My experience with a major hospital stroke team—What's wrong with “Modern” medicine

S811 Recently, I had an experience with one of the negative manifestations of modern medicine, an event that should teach us all some important lessons concerning health care. It all began when my wife and I received a phone call from my wife's sister that my mother‑in‑law, who is 91‑year‑old, had just experienced an ischemic stroke involving her right carotid following a minor eye procedure for glaucoma. She was rushed to a local hospital in Covington, Louisiana. I spoke to the nurse caring for her in the emergency room and she asked if I wanted her treated with tissue plasminogen activator (tPA). I gave permission without hesitation. After the tPA was administered, she was airlifted to a major hospital in New Orleans. At the time, this was considered one of the top hospitals in the country and is a major teaching center in New Orleans. They also advertise themselves as a major " stroke center. " My wife and I drove from our home in Mississippi to see what we could do to help. Once her mother arrived at the hospital, the admitting neurologist performed an intravascular thrombectomy. By the next day, she demonstrated an excellent return of function of her previously hemiparetic left side, with only slight facial weakness. We arrived on day 2 after her thrombectomy treatment. Her neurological condition improved rapidly over the next 3 days. At the time we arrived, they had her on a regular diet, but she was eating only very small amounts as the food was salt‑free—that is, tasteless, and she just would not eat it. I asked the nurse why she was on a salt‑free diet, and she told me that it was a standard " cardio‑diet ". She had never been on a salt‑free diet before and had no history of heart disease. The real irony was that she was getting D50.9 saline intravenous (IV) at the same time, certainly more salt than a normally salted diet would supply. I recall many elderly patients of mine having incredibly low salt levels secondary to similar salt‑free diets and the difficulties, it cause during treatment of their neurological condition, especially reactive brain swelling associated with fluid replacement. By day 4, I was becoming concerned that she was receiving essentially no nutrients (none were added to the IV and no magnesium was added). In addition, her IV fluids were running at 35 cc/h, not …