Photo: Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Donald Trump is in “PERFECT HEALTH,” and he’s “ACED” more “Cognitive Examinations” than anyone to ever occupy the White House. We know this because Trump himself announced it on January 2, and you can believe everything you read on the president’s Truth Social account:
Trump never needs much of a reason to brag about the results of his latest cognitive test (which is actually a dementia screening). But he may have been trying to reassure the public after telling The Wall Street Journal that he’s making some medical decisions that go against his doctors’ advice.
Despite gleefully attacking Joe Biden for his decrepitude, Trump has been sensitive about recent reports that say he’s showing physical signs of aging. So it seems he tried to personally shut down the chatter about his medical issues by talking with the Journal:
In an impromptu phone interview that came after the Journal shared details about its reporting with the White House, the president expressed irritation about the public debate over his health. He has grown upset with his own White House staff for not promoting him as more vigorous. “Let’s talk about health again for the 25th time,” he said at the start of the interview. “My health is perfect,” he added.
In his most extensive remarks about his health since returning to office, Trump admitted that while he told reporters he had a “preventative” MRI in October, it was actually a CT scan. (Dr. Sean Barbabella, the White House physician, said the CT scan was done “to definitively rule out any cardiovascular issues” and revealed no abnormalities, but he didn’t elaborate on why that was a concern.)
Trump said he briefly wore compression socks to treat his chronic venous insufficiency, but stopped because “I didn’t like them.” He said he’s improved his lower-leg swelling by simply walking around a bit. However, he’s still no fan of any exercise other than golf.
“I just don’t like it. It’s boring,” Trump said. “To walk on a treadmill or run on a treadmill for hours and hours like some people do, that’s not for me.”
Trump also admitted that he’s “never been a big sleeper” but denied that he’s been caught sleeping at multiple public events.
“I’ll just close. It’s very relaxing to me,” he said. “Sometimes they’ll take a picture of me blinking, blinking, and they’ll catch me with the blink.”
The president’s most surprising admissions were about the cause of his persistent right-hand bruise, which he tends to cover up — poorly. “I have makeup that’s, you know, easy to put on, takes about ten seconds,” Trump said, acknowledging for the first time that he’s experimenting with hand cosmetics.
We’ve long known that Trump takes a daily aspirin as part of a cardiovascular prevention regimen, which is common for older people and makes you bruise easily. What we did not know is that Trump is taking a very large dose of daily aspirin — 325 milligrams a day rather than the typical low dose of 81 milligrams per day — though his doctors have advised him not to.
“They’d rather have me take the smaller one,” Trump said. “I take the larger one, but I’ve done it for years, and what it does do is it causes bruising.”
The president said he’s doing this because he’s “superstitious” and worries about having “thick blood”:
The large dose of aspirin he chooses to take daily has caused him to bruise easily, he said, and he has been encouraged by his doctors to take a lower dose. But Trump has declined to switch because he has been taking it for 25 years. “I’m a little superstitious,” he said in the interview.
“They say aspirin is good for thinning out the blood, and I don’t want thick blood pouring through my heart,” Trump said. “I want nice, thin blood pouring through my heart. Does that make sense?”
Could taking a large dose of daily aspirin be medically justified? Yes, according to the University of Rochester Medical Center:
For people at greatest risk for heart attack, doctors typically recommend one regular-strength aspirin tablet (325 mg) a day. For those at lower risk for heart disease, most doctors suggest a daily dose of baby aspirin (81 mg), believing that this dose offers the best balance between the preventive benefits of aspirin and the risk of bleeding, which is its most common — and most serious — side effect.
But by Trump’s own admission, his doctors don’t want him on such a high daily dose. Dr. Jonathan Reiner, Dick Cheney’s former heart doctor, told CNN that Trump’s concern about “thick blood” simply “makes no sense.” Per the Daily Beast:
Reiner explained that using aspirin to thin blood is “not like changing something from gumbo to chicken soup.”
“It doesn’t make it thinner. It makes you less likely to clot,” he said.
… “Why is the president taking an unorthodox dose of aspirin?” Reiner asked. “And the media has published many photos of his right hand — and now maybe his left hand — with this chronic bruise. The White House has said that this is related to chronic aspirin therapy. So if you’re bruising a lot and your doctor says you’re on too much aspirin, why wouldn’t you go down to the lower dose? It makes no sense to me.”
Okay, but on the other hand, who are we — or the medical professionals tasked with caring for the president — to question the decisions of a “very stable genius” who’s in “PERFECT HEALTH”?
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