Clogged Arteries Destroyed His Life... Until THIS Happened - Ford Brewer MD MPH

Welcome to the PrevMed Health Podcast with Dr. Brewer, your go-to source for heart attack and

stroke prevention. And I am your host, Ford Brewer. Each week we dive deep into the latest trends,

expert insights, and practical tips to help you decrease your risk of heart attack and stroke.

We discuss plaque reversal, insulin resistance, prediabetes, diabetes, cholesterol,

supplements, medications, and so much more. So sit back, relax, and have this journey to a long

and healthy life together. Forty-eight percent of U.S. adults have vascular disease, clogged arteries.

It's the number one cause of heart attack, which is the number one cause of death.

Our patient today is Harlan. He's got pain when he tries to walk. He has definitely told me,

and I don't want to live anymore. The pain is too much. We have to get him walking.

I'm Linda. It's Linda. Harlan. And Harlan, great. I appreciate your having us today.

You bet. So you've had diabetes for how long? Since I was 50, when I was told, and I'm 68.

So you've had it for quite a while. We like to go on trips. We like to go camping,

and she loves to go for walks. And I can't walk very far. And you can't go? No. I'm Harlan.

68 years old. I lived about 20 miles south of Dallas in Ellis County. So I've got

heart disease, vascular disease in my heart, and in my legs, BAD peripheral arterial disease.

I found it difficult to do some things. I had chased chest pain, felt like somebody was sitting

upon my chest, and I've always heard that you will know if you're having problems. You don't

have to guess. And I found that to be true. First time they sent me home, but it got worse and

worse over the next couple of days. So I called my PCP. I told him, man, I can't already work.

And he gave me something for pain. So I start popping these pills for pain every time I start

hurting, and about a month later I fell over. They put a stint. Now I've gone back in for

three other stints in my heart, and another balloon to open a clogged stint. And none of that's

affected me right now. Now it's just PAD. I can't walk. I can't walk very far. When he first discovered

diabetes and later, he really thought the medicine would take care of it. His lifestyle did not change.

Well, in the beginning I did not know what was going on. I went to the doctor and the doctor

did a lab test, and the nurse called me back later and said, the doctor said, you need to

watch your sugar. So what did that mean to you? Nothing. Sugar is those biscuits and gravy.

Most people don't know that, and most people think medication's going to fix it.

I also think, though, my part, I did not know how to cook. I was very much a meat potato

bread person, right? So dinner would be always potatoes. Of course, growing up in Europe, you ate

bread, bread, potatoes, bread, bread, rice. So that's all I knew as well. So I didn't really cook

sugar free, low carb. How often do you walk down to the end of the driveway here?

Uh, not very often. Really? Yeah, I have a truck. Yeah. So you just drive it? I drive it a lot.

I'm walking along in my legs just nod up, satire can't hardly move, and it's just like that table.

And this is where it gets trickier because of just navigating. Because it's irregular.

Oh, they're starting to nod out. Oh, yeah, they're starting. How about if you were to start carrying this?

It'll get worse and it'll get worse fast. Yep. And then I can come along and hit that.

Oh, uh, starting to hurt. Oh, yeah. That's about it. That's it. Yeah, it's about that. What do you

think that is? About 40 yards? Is it that much? I don't know. We can just get you to where you can

go from here to the top. That would be a big deal. It would be a big deal.

If I can, I get a hold of it like this and I go over there. All right, bye. And hit it.

I've woken up with cramps in my calves like many 60 to 68 year old men and women.

And when I first hit me, I thought somebody had shot me in my leg. Now, that's what's happening

to Harlan. Every time he walks 25 yards. On a good week, when you're cutting this, how much are

you having to use this versus just standing? You know, there are some times that I'd wait

three weeks before I try to do any of this. Uh-huh. I'd hit the big stuff with this and go back

in the house and just leave it. Yeah, it hurt too much. Yeah. What's the other thing?

I smoked. I smoked a lot of years. Actually, I didn't smoke cigarettes. Smoked, I was just a sucker.

When did you start? I remember the first time a buddy of mine and I were walking

down the street and we saw a car winded down in the 60s and had a pack of cigarettes on the

dash and we took that pack of cigarettes on the dash and started smoking. I was probably

1011. That was the start. See, he had not won, but two of the major addictions that humans get.

One is with cigarettes. It is very, very difficult to stop cigarette smoking, especially when you've

got a pack, a pack and a half per day. Another addiction is carbed addiction, food addictions,

and at one point in time, he weighed 45 pounds more than he weighs now. He's broken two addictions.

Humans are not rational beings. You know what? I'm trying to lose a little bit of weight myself.

