March 21st, 2010 by RamonaBatesMD in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News
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Recently a Staten Island woman was awarded $3.5 million after developing a double-bubble breast deformity after a breast augmentation/mastopexy surgery — commonly known as breast implants.
I don’t know if the award was warranted, but I do know that the deformity is a known risk of breast augmentation surgery. I try very hard to tell patients about possible risks of surgery, but none of us go into surgery thinking we will be the half or one or two percent. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
March 18th, 2010 by RamonaBatesMD in Better Health Network, Medical Art
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In the March 3, 2010 issue of JAMA, there is a poem by Sarah Wells called “Hymn of Skin.” While I enjoyed the whole poem, my favorite part is:
Plastic surgeon of the heavens, how I delight
in a furrowed brow, crow’s feet, age spots—
wrinkle me up a dozen times to show I lived
hard, good, funny—after all beauty, being what it is,
is only skin deep—may my soul seep through
dry scales of later hands, resting tranquil in my lap.
O omniscient dermatologist, what ingenuity,
past hurts evident in scrapes and scars—
a clumsy stumble down uneven concrete stairs,
knees and ankle raw and dripping; pockmarked cheeks
from teenage zits—all healed, in the end, but not forgotten.
How often we need reminders of where we’ve been.
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
March 11th, 2010 by RamonaBatesMD in Better Health Network, Research
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In the January issue of the Archives of Dermatology, there is a short article (full reference below) in which the authors have attempted to use in vitro lab techniques to improve in vivo techniques for tattoo removal.
Fragmentation of the tattoo particles by the laser leads to small pigment particles, unknown decomposition products, and newly generated chemical compounds that may then be removed from the skin by means of the lymphatic system, leading to a noticeable lightening of a colored tattoo. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
March 5th, 2010 by RamonaBatesMD in Better Health Network, Health Tips
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I’d like to recommend this article (full reference below) to anyone involved in the care of palliative care patients, as well as anyone who does wound care. It is a thoughtful and well written consensus paper from the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel.
The article begins by pointing out the difference in goals between palliative care patients and the usual patients with pressure ulcers (PrU).
Usual care of a PrU is designed to promote healing; however, healing or closing the ulcer in patients receiving palliative care is often improbable. Therefore, the focus of care is better directed to reduce or eliminate pain, odor, and infection and allow for an environment that can promote ulcer closure, as well as improve self-image to help prevent social isolation.
Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
February 25th, 2010 by RamonaBatesMD in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Research
2 Comments »
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is a multi-symptom, multi-system syndrome that remain poorly understood. As I have mentioned previously , it was called reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD) when I first learned about it. I still catch myself calling it RSD.
For a complete review of CRPS, please refer to my previous post on the topic. This post is to look at an article published in the February issue of the journal Annuals of Internal Medicine (full reference below).
A research team at the Pain Research Institute at the University of Liverpool note that there is some evidence for “for immune activation in the affected limb, peripheral blood, and cerebrospinal fluid.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
