Ragnar’s Wasatch Back is an intense relay with many crazy ups and down—and we’re not just talking about Guardsman Pass, or trying to sleep in a van full of other sweaty runners.

We’re talking about the ups and downs of that annoying tag in the back of your shirt, or the front of your shirt…rubbing your nipples raw (yes, we just said nipples). It could also be your shirt, sports bra or worse, your own thighs.

That’s right, this blog is about chafing, and it’s no laughing matter (even though it’s ok to giggle a little). The Office used chafing to a very funny effect in an episode (which you can see here).

Chafing happens when an area of your skin is rubbed over and over again, either by another piece of skin or by a piece of clothing. The irritation is increased when you get sweat in the area. This common problem affects some runners more than others and can affect men and women in different areas of the body.

So how can you protect your skin from chafing so you can enjoy this race of a lifetime? Our Payson hospital has got some tips.

• Appropriate clothing
  • Do: Wear snug fitting (not too tight or too loose) clothing that wicks moisture from the body. Cover areas of the body that do rub so that there isn’t contact with spandex or the like.
  • Don’t: Wear bras with seams, clothing with tags or wear cotton.
  • Bonus tip: Bring an extra set of clothing in the van so you don’t have to run that last leg in damp shorts, which will increase your risk of chafing.

• Use Topical Barrier Products
  • Bodyglide® products, or Petroleum Jelly – These provide a barrier so your skin doesn’t rub, but you may need to reapply frequently. Places to apply: thighs, nipples (men), bra line (women), and between the butt cheeks (so we’ve heard).
  • NipGuards® or Band-Aids over nipples for men.

• Stay Hydrated
  • Staying hydrated before, during and after running long distances is a good idea anyway, but if you get dehydrated your sweat will dry into small, gritty crystals that increase skin irritation and chafing.

While chafing isn’t a serious condition it certainly can be painful. If you do get chaffed (or have another medical problem during Wasatch Back) visit us at one of our MountainStar first aid stations for help.

We know that a trip to the Emergency Room (ER) can be an anxious and confusing time. By understanding what to expect on a visit to the ER, it can help you make the experience a little less stressful. Here’s a quick rundown of what to expect during your visit:

Arrival and Triage

When you arrive at the Emergency Department, a triage nurse will evaluate you. The purpose of triage is to sort and prioritize patients according to complaint and symptoms presented. You will receive medical attention according to the seriousness of your symptoms, illness, or injury as determined by the triage nurse.

Registration

After triage, you will be taken to a room in the Emergency Department where a registration staff member will complete the registration process. Registration is completed at the bedside.

Diagnosis and Treatment

Some of the questions that a nurse will ask you are:

• What medications are you taking?
• What allergies do you have?
• What is the name of your doctor?
• What is your medical history?
• What is your birth date and/or social security number? (This is so that the nurse can pre-register your information into the computer.)

Our doctor will review your medical history and perform an exam or evaluation if necessary.

Patient Discharge

When you’re discharged, instructions for your care and follow-up with a physician will be provided. It is very important that you understand and follow these instructions. If you get home and have any questions or concerns, please call the Emergency Room at (801) 465-7190.

If You are Admitted to the Hospital

In case you’re admitted to the hospital, you will be move to a private room in the hospital to be more comfortable, and treatment or additional testing can begin. Family and loved ones of patients will be given information about the condition and location in a nearby waiting area.

Our Mountain View Hospital emergency staff is committed to providing the best possible emergency care for you or your dear one.

Are you concerned about your heart’s health? We’re not saying you should be worried, but as heart experts, we are saying you should be aware of how to keep your heart healthy. And no matter what state it’s in, your heart could always use a little more love. Here are a few tips and tricks to jumpstart a healthier heart.

