Own your body's data

As a kid I've always loved information that I could get from data and the stories that could be told with numbers

I remember growing up I'll be frustrated on how my own parents would lie to me using numbers you know.

They lie to you about " I've told you once I've told you a thousand times"..no daddy, you've only told me 17 times and twice it wasn't my fault

I think that's one of the reasons I got a PhD in statistics you know, I always wanted to know what are people trying to hide with numbers

you know, as a statistician I want people to show me the data so I can decide for myself.

Donald and I were pregnant with our third child and we were at about 41 and a half weeks, what some of you may refer to as been overdue

Statisticians we call that being within the 95% confidence interval,

and at this point in the process we had to come in every couple of days to do a stress test, on the baby, and this is just routine

a test whether the baby is feeling any type of undo stress,

and you are rarely if ever seen by your actual Doctor just whoever happens to be working at the hospital that day.

So we are going for a stress test and after 20 minutes the Doctor comes out

and he says "your baby is on distress, we need to induce you"

now.. as a statistician what's my response? Show me the data!

so, then he proceeds to tell us the baby's heart rate trace went from 18 minutes, the baby's heart rate was on the normal zone

and for 2 minutes it was it what appeared to be my heart rate zone and I said

"well, is it possible that maybe this was my heart rate? I was moving around a little bit

is hard to lay still on your back, 41 weeks pregnant for 20 minutes you know,

maybe it was shifting around.

He said "well.. we don't want to take any chances"

I said Ok, what if I was at 36 weeks with the same data, would you decision be to induce?

Well, no, no I would wait until you were at lelast 38 weeks but you are almost 42

there is no reason to leave that baby inside let's get you a room.

I said Ok, I said well.. you know..

why don't we just do it again, we can collect more data!

I can try to be really still for 20 minutes we can sort of average the two and see, you know, what that means

and.. he goes, "well, Ma'm I just don't want you to hava a miscarriage"

That' makes 3 of us! And then he says you know your chances of having a miscarriage double

when you go past your due date, let's get you a room

Wow!.. so now as a statistician, what's my response?

Show me the data! dude you're talking chances, I do chances all day long, tell me all about chances, let's talk chances

let's talk chances!

So I said, ok, so do I go from like a 30% chance to a 60% chance, where are we here

with this miscarriage?.. and he goes.." uhm, not quite but it doubles and

we really just want what's best for the baby."

Undaunted, I tried to commingle. I said ok out of 1000 full term pregnant woman

How many of them are going to miscarry just before their due date?

And then he looks at me, and looks at Donald then he goes, "about 1 in a thousand".

I said Ok, Ok, and so of those 1000 women how many are going to miscarry

just after their due date? "about 2."

I said ok, so you are telling me that my chances go from 0.1% chance

to a 0.2% chance

Ok, so at this ppoint the data is not convincing us that we need to be induced

and so then we proceed to have a conversation about how inductions leads to a higher rate

of cesarean sections and if at all possible we'd like to avoid that

and then I said you know and I really don'think my due date is accurate

And so this really stunned him and he looks sort of puzzled

and I said, well you may not know this but pregnancy due dates are calculated

assuming that you have a standard 28 cycle

and my cycle ranges sometimes is 27 sometimes is up to 38

and I have been collecting the data to prove it.

And so... we endeded up leaving the hospital that day without being induced

we actually had to sign a waiver to walk out of the hospital

and I'm not advocating that you not listen to your Doctors, because even with our first child

we wre induced at 38 weeks, cervical fluid was low, I'm not anti-medical intervention

but why we were confident to leave that day? We had data that told a different story.

We have been collecting data for 6 years.

I had this temperature data, and it told a different story in fact,

we could proabably pretty accurately estimate conception, yeah..

conception, yeah.. That's a story you want to tell at your kids wedding reception..

"I remember like it was yesterday, my temperature was a sizzling 97.8 degrees..

as I stared into your father's eyes.. Oh yeah, oh yeah, 22 more years we're telling that story.

But we were confident to leave because we've been collecting data.

Now what does that data look like? Here's a standard chart

of a woman's waking body temperature during the course of a cycle.

So from the beginning of the menstrual cycle until the beginning of the next.

You'll see that the temperature is not random,

right there clearly there is a low pattern at the beginning of her cycle

and then you see this jump and then a higher set of temperatures at the end of her cycle.

So what's happening here? What is that data telling you? Well ladies, at the beginning of our cycle, the hormone estrogen is dominant

and that estrogen causes a suppression of your body temperature

and on ovulation, your body releases an egg and progesterone takes over, pro-gestation

and so your body heats up in anticipation of housing this new little fertilized egg.

So why this temperature jump? Think about when a bird sits on her eggs. Why is she sitting on them?

She wants to keep them warm, protect them and keeping them warm..

Ladies this is exactly what our bodies do every month, they heat up in anticipation

of keeping a new little life form, and if you are not pregnant

then estrogen takes back over and that cycle starts all over again,

but if you do get pregnant, sometime you actually see another shift in your temperatures

and it stays elevated for those whole 9 months

that's why you see those pregnagnt woman sweating and hot

because their temperatures are high!

here is a chart that we had about 3 or 4 years ago

we were really excited about this chart, you'll se the low temperature level

and then a shift and for about 5 days, that about the time it takes for the egg to travel

down the fallopian tube and implant

and then you see those temperature charts go up a little bit

and in fact, we had a second temperature shift

confirmed with a pregnancy test that were indeed pregnant

with our fist child, very exciting. Until a couple of days later

I saw some sporting and then I noticed heavy blood flow.

and we had in fact had an early stage miscarriage

and what appeared had I not been taking my temperature

I really just thought my period was late that month

but we actually had data to show that we had miscarried this baby

and even though this data revealed a really unfortunate event in our lives

it was information that we can then take to our doctor

so if there was a fertility issue or some problem I had data to show,

look, we got pregnant our temperature shifted, we somehow lost this baby

what is tit that we can do to help prevent this problem?