Two nights ago, I let Jesus and Cindy talk me into eating some cheesecake. It happens where

human beings. The hardest thing is me knowing how he used to be. How he is now. It is like it's a

different person because before he would never sit still on the go, always had to have a project

working. Now, he doesn't do it and I do think that he feels guilty. He can't, if you look around,

there's stuff that needs to be done. The reason he retired at 60 is because his health was not

well and I didn't think he was going to live long. And he was in pain already. Then there has

been a shift that now, and maybe it's watching your videos just to give him hope. He is the one

who really made the decision. It is time to change now. When he went to carnivore. And I do believe

that the last doctor who told him when he had his stints, but in your next step is open heart surgery.

And when that message came, he said, okay, I need to do something different. I do not want

open heart surgery. So, why don't you tell me a little bit about your diet and we'll walk through

and see what's going on? Okay. I don't eat any of that stuff. I know. I eat this instead of potatoes.

What is this? That is a rutabaga. I thought that might be a rutabaga. I'm not a rutabaga guy.

How many carbs it got in it? A cup is about 16, I think. How much do you like to take that

load it with butter and I mash it and make it like a mashed potato type? How do they taste compared

to a mashed potato? I love mashed potatoes. They're good. I like rutabaga, but nothing. It ain't the

same. It ain't the same. But you've given up on that. Sounds like. I have. Good. A lot of cackle berries.

Cackle berries, meaning eggs, eggs, eggs, Nelly's free range egg. Okay, so you've got free range

eggs. Smoke sausage. I like taking these and I know that they say that that is a processed meat.

You need it, but I do. Well, I do too. Good. So, I do better. You know, the thing is, I get it too.

And I know that they say that and they're all worried about. For example, like nitrosamines,

they say, oh, don't eat any bacon. Don't eat any of this. At the end of the day, I'd much rather eat

this or a bacon than cereal or a whole bunch of breads and toast avocado toast. You know,

the avocado is great, but the toast is not. Right. I used to love. Hi again. Hi again. And a little snack.

So, let me look at this just a bit here. 7.5 fluid ounces. 1.6 carbs. How is this one?

I like drinking flavored water. It's not still not there. It's not real beer. It's not

a real beer, but I don't mind somebody having this. I think that's fine. We're going to take a look

at his labs. He's had some state-of-the-art labs, oral glucose tolerance tests, insulin response.

He's even had dexascans, so we know how much belly fat he has and visceral fat that he has making

resistant, a hormone that makes him insulin resistant and helps mess up his arteries. That's what we

want to do. We want to help him clean those arteries out, get to where he can make it all the way up

to the other end of that driveway. He stopped the smoking what? Almost four years ago.

Four years ago. He has the PAD issue. So, Hases called it the cowboy walk and I would call it the

same thing. It looks like he's been on a horse his whole life and he's almost bow-legged. It's not

that the legs are bowed or curved. The bones are straight, but his knee joints are that bad. We found

out a few things. You need to review the labs because the labs tell you what's going on in terms

of your metabolism. There are several things that we picked up. One is that his thyroid is not

exactly where it needs to be. Thyroid disease is a very common problem associated with

freediabetes, diabetes, metabolic disease, heart disease. He's owned a couple of medications

for his diabetes right now. Pyoglid is on and metformin. I think those make a lot of sense.

But one thing that kept bugging me today was he said, yeah, I'm still getting high-poglycemic. Blood

sugars into the fifties. That's okay for somebody that's fat adapted. But you shouldn't be

feeling dizzy. He said, yeah, last time was about 48 hours ago. I got into the fifties and I felt

dizzy. He's on a medication called gliburide or glimipuride. That's in a drug class

that we just don't recommend using anymore. The reason that we don't is because it's associated with

low blood sugars. In fact, it has caused damage to people in the past with that. I'm going to have

some discussion with him. I would not have him on gliburide at this point. I don't think he

should be on that tomorrow evening when I leave. So yesterday we learned a whole lot about Harlan

and Lenta. Harlan let this clogged artery sneak up on him. He'd heard a little bit about diabetes.

He knew that smoking was a problem. But he just never really noticed that much until

it hit him a couple of years ago. He got to where he was taking care of his ranch. And then all

of a sudden he couldn't. He accepted some blame for it. But at the end of the day he said, you know,

when I was young, you know, I know I'm a smoker. I'm a smoker. I'm probably going to die a little

bit earlier. But when it became reality, he decided, nah, I don't want to die a little bit earlier.

