?

00;25;51;04 – 00;25;53;28
Dr Tracy Stevens
You know, some are. Others are just not aware of this yet.

00;25;54;08 – 00;25;58;10
Cary Hall
And where do where can people get this see this guideline and get this document?

00;25;58;11 – 00;26;05;16
Dr Tracy Stevens
It’s a very credible resource. The American College of Cardiology guidelines for return to sport following COVID.

00;26;05;25 – 00;26;24;06
Cary Hall
So if they go up on the American College of Cardiology and look for that piece, they’ll be able to find it and then do it. One quick follow up to that. What about just asking your doctor? Doctor, is it good for Johnny to go back out and be on the basketball team and practicing two or three days a week and then playing?

00;26;24;12 – 00;26;37;07
Cary Hall
You know, a lot of these kids are in these leagues now that are not even in the schools, especially if they’re trying to be like you mentioned, the elite athletes. They’re traveling all around. Parents are spending a lot of money. What about going to your doctor and asking that question out of the gate?

00;26;37;16 – 00;26;50;28
Dr Tracy Stevens
We certainly welcome that, because as physicians, most of us are aware of these guidelines and we will be happy to review them with them. They are it’s very important because it can be dangerous from a heart standpoint, returning to the sport too quickly.

00;26;51;10 – 00;27;11;14
Cary Hall
Yeah, and we see athletes that have these, you know, pro athletes that have these situations that occur. And you wonder sometimes, you know, how much of that could have been prevented by this, that or something else. So these are definitely issues you want to take to heart. When we come back from the break, we’re going to talk a little bit more about oral antivirals and Dr. Boyd is going to talk about that and what’s available out there that can help you.

00;27;11;14 – 00;27;24;25
Cary Hall
Stay tuned. You’re listening to America’s Healthcare Advocate broadcasting here on the HIA radio network Coast to coast across the USA Stay tuned, Doctor’s Still in the house.

00;27;24;25 – 00;27;36;13
Cary Hall
Welcome back. You’re listening to America’s Healthcare Advocate show broadcasting coast to coast across the fruited plain here on the HIA radio network. You can find out more about us by going to the website AmericasHealthcareAdvocate.com

00;27;37;02 – 00;27;54;25
Cary Hall
All the podcast platforms and YouTube shows posted up there. This one is videoed so you can see the show as well as listen to it, my producer, Mr. Darren Wilhite. I’m your host, Cary Hall. In studio with me, Dr. Tracy Stevens and Dr. Sarah Boyd from St Luke’s Health Care System. We are very privileged to have their time and their expertise in the studio today.

00;27;55;00 – 00;28;14;24
Cary Hall
So. Question? We were off air a minute ago, Dr. Stevens, and we were talking about people taking vitamins and doing things. There’s a big deal out there on taking Vitamin D and somebody somewhere. There was a piece you saw said you should be getting over 100 milligrams of vitamin D a day. Talk about how dangerous it is for people to start doing some of this stuff.

00;28;15;11 – 00;28;17;13
Cary Hall
You know, at the extreme levels, Doctor.

00;28;17;21 – 00;28;52;14
Dr Tracy Stevens
It’s so important to be educated about your health and have a credible source to read and to educate yourself about what you can do to make your healthy, your impact, your health, especially after viral illnesses. We can’t emphasize enough the importance of sleep and nutrition. And as we know, there’s a lot out there on the media. And a common thing I see in the clinic is a myth that while we respect and we’re learning a lot about Vitamin D, the importance of it and the vitamin D level, we know what a normal vitamin D level is.

00;28;52;14 – 00;29;23;01
Dr Tracy Stevens
But somewhere out there in the media, there’s promotion that if you’re vitamin D level is over 100, then you won’t get COVID. We know in the medical field if you have a vitamin D level over 100, that is very dangerous and that is extremely toxic. So more is not better. Be very cautious of your resource for education and be very cautious of all the supplements that they’re trying to promote is going to prevent you from dying from COVID, from even getting COVID.

00;29;23;14 – 00;29;39;02
Cary Hall
Yeah, again, we’re going back to, you know, some of these myths that are out there, you know, whether it’s the Chinese balloon tracking or your chips that are given to you in the vaccine. Thank you. Or or or it’s this kind of stuff where if you get your vitamin D over a hundred, you’re not going to get COVID.

00;29;39;02 – 00;29;44;21
Cary Hall
First of all, that’s not true, Right? Right out of the gate. Vitamin D is not going to keep you from getting COVID, is it?

00;29;44;21 – 00;30;08;13
Dr Sarah Boyd
Dr. Boyd Oh, I mean, I think like we talked sleep and a good nutrition and all of those things are important to keep yourself healthy. But if you get a direct exposure, we know in studies looking at households that 40% of household contacts will contract COVID. So there’s still that risk. And so you have to kind of layer everything together for a protection strategy.

00;30;08;16 – 00;30;33;08
Cary Hall
You know, and again, like you said, ask them. So here’s one. You could ask your doctor, you could call your doctor, you could go, you could do your telehealth or whatever, and you could say, hey, I’m doing this or I want to do this. Is it safe to do this? Is this is something I should do or do I need to take a look at this and see if it makes sense to me because there’s a lot of this stuff out there and and it’s not regulated, you know, by the government.

