New York Post, Tuesday, August 6, 2019nypost.comHealth&Fitness
Connecting the docs
Paging Dr. Internet — a new live show
crowdsources cures for desperate patients
By MELISSA MALAMUTO
VERSHARING
health woes on
social media may
finally do us
some good.
A new show, “Chasing
the Cure,” features pa-
tients broadcasting their
medical mysteries and
unsolvable ailments,
then “crowdsourcing”
medical expertise to find
answers — all on live TV.
It’s as though the popu-
lar aughts TV drama
“House” were happening
in real life.
The Ann Curry-
helmed program, which
premieres Thursday at 9
p.m. on TBS and TNT,
introduces patients to a
panel of doctors to in-
vestigate their health is-
sues and potentially find
diagnoses.
“The show [gives] pa-
tients who have lost hope
a voice again,” says Dr.
Sheila Sahni, a New
Jersey-based interven-
tional cardiologist. Sahni
will appear weekly on the
show with at least two
other physicians, includ-ing an ER doctor from
Philly and a Dallas-based
family medicine
specialist.
Other doctors from
around the world will
also chime in via social
media, giving patients
their very own medical
dream team.
“It’s a way to get eyes
on these cases that
wouldn’t get this kind of
attention,” Sahni tells The
Post.
In the lead-up to the
show’s premiere, count-
less patients have sub-
mitted their “case file”
— using only their first
name and a photo — to
the show’s Web site,
ChasingTheCure-
Live.com, detailing an
assortment of unex-
plained symptoms.
One patient on the site
complains of “sharp-
knife chest pains since
2007, still no answer.
When I take a deeper
breath, the pain wors-
ens.” Another writes that
he’s experiencing “se-
vere painful abdominal
bloating after most every
meal — so big looks likeI’m pregnant.”
Each 90-minute epi-
sode will highlight a few
of those case files. The
doctors will work to-
gether like medical de-
tectives to try and pro-
vide the patient with
some new information
and, hopefully, a poten-
tial diagnosis.
“Doctors struggle to
keep current and we need
to help them keep current
and help the general pub-
lic be current by broad-
casting some of that
data,” Curry, who serves
as a “patient advocate” on
the show, recently told
Parade.To avoid potential
medical-ethics viola-
tions, the network has
hired an “ethics team”
comprised of lawyers,
social workers and a
chief medical consultant
to prevent patient pri-
vacy violations. The
show will also provide
“after care” for any pa-
tient who was selected
for the program whether
their segment makes it
on the air or not.
Sahni says the show
underscores a shift in
health care in which
both patients and doc-
tors can use online net-
works to their advantage.
For instance, she notes
that doctors can follow
hashtags from major
conferences to stay in-
formed of research
breakthroughs. Patients,
too, can use social media
to connect with others
experiencing similar
medical problems.
“Social media can be a
slippery slope, but I think
it’s a positive thing,”
Sahni says. “It’s about get-
ting on a path to well-
ness.”NY Post illustration composite
Anchor Ann Curry is a
patient advocate on
“Chasing the Cure.”By MELKORKA LICEAA
T 35-years-old, Saya Nagori had tried it all when it
came to dating, from apps and setups to a laundry
list of mediocre relationships. But the key to finding
her Mr. Right, it turns out, was something much
more unexpected.
“I met my husband three months after freezing my
eggs,” Nagori tells The Post.
Initially, the former Murray Hill resident decided to spend
$6,000 (plus $10,000 covered by insurance) to put her ova on
ice at Weill Cornell Medicine in 201 7 .
“I knew I would meet someone eventually, I just wasn’t sure
when,” she says.
But after the procedure, something strange happened: Her
dating life got its mojo back.
“I felt like I was in my 20s again... running around dating
without a care in the world,” the Washington, DC-based med-
ical director at Simple Health says. “I could take my time
again, not have to rush anything and I felt, at least for the time
being, that I had paused the ‘clock.’ ”
Over the past few years, egg freezing — a procedure in
which women are injected with hormones so their ovaries
produce eggs that are then extracted and stored in a cryo-
genic container — has boomed in popularity in the US, with
10,936 undergoing the technique in 2017, compared with 2,488
in 2012, according to the Society for Assisted Reproductive
Technology.
And with it, women are experiencing a renewed sense of
freedom — and fun — while searching for “the one.”
After freezing, Nagori, now 36, refused to go on second
dates with boring guys.
She says she became “more picky” with her dates and
would tell herself, “If you’re not having a good time that’s OK.
Don’t see them again.”
After striking out with a few dud guys, the founder of the
FemHealth Project was set up on a blind date in the West Vil-
lage with the man of her dreams.
“Egg freezing... put us both on equal footing,” says Nagori.
She boldly broached her fertility journey with her future
husband, Chirag Patel, a month into their courtship.
“I had heard about egg freezing, but I didn’t realize that a lot
of women were actually doing it,” says Patel, 36. “I thought it
was cool that she had the courage to do it, and of course it
took pressure off getting married quickly... which we did
anyway.”
The two lovebirds wed Aug. 26, 2018, but have yet to use her
eggs.
For single woman Lindsay Vick, an unattached fashion-
marketing director, the decision to freeze her eggs six months
ago “has given her a sense of peace” in dating.
“Before, I would really pressure myself and say, ‘Oh, you
should go on a date,’ and sometimes I just don’t feel like it,”
says the Chelsea resident, 34. “I’ve become much more confi-
dent and clear in what I’m looking for.”
Upper East Sider Jennifer Huang was also feeling empow-
ered after she froze her eggs six years ago, and started “to re-
fine my screening process,” she says.
“There was one guy I dated for a few weeks, we were in the
car, and I just dropped the bomb and said, ‘Hey, by the way, I
froze my eggs,’ and he said nothing. Just kept driving,” says
the 42-year-old chief marketing officer at Trellis, a trendy
new freezing clinic. “I ended things very quickly.
“After I froze the eggs I was like, ‘If I’m committing to this
process, I’m not settling.’ So I ended relationships much
faster,” she says.
Today, Huang is happily married with two children — one
born naturally and the second from a frozen egg.
But the procedure is far from foolproof.
Chances of a live birth if the eggs are extracted under the
age of 35 are about 40 to 50 percent. At age 38, the success rate
dips to about 33 percent, and at age 40 or older, it’s 20 percent
or less, according to Nicole Noyes, the system chief for repro-
ductive endocrinology and infertility at Northwell Health.
And that’s only if doctors extracted at least 20 viable eggs.
“Reproductive prime [age] is 13 to 30, and we’re really buck-
ing our biology by waiting,” Noyes says.
Yet for women like Nagori, waiting was worth it.
“I know it took awhile to get here, but I am grateful for all
the experiences, both good and bad,” she says. “Because, ulti-
mately, the timeline led me to the perfect guy.”BIG NUMBER
37%
The improved survival odds in the years after a heart attack for those who have sex
once a week following the incident, compared to those who didn’t get it on at all, according to a study published in the American Journal of Medicine. Even those
who had sex less than once a week after the health scare had improved odds —
they were 28 percent less likely to die following the attack compared to their un
dersexed peers. It could also be considered preventative medicine: Those who had
sex more than once a week before a heart attack were 27 percent less likely to die in the years following the attack, compared to those who had no sex. Sex saves lives!