First things first: Try a super swap

We all know that eating a cheeseburger for lunch every day is a bad idea, especially if you order it with a side of fries and a milkshake. Sure, fast food is convenient, but guess what isn’t—having a heart attack. Try a healthy swap one meal at a time. It will help you get in the habit of adding more veggies and whole grains into your diet. Also, consider adding some super foods, like blueberries and spinach, to your diet. Why? They help prevent heart disease. In other words, they’re called super foods for a reason!

The second step: Take a walk

Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a marathon runner or a tri-athlete to get a little exercise into your life. You don’t even have to join a gym. Our Payson hospital recommends putting some stylish sneaks on and going for a walk. Brisk walking is one of the best ways to add exercise into your life. Go out and see the world!

Third of all: Chill out

OK. Your alarm clock didn’t go off on time and you’re late for work. Then, you got a speeding ticket on your way to the office. And you forgot the delicious kale salad you made for your lunch. These upsetting instances are called stressors. If stress continues to build up over time, it can have some serious effects on the health of your heart. You may experience: high blood pressure, a weakened immune system, irregular heart rhythms, high cholesterol, and it may even contribute to the development of heart disease. In other words, you need to chill out. How do you start? Make sure you get enough sleep. Eat a healthier diet (see step one). And try to take a few minutes out of your day to relax.

Fourth: No Smoking

Step four is simple. Do not smoke. Smoking is linked to heart disease, stroke, and cancer. If you smoke, try to quit—your heart will love you for it. If you need help quitting, try some of these tips, or consider speaking to one of our Mountain View Hospital physicians to determine a plan of action.

And finally: Check yourself before you wreck yourself

It’s a good idea to visit your doctor regularly, because regular checkups may help your doctor detect certain risk factors that are early signs of heart disease. If these risk factors are detected early enough, your doctor will be able to suggest certain lifestyle changes and prescribe medications that can get your heart back on a healthier path.

And voila, there are five simple tips to get you to a heart healthy lifestyle. What are you waiting for? Jumpstart your healthier heart right now! Also, any of our wonderful cardiologists and heart specialists can help you if you’d like more information in regards to a healthy heart or heart problems—visit our website to find a doctor in Payson.

The RAGNAR Wasatch Back Relay race is scheduled for June 20 – 22, 2013.

RAGNAR features a crazy 12-person team (or sometimes an even crazier 6-person team) completing a combined run of almost 200 miles along the backside of the Wasatch mountain range – from Logan to Park City!

Teams run all day and through the night pushing themselves to their physical limits—and they say it’s fun! And it is! Teams are well-known for their wacky names, wackier costumes and even wackier van decorations, which you can see here.

RAGNAR Relays is a nationwide race franchise started right here in Utah by Kaysville residents, Dan Hill and Tanner Bell. Their first race was the Wasatch Back, but now they run 14 different overnight relay races around the country.

In 2012, the Wasatch Back saw more than 13,500 runners (and just about as many spectators).  That’s a lot of athletes, and a lot of potential injuries. That’s why Mountain View Hospital (part of Mountainstar Healthcare) is there to help.

MountainStar Healthcare is proud to sponsor this event for the third year in a row by providing sponsorship, nurses and volunteers at various relay stations throughout the 200-mile course. We stock first aid stations for onsite treatment and help EMS services with more serious injuries requiring transport to one of our local MountainStar hospitals for treatment.

From blisters to cuts and scrapes to more serious injuries like dehydration that can come from running in long distances, we are prepared with medical professionals and supplies on hand to provide assistance to all the participating runners.

On behalf of Mountain View Hospital and MountainStar Healthcare—Happy running! See you there!

The popular saying, “what you don’t know can’t hurt you” is relevant in many aspects of our lives, but when it comes to our health, the more we know, the better. Recently, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that while more than 20 percent of adults ages 45 and older are believed to have prediabetes, fewer than 11 percent were diagnosed with the condition. Making matters worse, very few adults said they even knew of the term “prediabetes.”

What is prediabetes?

Prediabetes is when your blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to mean you have diabetes. Prediabetes is sometimes called:

• Impaired Glucose Tolerance
• Impaired Fasting Glucose

Most people with prediabetes have no symptoms and the condition can only be detected with blood test.