I want to have a good life. And I want to be able to continue to play my role, to be a man,

to take care of my own and support my wife, Lenta. We wanted to get blood pressure yesterday. We were

going to go by and pick up some of that. Cuff, we didn't have that. We also wanted to get abdominal

circumference. How big is an asbelly around his belly button? He's doing a lot of the right stuff.

The most important stuff in terms of lifestyle. And we'll work on more of that today. And we'll

work on lifestyle and medications. He knew he had he's watched enough of our videos to know he said,

you're probably going to want me to do some hit and maybe re-hit. So he's gotten there. He's

understanding some stuff. Hey, Susan's going to take a look at shoes. There's some adjustments we

want to make in terms of his diet. Overall, he's 80% there in terms of his diet. But there's

some tweaks that we want to make. So that's what we'll be doing today.

You got some good-looking legs there. How you doing, Lenta? I'm good. How are you?

I got to give those legs a good whistle. There we go. I'll get my shorts on a little bit later.

We usually do these out of the studio or somewhere around the home where I describe what goes on

inside the metabolism of the patient. And that just gets kind of hard to understand. And that's why

we're going all over the US doing this. These patients have graciously agreed to let you see

exactly how it works. And by the way, if you'd like to join and be one of the patients,

I'd love to meet you. Just fill out the form below.

Carlin, we're going to do a quick test. It's called the ABI test. And a confirmation for the

people who are watching this. To know how they can detect if they have a similar problem to you,

which is the clogged arteries on the leg. See if we can fill the poles. It seems like you didn't

find it. I don't feel it tightening up. Yeah.

That's also a sign of like a blood supply.

And also the fact that your muscle is so decreased here.

Because look, I mean, you're not a skinny guy yet. You're headed that way. But

you should have more thigh muscle here.

So I don't really want to care Harlan Linda. But I'm really concerned about the pole's thing.

I really struggled trying to find the poles. It really tells how severe Harlan's problem really is.

110. 110 number. We take the highest number on your arms. We compare that with your highest number

on your legs. The highest number on your legs, which was your right leg on 119. It's actually 119

over 125. We got 0.9 and 0.9 when you look at the charts, it's abnormal.

How are you feeling? I'm good. Some of my concern about it. There's a reason that we're not

recommending sulfonirias anymore. And that is, they've been shown to cause hypoglycemia,

but not just hypoglycemia death. These medications have killed people. But the bottom line is,

look at his history. He's so typical. He's going along for what? Decades with full blown diabetes.

And what does he get? He gets a nurse that says, well, the doctor said, you maybe watch your sugar.

And what was his response? Well, I don't eat sugar. So there's nothing to watch here. And what if he

had taken notice two years ago? Yeah. There's no cushion in there. There's no support

for the arcs. I like my shoes. So Dr. Vega, this is the closest thing I found to tennis shoes. I'm

serious. So see, this is one of the most important things that gets overlooked all the time.

If you're looking to walk better, especially if you're having issues with PAD,

you have to change your shoes. That becomes a critical issue. And I know for Harlan, it's a hard

thing to think about. His Texas man who likes to wear his boots. But the problem is,

those boots are not doing any good whatsoever for him and for the goal we want to reach.

If you're watching this video and you do not know what bread does to your blood sugar,

I want you to know. This bread that Linda makes, you cannot get a better bread. She grinds it

herself and she doesn't grind it into a powder. But you're going to see it raises Harlan's blood sugar.

He knows that it does. He's agreed he wants to do this too to demonstrate for you so you'll know.

When the doctor says, watch your sugar. He's not talking about sugar. He's talking about

breads, pastas, cereals. These grain products are what kill you.

Okay, so do you just number three? I do. All right, I'll let you do it. And it still hurts

if you do it. I don't like it. At least you do it in the side. Oh yeah, I don't. My son does it

right there. I said no, no, it's crazy. So it doesn't matter to me. I just look at the number.

More sterile technique there. I like that. That's what I do. I learned those from our nurse. 90.

The only thing the heel is this one is keeping the rest of the bread fresh.

Taken one for the team. And we're going to, I have to show you that spike will go work you out

so you're burning off. It's exactly two o'clock right now. Now I'll take one for the team for

Harlan to eat it without butter I will too. You could probably. I always love bread. Bread.

All right, you should. I just don't need it anymore. That's real bread, isn't it? It's real bread.

Your blood sugar after your bread, it's been like an hour and a half. It's already on

216 and let's put that glucose down. How much incline will it give you?

I'm not sure, but I'm still going up. It makes it difficult. It does. That's what we want.

That's what I was afraid of. So, and you haven't done a whole lot of that, right?

