Sabrina Cuddy • September 26, 2023
It’s Emotional Wellness October!

If you’re  Newly Diagnosed  with HCM or have been living with symptoms for a long time, you may sometimes struggle with the emotional aspects of this condition. The HCMA is here to help you! Here are some of the resources we have available:

Twice a month, we offer  Emotional Support Discussion Groups  via Zoom. These sessions are a great place to learn coping skills, talk about your feelings, and meet your peers so you know you aren’t alone! You can also find Zoom groups on our calendar for other topics in HCM that may help you feel better.

From our Big Hearted Warriors Unite Tour, during the 3/10/22 session with  Ascension St. Thomas Heart , there is a video segment by Dr. Ronald Salomon titled “Coping with HCM – Building Resilience.” Dr. Salomon is a psychiatrist working within the HCM Center of Excellence, which gives him a unique understanding of the challenges of those living with HCM. This segment starts around 1 hour 26 minutes into the video.

If you aren’t already a member of our  Facebook private group , consider joining! Simply request to join the group and answer the 4 questions. Only those with HCM or close family members are allowed to join, so you can get the perspective of others living with HCM and be supported by your peers.

If you need more emotional health care, don’t be embarrassed to talk to a therapist. It isn’t a weakness that you need a specialist to care for your heart, and it isn’t weak to find a specialist to care for your mind! Ask your medical care team if they can recommend a mental health therapist specializing in HCM or chronic illness. You may need to research if they don’t know one in your area. You may also need to try several therapists to find one that clicks with you – that will make a difference in how much they can help you!
As a patient advocate, I believe that treating the whole person is essential, which means your mind, emotional state, and physical symptoms. One example is how you can increase an arrhythmia by becoming anxious when it happens. Of course, it’s natural to be anxious when your heart does something unusual, but through mindfulness, relaxation, and other coping techniques, you can avoid making yourself feel worse. You can balance your emotional state by educating yourself about when the feelings in your body are important signals to pay attention to and call your doctor about and when those feelings are things you can safely ignore. The  HCMA  can help you become educated in general, and talking with your medical team can help you become educated about your individual condition.

HCMA Blog

By Lisa Salberg July 3, 2025
Summer, greetings to all our big-hearted friends As July approaches, our focus is already on the fall and preparing for some major events, including our annual meeting coming up in October. July will also find us on the west coast in Seattle conducting a regional patient education meeting as part of our big-hearted warrior tour. We have been following the generic drug quality issue in the United States very closely and encourage you to watch the series starting with our Hill briefing in April and following with the additional webinars with our partners at Medshadow and the People's Pharmacy, and of course the ProPublica series of articles. See them all here . We are happy to have a new team member on board - we welcome Pam as our coordinator of both our All Hearts Collaborative and Hearts and Minds project. Over the next few months, you're going to be learning more about these two amazing initiatives and how we are working to provide better services for big hearts regardless of where you live, so we are meeting all of our big-hearted friends where they are. Please stay tuned for updates from these projects coming soon. We are also creating new volunteer opportunities and engagements that we hope will make it easier for you to participate in spreading the message of the importance of diagnosis, the importance of community readiness related to CPR and AED use and, of course, helping patients get to their ultimate diagnosis and getting them on the proper treatment pathways. This July I would like to recognize all of the special birthdays in my family, including HCMA Center of Excellence coordinator, Stacey Titus-brown and my daughter Rebecca Salberg. It's a milestone birthday for Becca - it’s hard to believe I have a 30-year-old child. Wishing you all a happy and healthy summer. Go build some memories!
By Sabrina Cuddy July 3, 2025
By Erica Friedman June 26, 2025
Investigative journalists Debbie Cenziper, Megan Rose, Brandon Roberts and Irena Hwang from Pro Publica and NPR have concluded a 14-month long investigation into the quality of generic drugs coming into the United States from overseas. Among the many voices that spoke up for American patients was HCMA Founder and CEO, Lisa Salberg who has felt the effects of low-quality drugs personally. Salberg believes that fixing this problem is something we can do, even in this time, when even health care is highly politicized. Read the key takeaways from ProPublica’s 14-month investigation into the FDA’s oversight of foreign drugmakers in Threat in Your Medicine Cabinet: The FDA’s Gamble on America’s Drugs .
More Posts