Research shows that having prediabetes means you are likely to develop type 2 diabetes and you can already be experiencing health consequences. People with prediabetes have higher risk of heart disease than people with normal blood glucose levels.

Who is at risk for prediabetes?

Some of the risk factors for prediabetes aren’t within your control; and you can modify many other risk factors. If you know you’re at risk for prediabetes, changing your lifestyle now will prevent problems in the future.

How can I prevent prediabetes and diabetes?

• Watch your weight: People can delay and possibly prevent the disease by losing a small amount of weight (5 to 7 percent of total body weight)
• Increase physical activity: 30 minutes of physical activity five days a week.
• Improve your eating habits

Unfortunately, you can’t control everything. These are factors that you have no control over and increase the likelihood of developing diabetes:

• Ethnicity
• Age
• Genetics: Having a parent, brother, or sister with diabetes.
• Gestational diabetes: Having a prior history of gestational diabetes or birth of at least one baby weighing more than 9 pounds.

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms and signs, see your doctor. Mountain View Hospital Diabetes Treatment Center is an excellent option for your diabetes treatment and management. To schedule an appointment, please call 801-465-7045.

Diabetes may not be a problem yet, but that doesn’t mean your body isn’t fighting a similar battle. Insulin resistance is one, among several signs, that diabetes is lurking around the corner, but its role as a precursor to diabetes is often misunderstood.

Insulin, a hormone secreted by the body, keeps sugar running to where it’s supposed to go. When food is absorbed into the bloodstream, the sugar from these foods (called glucose) sends a message to the pancreas to start making more insulin. The hormone flies out, hooks on to cells in the body, and starts separating those sugars out of the bloodstream so they can be used for energy. Insulin acts as a key that opens doors to the body’s cells so that glucose can enter.

But what happens when a person is insulin resistant? Well, that’s a problem. The body’s cells stop letting the insulin hormone do its work, which sends a smoke signal out to the pancreas to send in back-ups. The pancreas, in panic mode, starts secreting more insulin, which is again rejected. After a while, a person with insulin resistance (usually noticed by having high levels of insulin in the blood) starts having elevated amounts of sugar.

Many people typically believe that diabetes is high blood sugar, which is a result of not enough insulin. However, insulin resistance is actually the underlying cause of most all cases of Type 2 diabetes.

How can you know if you have insulin resistance? There are a few signs, as well as some tests that can help with detection:

1. High blood pressure and abnormal cholesterol levels. Studies show that patients with poor blood pressure and low amounts of HDL (the good kind of cholesterol) have worse insulin resistance.
2. Heart disease. Insulin resistance can lead to hardened arteries (a process called atherosclerosis) and a greater chance of dangerous blood clots.
3. Obesity. This encourages insulin resistance syndrome, especially obesity of the abdomen (belly fat). Patients who lose weight can actually improve their body’s insulin manufacturing and usage process.
4. 4. Kidney damage or the development of Type 2 diabetes.

So, what happens if insulin resistance does prove to be the issue? Our Payson doctors know that patients will get the best treatment by taking action—maintaining a healthy body weight, walking for 30 minutes a day, and eating a balanced diet—but in some cases, help from trained endocrinologists and diabetes professionals is needed.

If you are concerned about being insulin resistant, or are worried that diabetes is lurking around the corner, contact a doctor at Mountain View Hospital. Our trained diabetes specialists will work to help you get back to a healthy lifestyle, and help yo u acquire skills to keep that insulin resistance and diabetes at bay.

Jumbo shrimp. Passive aggressive. Same difference. Guest host. These familiar oxymorons are the product of combing two completely opposite terms, resulting in some pretty funny phrases. One oxymoron on the mind of every expectant mother is “easy labor.” The definition of labor is something that requires difficult and/or exhausting physical or mental exertion. Put the word easy in front of that, and you have a lot of moms scratching their heads about what that actually means.

