December 20th, 2011 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Tips
Tags: #HealthyVision, 2012, ACUVUE, Comprehensive Eye Exam, Diabetes, Dori Carlson, Eye Doctor, Healthy Vision, High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol, New Year's Resolution, Ophthalmology, Optometrist
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Most people assume that their eyes are healthy if their vision is stable, but this is not always the case. Eye doctors look for many different potential diseases and conditions during a comprehensive eye exam, and if you (or your children or loved ones) haven’t had one recently then maybe it’s time to make it a New Year’s resolution for 2012?
One CDC survey suggests that as many as 34.6% of adults over the age of 40 (with moderate to severe visual impairment) believe that they don’t need regular eye exams. This popular misconception may lead to missed diagnoses. Eye doctors look for signs of diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, brain tumors, cataracts, macular degeneration, retinal tears, allergies and infections (among other things) each time they conduct a comprehensive eye exam. The exam offers a lot more than a simple vision check. And this is particularly important for children.
In a recent interview with the president of the American Optometric Association (AOA), Dr. Dori Carlson, I learned the surprising statistic that about 1 in 4 school age children have an undetected or undiagnosed vision problem. School vision screenings, while helpful, still miss more than 75% of these problems. And for those kids who are discovered to have a vision problem during a school screening, upwards of 40% receive no follow up after the diagnosis.
The eyes are more than a “window to the soul” but a window to general physical health. And the good news is that exams are relatively inexpensive and painless – so why not resolve to make them part of your yearly health maintenance routine, starting in 2012? Let’s make 2012 a year for healthy vision!
December 18th, 2011 by Toni Brayer, M.D. in Health Tips, News
Tags: Annual, Bleeding, Cervical Cancer, Discharge, False Positive, females, Follow Up, Gynecology, HPV, Human Papilloma Virus, Obstetrics, Pain, Pap Smear, Pap Test, Pressure, Screening, sexually transmitted diseases, Women
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Women have been told they should have screening for cervical cancer with a pap test every year. The visit to the gynecologist or internal medicine physician has been a right of passage for most young women and most are very compliant with that annual visit throughout their lives.
Well, the times they are a-changin’ because new guidelines issued by the US Preventative Services Task Force and the American Cancer Society say women should undergo screening NO MORE OFTEN than every 3 years starting at age 21. To further strengthen this recommendation, even the American Society for Clinical Pathology (those folks that read the pap smears) agrees with the recommendation. They also recommend stopping routine pap smears after age 65 for women who have had 3 negative Pap test results in the past 10 years. These women are just not at high risk.
So why the change? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
December 16th, 2011 by admin in Health Tips
Tags: CDC, Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, Children, Emergency, Help Line, Hotline, Infants, Medication Safety, Panic, Poison, Poison Center, Safety, Toddlers
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It’s a moment of sheer panic. You find your child chewing something and holding an open bottle of medicine. You don’t know how much, if any, medicine your child swallowed, or if it will make your child sick.
Unfortunately, as a pediatrician and poison center medical director, I’ve seen this happen all too often. In 2009, in fact, America’s 57 poison centers received more than 575,000 calls involving children younger than 6 and medicines – including prescription and over-the-counter drugs, herbal products, and vitamins.
When that moment of panic happens, it’s good to know that help is just a phone call away. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Safe Healthcare*
December 15th, 2011 by Paul Auerbach, M.D. in Health Tips, Opinion
Tags: Battle, Battlefield, Casualty, Environment, Fighting, Government, Hemorrhage, Injury, Military, Military medicine, Tactical Combat Casualty Care, TCCC, War, Wilderness Medical Society, wilderness medicine
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The 2011 Annual Summer Meeting of the Wilderness Medical Society that was held in Snowmass, Colorado was excellent and provided terrific education for all in attendance. In a series of posts, I’ll highlight some of what we learned.
Brad Bennett gave a wonderful lecture on Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) for the Wilderness Provider. Military medicine and wilderness medicine share certain common elements: extreme and remote environments, a practice of medicine where definitive care can be hours or days away, difficult patient access, limited medical personnel and equipment, prompt decision making, creative thinking, and improvisation. Medical injuries may overwhelm resources and evacuation may be delayed due to environment conditions and the features of the terrain.
In military situations, Read more »
This post, Treating Combat Injuries And Its Similarities To Wilderness Medicine, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
December 14th, 2011 by AmyGivlerMD in Health Tips
Tags: Dosage, Hormone, Insomnia, Jet Lag, Liquid, Melatonin, Nighttime, OTC, Over-The-Counter, Pharmacy, Pill, Pineal body, Sleep
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Many of my patients, over the years, have taken melatonin. Many other patients have asked me about it, but I’ve never had much to say. I hadn’t heard anything particularly bad about it, but couldn’t really recommend it. “Research melatonin” has been on my “To Do” list for a long time.
So here’s what I’ve discovered: Melatonin is a hormone. I’ve known that since medical school, of course, but that fact has struck me as peculiar these past few weeks. Why? Because it’s sold over the counter, and many people take massive amounts of it. No other hormone is available like this. The use of other hormones, such as insulin and thyroid hormone, need careful monitoring. Is melatonin so universally safe that it can be taken at any dose, for however long? The more we learn about melatonin, the less that seems to be the case. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Making Sense of Medicine*