And is not just about temperatures, and is not just about fertility

we can use data about our bodies to tell us a lot of things

for instance did you know that taking your temperature can tell you a lot about the condition of your thyroid?

so your thyroid works a lot like the thermostat in your house.

There is an optimal temperature that you want in your house

you set your thermostat. When it gets too cold in the house your thermostat kicks in

and says hey we need to blow some heat around, or if it gets too hot

your thermostat sort of registers turn the AC on, cool us off

that's exactly how your thyroid works in your body

your thyroid tries to keep an optimal temperature for your body

if it get too cold your thyroid says we need to heat up, if it gets too hot

your thyroid cools you down.

But what happens when your thyroid is not functioning well ?

but when it doesn't functioning then it shows up in your body temperatures

they tend to be lower than normal and very erratic.

and so by collecting this data you can find out information about your thyroid.

Now, what is it, if you had a thyroid problem and you went to the doctor,

your doctor would actually test the amount of thyroid stimulating hormone in your blood.

Fine, but the problem with that test it doesn't tell you how active the hormone is in your body

so you may have a lot of hormone present but it might not be actively working

to regulate your body temperature. Just by collecting your temperature every day

you get information about the condition of your thyroid.

So what if you don't want to take your temperature every day? I advocate that you do

but there's tons of other things you can take

you can take your blood pressure, you can take your weight.. yeah, who's excited about

taking your weight every day..

Early on in our marriage Donald had a stuffy nose,

and he had been taking a slu of medications to try to relieve his stuffy nose

to no avail. And so that night he comes and he wakes me up and he says

"honey, I can't breath out of my nose"

and I sort of roll over and I looked and I said, well, can you breath out of your mouth?

And he goes Ah, Ah, yes! but I cant breath out of my nose!

And so like any good wife, I rushed him to the emergency room

at 2 o'clock in the morning

and the whole time I'm driving and I'm thinking

you can't die on my now! we just got married

people would think I killed you!

and so, we get to the ER and the nurse sees us

and he can't breath out of his nose and so she brings us to the back

and the doctor says what seems to be the problem and he goes " I can't breath out of my nose"

and he said, you can't breath out of your nose?" No".

but he can breath out of his mouth..

OK, he takes a step back and looks at both of us

and he says sir, I think I know the problem

you're having a heart attack, I'm going to order an EKG and a CAT scan for you immediately

And we are thinking, no no no, it's not a heart attack he can breath

just out of his mouth.. no no no

and so we go back and forth with this doctor because we think it is the incorrect diagnosis

and he's like no really, it'll be fine, just calm down

and I'm thinking: how do you calm down? I don't think he's having a heart attack..

Fortunately for us, this doctor was at the end of the shift

this new doctor comes in he sees us clearly distrut with a husband who can't breath

out of his nose

He starts asking us questions, he says well, do you two exercise?

We ride our bikes, we go to the gym.. occasionally.

we move around, uhm.. he says: what were you doing just before you came here?

I'm thinking I was sleeping, honestly, but Ok, what was Donald doing just before he was taken

so Donald goes into the slu of medications he was taking and he lists

"I took this decongestant, and then I took this nasal spray"...

and then all of a sudden the light bulb goes off

and he says, "Oh, you should never mix this decongestant with this nasal spray

clogs you up every time. Here, take this one instead", gives us a prescription

We're looking at each other and I looked at the doctor

and I said why is it that it seems you were able to accurately diagnose

his condition but this previous doctor wanted to order an EKG and a CAT scan?

And he looks at us and says" when a 350 pound man walks in the ER

and says he can't breath, you assume he's having a heart attack

and you ask questions later"

ER doctors are trained to make decisions quickly, but

not always accurately. And so had we had

some information about our heart health to share with him

maybe we would have gotten a better diagnosis the first time

I want you to consider the following chart, of systolic blood pressure measurements

from October 2010 to July 2012. You'll see that these measurements start

in the prehypertension/Hypertension zone, but over about the course of a year and a half

they move into the normal zone. This is about the hear rate of a healthy 16 year old.

What story is this data telling you?

Obviously is the data from someone who's made a drastic transformation

and fortunately for us, that person happens to be here today

So that 350 pound guy that walked into the ER with me, is now an even sexier and healthier

225 pound guy, and that's his blood pressure trace.

Over the course of that year and a half, Donald is eating changed

and his exercise regimen changed and his heart rate responded,

his blood pressure responded to that change that he made in his body.

What's the take home message that I want you to leave with today?

By taking ownership of your data, just like we've done

just by taking this daily measurements about yourself,

you become the expert of your body, you become the authority.

It's not hard to do. You don't have to have a PhD in statistics,

to be an expert in yourself, you don't have to have a medical degree to be your body's expert.

Medical doctors, they're experts on the population, but you are the expert on yourself.

And so when the two of you come together, when two experts come togehter

the two of you are able to make a better decision, than just your doctor alone.

Now that you understand the power of information that you can get

through personal data collection, I'd like you all to stand

and raise your right hand.

Yes, get it up

I challenge you, to take ownership of your data,

and today I hereby confer upon you, a TedX associate's degree and elementary statistics

with a concentration in time dependent data analysis

with all the rights and privileges adverteining there to

and the next time you are in your doctor's office,

as newly inducted statisticians, what should always be your response?

Show me the data! I can't hear you.. Show me the data! one more time..

Show me the data! Show me the data.. Thank you