The good news is that labor can be made somewhat easier by preparing in specific ways ahead of time.

Step One- Gather information

• Arrange to visit the birthing suites at your local hospital. Many healthcare facilities, like our Payson hospital, have dedicated Women’s Centers that offer tours to expecting moms and families.
• Find out how many people can be in the delivery room with you.
• Research the options for pain management.
• Discuss your feelings about pain management with your provider so that both parties are on the same page.

Step Two- Develop a plan

• A birth plan worksheet will help you think about the factors that you do have control over during labor.
• Consider which people you would like with you and their role during the delivery.
• Determine how you will get to the hospital. Be sure to plan multiple routes to accommodate what time of the day your labor starts.
• Make your plan as detailed as you want. Bring a written copy with you on the day of the delivery to help your caregivers understand your wishes.
• Know that every delivery is unique and that some parts of your plan may not be followed in order to provide the best care for you and your baby.
• Prepare your hospital bag.

Step Three– Take care of yourself

• You can improve the way your body responds to labor by maintaining a healthy lifestyle during pregnancy.
• Continue to exercise by walking, swimming or doing prenatal workouts.
• Stay hydrated and eat nutritiously. This may mean even more frequent trips to the bathroom and passing on your midnight craving, but it will be worth it when you have the needed strength for your delivery.
• Know the stages of labor.
• Learn ways to stay relaxed as the big day approaches.

These steps will help you feel calmer and more prepared as your delivery date approaches. Even though delivering a baby involves stress and work, the right preparation and the right staff can make it an easier, wonderful experience.

Every winter, Utahns along the Wasatch Front experience a thick layer of smog trapped by a temperature inversion. There is no blue sky, sun or mountains in the horizon. This differs from a cloudy day when you can still see the outlines of the clouds and their movement in the sky from the wind. A cloudy day will pass. Inversion can last weeks, potentially causing a lasting depression for anyone trapped beneath it.

If you have experienced this, it may help you understand what sufferers of postpartum depression (PPD) experience. The baby blues, like a cloudy day, will come and go. It is normal in fact, to experience bouts of crying or mood swings after having a baby. You can still function with episodes of the baby blues and when it lifts, you will feel more like yourself. However, like an inversion, postpartum depression is a state that lingers, creating feelings of isolation, fear, scary thoughts and hopelessness.

When in the grips of PPD, it is extremely hard to know where to turn for help. Everything feels like too much. Getting out of bed in the morning—let alone at 2 a.m. to feed your baby—takes superhuman effort.

If you or a loved one is dealing with postpartum depression, try simplifying it to just three basic steps:

Know the symptoms -Understanding the characteristics of PPD will help you determine if you are experiencing the baby blues or something more severe. With PPD, you may experience:

• Negative feelings toward your baby
• Worrying about hurting your baby
• Feelings of worthlessness and guilt
• Changes in appetite or weight
• Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide
• Mood swings
• Crying fits
• Starting to neglect self-care
• Tired all the time

Spill the beans –Once you have identified these symptoms in yourself, the next step is to talk about it—and keep talking about it until you get some help. Be willing to discuss how you are feeling, your sleep patterns, energy level, scary thoughts, etc. Seek help from your doctor, as well as any of the following:

• Close friends
• Family
• Forums
• Blogs
• Support groups
• Someone who has experienced PPD before
• Women’s Centers at local hospitals (like our Mountain View Hospital Women’s Center!)

Accept help–The best way to begin recovering is to take care of yourself. Allow others to help with the baby and other children, making meals, or taking some stressors off your plate.

Postpartum depression is such a difficult thing for a new mom to experience, but there is always hope. There is growing awareness of this condition and many ways to be treated, lifting the fog and helping you enjoy the sun and blue sky again.

You’re in the shower, just singing away. Then it happens—you notice that water is beginning to pool around your feet. Before you know it, your ankles are submerged and the water is definitely not draining. Great. Just great.

