Heart & Vascular Insights

Your ejection fraction is one useful measure of how the heart pumps, but it is not a percentage score of your overall heart health. Learn what the number means and why the rest of the echocardiogram still matters.

Muscle aches after starting a statin? Learn which symptoms need urgent care, how we check the cause, and how to find a cholesterol treatment you can tolerate.

Dr. Nachiket Patel’s FLOW is now available in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle. See what the book covers and how its online toolkit can help you prepare for heart care conversations.

A practical guide to choosing a cardiologist in Mesa and the East Valley, with questions about qualifications, communication, follow-up, access, and second opinions.

POTS is not diagnosed from dizziness or a smartwatch number alone. Learn which symptoms matter, how clinicians compare heart rate and blood pressure after standing, what can mimic POTS, when tilt-table testing helps, and why treatment must be individualized.

Arizona heat can magnify dehydration, low blood pressure, kidney stress, and electrolyte problems in people taking certain heart medicines. Do not skip a pill or change a prescribed fluid limit on your own; make a written hot-weather plan with the clinician who knows why you take each medication.

A coronary calcium score is most valuable when its result could settle a real prevention decision—not when it is ordered simply out of curiosity.

The next step after a very high reading depends on a careful repeat measurement and whether signs of acute heart, brain, or other organ injury are present.

High triglycerides can reflect metabolic, dietary, medication, or inherited factors; the next step depends on whether the main concern is long-term artery risk, pancreatitis, or both.

The decision to monitor or treat valve disease depends on more than a murmur or one echo number; symptoms, severity, heart response, progression, and procedural risk must be considered together.

Follow-up after deep vein thrombosis is not simply waiting for a clot to disappear; it includes safe anticoagulation, recurrence-risk decisions, symptom recovery, and a plan for future risk situations.

A stress test can evaluate symptoms, exercise capacity, rhythm, and evidence of reduced blood flow under demand, but a normal result does not prove that every coronary artery is free of plaque.