00;30;34;05 – 00;30;51;05
Cary Hall
They make these claims and they’re able to make them because they’re not pharmaceuticals. They’re nutraceuticals and they’re able say things like this that oftentimes are just not correct. So it’s an issue. Let’s talk about oral antivirals, because you did mention this on in the last segment as something that people can do that can help. Dr. Boyd.

00;30;51;21 – 00;31;12;10
Dr Sarah Boyd
So if someone does contract COVID, I think it’s still important if you get those symptoms to get tested. I think people you know, sometimes now are like, Oh, it’s just allergies, it’s just a cold. And certainly if you have those symptoms, the only way to know is to get tested and then people who are high risk. So they have heart disease, they have other immunocompromised conditions.

00;31;12;10 – 00;31;33;02
Dr Sarah Boyd
There are overweight there, they’re older. Those are all risk factors for severe disease or death from COVID. And we do have oral antiviral treatments that may be an option for those at high risk. And we still have one I.V. antiviral that we utilize for treatment and you can use for those at high risk. And so I encourage people to get tested.

00;31;33;02 – 00;31;40;29
Dr Sarah Boyd
And then the sooner you get tested to reach out to your health care provider to determine if these options would be good for you and your situation.

00;31;40;29 – 00;31;46;19
Cary Hall
So are those prescription oral antivirals Dr, that you have to get a prescription for these their prescription?

00;31;46;19 – 00;32;01;21
Dr Sarah Boyd
And there are some tests to treat options currently that are kind of government sponsored where you can go on a website and basically look for where can you get tested. And if you have a positive test to get actually have a pharmacy or health care provider prescribe.

00;32;02;01 – 00;32;10;25
Cary Hall
Is that is this I ask this for a reason? Is that is that vitamin B? That is a prescription vitamin B? Is that one of those things that are used in this kind of a situation?

00;32;11;07 – 00;32;30;20
Dr Sarah Boyd
So these I’m particularly talking about the two antiviral medications. And then there is an IV antiviral and some of the other more preventive supplement type things. Those may or may not require prescription depending upon what the actual formulation is. But for treatment of COVID, it would be those antivirals.

00;32;30;24 – 00;32;51;11
Cary Hall
And those are available through your physician and through. So if you go if you if you go get. So when I got COVID after coming to Pasco on a Saturday, I didn’t get tested until Monday. I think I’ve just gotten I was the guy I just got the flu. All right. So I stopped that at a clinic and I was a drug.

00;32;51;26 – 00;33;13;25
Cary Hall
They drove up, took the test. She called me 15 minutes later that you’ve got COVID, she said. But you’ve had it since Thursday. So, you know, here is what you need to do, etc., etc.. So but and the other thing is when I got the flu, I was like, Oh, here I go again. And I went in and got tested at a MinuteClinic type thing at a Hy-Vee or something, and it turned out to be the flu.

00;33;13;25 – 00;33;29;12
Cary Hall
It turned out not to be COVID. So you’re not going to know. Back to what what she gave me. She gave me a prescription for it, I can’t remember what it was, but she gave me a prescription to take you. So you’ve got this specific one and this is what you need to do. And it infected my eyes.

00;33;29;12 – 00;33;37;08
Cary Hall
It was really nasty, but but it knocked it out and it was fine. But so the testing thing is really important, isn’t it?

00;33;37;22 – 00;33;46;19
Dr Sarah Boyd
Yes. Because you need to know that test will help you determine exactly what it is. And then if you’re a need for treatment, that will help help guide your health care provider.

00;33;46;25 – 00;34;01;05
Cary Hall
Well, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you guys coming in here today. It was really wonderful to have both you in here. I mean, the amount of knowledge that you shared with this audience today and the number of people that are going to listen to this would be affected by this, I think I think it’s going to be pretty impactful.

00;34;01;05 – 00;34;19;09
Cary Hall
And again, I really do appreciate you taking the time because I know you guys are extremely busy, but it was great. It took a while to get this on. Didn’t the doctor three times. We have to reschedule. It’s about four or five times and we finally got it. So it was great that we did it again. Thank you very much, Doctor Sarah Boyd and Dr. Tracy Stevens from St Luke’s Medical System here in Kansas City.

00;34;19;13 – 00;34;39;17
Cary Hall
Again, as I said, we do these shows to inform you of and educate you about what fact and fiction is, what you heard. The is fact not a lot of this nonsense. You out here, out here, that’s myth and fiction. And now I leave you with this thought from Dr. Martin Luther King. Americans must learn to live together as brothers and sisters, or we will surely perish together as fools.

00;34;39;26 – 00;35;29;07
Cary Hall
Truer words were never spoken. Thank you for listening to America’s Healthcare Advocate broadcasting here on the HIA radio network coast to coast across the U.S.A. Remember, these shows are posted up on the podcast platforms and on YouTube. If you want to go watch it and or listen to it, Goodbye, America.