After you turn off the water, it finally drains, but you’re not looking forward to the unclogging process. Typically, you can buy some strong drain cleaner, try various drop stoppers or get the drain snake out…which you really don’t want to have to do (yuck!). This clog, however, is no ordinary clog. You’re going to have to call the plumber.

Just like the tough clogs that require professional help, your heart sometimes becomes “clogged” so to speak. When your heart experiences a lack in adequate blood flow or encounters blood pressure problems, it’s best to seek the expertise of a heart specialist.

Generally, these heart doctors, or cardiologists, work in a Cardiac Cath (short for catheterization) Lab, like at our Payson hospital. This section of Mountain View Hospital is dedicated to testing and treating the plumbing of your heart. The heart specialists in a Cardiac Cath Lab have a number of tests they use to determine the health of your heart. These tests address things like blood flow and blood pressure in the heart chambers, the quality of the heart valves, and whether or not there are any noticeable defects in the way the heart is working.

The primary reason you might go to a Cardiac Cath Lab is to be checked for a heart-related disease or heart condition such as atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis is also known as a “hardening of the arteries,” and occurs when cholesterol and calcium build up in your coronary arteries. Hence, necessary blood flow is disrupted. This usually results in coronary artery disease, and can also lead to a stroke (transient ischemic attack) as the blood supply to the brain is often affected.

The cardiac specialists at the Mountain View Cardiac Cath Lab provide a number of possible procedures, depending on your situation, to treat and help prevent heart conditions. So put the Drano max gel and that horrible snake-like device away—bring in a professional.

The time has come! After months of waiting, you are probably counting those final days until you can meet your baby. As the delivery date approaches, you should understand the stages and signs of labor to better prepare, plan and control anxiety.

Recognizing the signs and stages of labor can help you decide when it’s the right time to call your physician or go to the hospital. Also, it can help you know what to expect during labor and delivery. The duration of labor and how it progresses is different for every woman. But each stage has specific milestones that occur with every woman.

The First Stage of Labor

The first stage of labor is usually the longest and it occurs in two phases: early (latent) labor and active labor.

During early (latent) labor

-        This phase begins when your cervix starts to dilate.

-        You’ll experience mild to moderate contractions that last 30 to 45 seconds and are typically anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes apart.

-        You’ll notice a blood-tinged mucous discharge.

-        You’ll probably feel backache or cramps.

-        This phase is unpredictable and can last a few hours or even days, especially for first-time moms.

During active labor

-        You’ll usually be in the hospital by this phase.

-        Your cervix will dilate up to 10 centimeters.

-        Contractions get stronger and are about three minutes apart, lasting about 45 seconds.

-        Your baby begins to move deeper into the pelvis. You might feel increasing pressure in your back.

-        This is the time to ask for pain medication or epidural anesthesia, if you choose to do so.

-        This phase often lasts up to eight hours. For some women active labor can last longer or be much shorter.

The Second Stage of Labor: The birth of your baby

-        Dilation is complete (10 centimeters).

-        Your physician will want you to begin pushing to allow your baby to be born.

-        Delivery generally takes 30 minutes to an hour, but it can be as shorter, sometimes only a few minutes.

-        Contractions are more regular (usually about two to five minutes apart), lasting about 60 to 90 seconds each.

-        Your baby’s head will appear (crowning).

-        Once your baby’s head has eased its way out, your practitioner will suction out any mucus from the nose and mouth, then help guide the shoulders and torso out, and finally those cute little legs.

-        Shortly after delivery, your baby’s umbilical cord will be cut by your physician or your husband/partner.

The Third Stage of Labor: Passage of the placenta

During the third stage of labor, the placenta, which gave your baby food and oxygen through the umbilical cord, is delivered.

-        Your physician will deliver the placenta. After being delivered, he will examine it to make sure it’s intact. Any remaining placenta must be removed from the uterus to prevent bleeding and infection.

-        Your physician will control your bleeding and will determine whether you need stitches or other repair work. After this, you’ll be free to enjoy your new baby.