Zero. Zero incline. Okay. She does, but I know. Okay, so you know you. It's going to take me

less time to get to get winded. That's okay. You can slow it back down. So, what we're going to

want to do is get some at least 20 second inclines in there and then slow back down to where you can

start to gain your breath back. Okay. So, I'm at two minutes and 30 seconds right now. Okay,

go back to flat, no incline, and then slow it down to like one.

Much easier. Much better. More good. Yeah. And here's the thing. Even if you didn't have this problem

with the need for collaterals, you still got major diabetes. Right. And a diet is great,

but it's not going to stimulate you to regrow capillaries. Right. The only thing that's going to

stimulate you to regrow capillaries is a stressor that I'm not getting enough oxygen into the muscle.

And what does that feel like? Yeah. And that's where you're, and for you, that's going to feel even

more like I'm getting cramping. Yeah, my calves are going to give up long before my get out.

Yeah, totally before your lungs. Yeah. Let's take this, pull it, pull your legs tight together,

and now hold that and pull them apart. Take your legs and pull apart. Okay, now we want to leave

it out there. Okay, I don't have a second hand. Okay, measure it. Let's go 30 seconds and see how

you do with that and increase the resistance on that. Okay, there's 30. Okay, and I feel it.

Do you feel it? Oh, yeah. Starting to hurt. Yeah, you know, I'm uncomfortable. Okay, well that's

what we want. We want some discomfort back in these muscles because that's going to be critical

to stability. I can never get those darn petals. Okay, here we go.

Okay, so what I'd like to do is, is same thing that we do over here. Uh-huh. Instead of just

going up to what I can do for 10 minutes, go, go easier to like two or three where you just get

very little. Well, that hurts. Oh, that hurts. That hurts. Right here. Up here. Right here.

Excellent. That's exactly what we want to do. Do a minute, get up, work up to a minute of that.

And then we'll crank back down. Okay.

I'm getting close to a minute right here. Now back down to what? Something very, very easy.

Very, very easy. There you go.

So, four, five, seven, eight, twenty-three, four, five, eight, twenty-three, four, five, eight, twenty-three, thirty.

Whoo! So, do, do ten of those right there like I was saying. Instead of thirty, do ten. Okay.

And just go ahead and do one. Now, hold it where you've pushed up. Hold it and you're going to start

feeling it down here, right? Yep. Yep. And it's going to start hurting worse. Yep. So, instead of

just the whole, thirty times and thirty bounces, because sometimes it can get to a bounce and it's

far easier. Right. Want you to do some isometric hold. Okay. So, ten on the, on the up and down,

and then at least ten on a hold. Okay. Yeah. And that's, I feel it. I feel that big time.

That's what it's hurting to do. The things where we're pushing beyond the comfort level is where

it's a muscle thing. Not a joint. Does that make sense? Yeah. I thought it was like I need tendons

or ligaments or whatever the heck that is. It's binding up to stretch that out. That may be true.

May not, but that's really more of an orthopedic question. Okay. And I'm not going to be able to answer

that for you. Okay. All right. No. 167. You're cranking back down. You're doing what you need to be

doing. Okay. All it takes is a little muscle burn. From 200 to 160. Yeah, 216 down the, yeah.

This is something you already have in your house. Yes. Which is the warm blanket. Yes.

You're going to just on both legs connected and you're going to stay there 10, 15, up to 20 minutes

every single day. Before you exercise in the morning, you're going to put in there, just relax,

let it work. The heat is going to open the blood vessels. Okay. And allow for the flow, the blood

to flow even better. Okay. You're going to repeat that in the afternoon and you can repeat that

before going to bed. Because when you do this before going to bed, the cramps are going to be

decreasing automatically. Oh, man. Oh, Lord. Thank you. And if you thought we were going to give a

pill and that was going to make Harlan's problems magically go away, I'm glad that maybe you were

disappointed because reality doesn't work that way. Harlan's got over 50 years worth of the worst

thing you can do to your arteries, smoking. He's got the second worst thing too. Full diabetes.

So he's got some challenges. He's not going to get rid of those in two days. That's not that's

magic. That's not reality. The most important thing that Harlan can do now, the big missing link

is intensity. Three to six months of doing hit training along with his continued weight loss,

doing some of the other basics that we just talked about, getting some of the proper supplementation,

doing the proper work with shoes. Harlan's going to be doing some walking with Linda when they

go to visit someplace new. He's going to be climbing the stairs that he didn't use to climb before.

And he's going to be playing the role of a man that he wants to play again in terms of being able

to keep his front yard clean for his neighborhood. So if you'd like to be a patient of ours,

give us a call 859-721-1414 or take a look at the link in the description below.