manitou2121 via Flickr
You have probably had your share of health scares. You find out that a relative or neighbor just got diagnosed with a life threatening condition and all of a sudden you start experiencing some worrisome symptoms that makes you wonder if you have the same condition.
After hours of “googling” you come to the conclusion that you have a terminal disease and this fear makes you seek out a doctor. [Read more…]
bigbirdz
There comes a point in time when you have to step in and take the car keys from mom or dad. It feels like grounding a misbehaving teen and your parents feel hurt and humiliated by this.
They feel a loss of independence and a blow to their sense of dignity. [Read more…]
COM SALUD via Flickr
The other concern I have that actually more serious is our antibiotic crisis. CRISIS is the proper word as everyday our fight against highly evolving bacteria is getting weaker.
Historically, the medical and scientific community changed that tide of sure death less than 70 years ago with the creation of safe and powerful antibiotics, starting with penicillin, but in that same time the tides have been turning towards the bacteria once again as the bacteria get resistant and we have less in our antibiotic arsenal to kill them. [Read more…]
GDS Infographics
The word on the street is that autism affects 1 in every 68 kids in America. A few years ago, the number was pegged at 1 in every 150 kids. What in this world caused the monumental jump? [Read more…]
XoMEoX via Flickr
Sometime it takes walking in someone’s shoes to fully understand what they are going through. I treated heartburn AKA acid reflux for years without knowing what the sufferers were going through.
That changed with my first pregnancy. I suffered from heartburn so bad that I lived on bland foods and Tums for half of my pregnancy. [Read more…]
© Andrew Taylor | Dreamstime Stock Photos
1. You offer up a burnt offering anytime you attempt cooking. The fire department actually came knocking the last time you lit the stove.
2. You show up at the airport to find out that your flight left on time – yesterday.
marsmet481 via Flickr
It happens everyday. Since the advent of widespread use of online sites like WebMD and Google the past 5 years or so, patients are more anxious than ever.
The simple curiosity of looking up a symptom can lead to abject fear and open avenues of death that had never even been imagined or considered.
Typing the symptoms like stomach ache or rash gives you everything from passing virus to death in graphic written and visual detail with a dramatic anecdotal “testimony” from a personal blog or support group. [Read more…]
Modern Britain via Flickr
Believe it or not, my kids have never been “branded or marketed to” via TV commercials. Why?
I wish I could say this was all planned out by my husband and I in our wisdom, but in truth, this occurred by serendipity and out of sheer exhaustion.
While our twins were still infants, we happened to move to a more remote area in the foothills where there was no good TV signal.
The only channel that came on was the local commercial free PBS station.
© Sherry Tetens Long | Dreamstime Stock Photos
I don’t know how we got wrapped up with the term “birth control” but a more accurate job description of the pill would be “pregnancy control”.
Pregnancy control however is just one of the many things taking the pill can do for you.
I would actually say up to a quarter of women taking the pill use primarily for it’s other benefits while the pregnancy control aspect is simply the icing on the cake.
© Ragne Kabanova | Dreamstime Stock Photos
I know this sounds heartless, but once in a while I do have to prepare patients that in this day and age, with our cummulative lifetime risk factors and increasing longevity for those in the baby boomer generation that most will likely be diagnosed with one type of cancer or another. [Read more…]
