December 13th, 2011 by Paul Auerbach, M.D. in Health Tips
Tags: Allergies, Bee, Bee Aware Program, Hornets, Injections, Insects, Outdoor Medicine, Precautions, Stings, Venom Immunotherapy, VIT, Website, Yellow Jackets
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There is a site on the Internet named “Bee Aware” that provides information for patients and physicians about stinging insect allergies and venom immunotherapy. The quality of the information is good, so this website makes an excellent reference for the average person and can be reliably used by doctors and other health care providers to assist in educating their patients.
For instance:
| “It is impossible, not to mention undesirable, to avoid going outdoors, but there are certain precautions that can be taken that will allow you to enjoy the outdoors while minimizing your chances of being stung.
It is important to remember that stinging insects do not seek out humans. The sting of these insects is only used against people for self-defense or in defense of their nest. This is why it is important to never approach or provoke an insect of this kind unnecessarily.
- If a stinging insect approaches, remain calm and stay still.
- Never Read more »
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This post, Website Offers Tips For Dealing With Stinging Insect Allergies, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
December 12th, 2011 by CynthiaBaileyMD in Health Tips
Tags: Dermabrasion, Dermatology, Juviderm, Lines Around The Lips, Lines Around The Mouth, Retinol, Smokers Lines, treatments
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The vertical lines around the mouth are challenging to fix but now there are things you can do to improve them.
Most people call these lines ‘smoker’s lines’ but they aren’t necessarily from smoking. Everybody will eventually get them as they age, smokers just get them earlier, and so do women.
I want to give you a quick overview of how I treat them in my dermatology practice. To reduce the appearance of vertical lines around your mouth consider one or more of the following treatments (click on any of the blue links to see more about the options).
The Best Treatments For ‘Smoker’s Lines’
Using skin care products to brighten the skin.
These will lessening the dark, wrinkled textural appearance of this area and it’s something you can do with your at-home skin care regimen. The best product options include prescription tretinion, retinol (helpful, but not as effective as prescription tretinoin), and AHA products (the best contain glycolic acid with a concentration over 10% and pH around 4). The tretinoin and AHA products may also stimulate a little collagen formation under your skin to actually build up the area to help permanently diminish the wrinkles too.
Doing a series of superficial professional skin treatments that peel, abrade and brighten the skin. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Bailey's Skin Care Blog*
December 11th, 2011 by Jessie Gruman, Ph.D. in Health Policy, Health Tips, Opinion
Tags: Accountable Care Organizations, ACO, CMS, EHR, Electronic Medical Records, EMR, Geriatrics, Group Health Cooperative, Home Health Care, Jessie Gruman, LinkedIn, medicaid, Medicare, Nursing Home, remote monitoring, Telehealth
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Did you know that every nursing home resident in the U.S. must be asked every quarter whether she wants to go home, regardless of her health or mental status? And if she says yes, there is a local agency that must spring into action to make that happen.
This is the result of a 2010 Center for Medicaid/Medicare Services regulation aimed at helping keep older people in their (less expensive) homes rather than institutional settings. A New York Times article notes that the nursing home exodus, while modest to date, is building. This means the number of people with serious chronic conditions like congestive heart failure, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who draw heavily on community-based primary care services will grow.
These returnees are joining their peers and the blossoming crowd of us Baby Boomers who intend to resist living in nursing homes with as much spirit as our parents did, while the consequences of our plump and sedentary lifestyles arrange themselves into a constellation of diabetes, congestive heart failure and COPD similar to the one that plagues our elders.
Much has been written about Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
December 11th, 2011 by KennyLinMD in Health Tips, Research
Tags: Bowels, Complications, Constipation, End Of Life Care, Ileus, Laxatives, Narcotics, Opioids, Palliative Care
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Family physicians who care for terminally ill patients must manage a wide range of bothersome symptoms, including pain, fatigue, dyspnea, delirium, and constipation. According to a Cochrane for Clinicians article in the December 1st issue of American Family Physician, constipation affects up to half of all patients receiving palliative care and nearly 9 in 10 palliative care patients who use opioid medications for pain. Unfortunately, a Cochrane systematic review found limited evidence on the effectiveness of laxatives in these patients, as Dr. William Cayley Jr. comments:
“For patients with constipation, especially those with opioid-induced constipation, there is insufficient evidence to recommend one laxative over another. The choice of laxatives should be based on past patient experience, tolerability, and adverse effects. Methylnaltrexone is a newer agent that may be useful especially for patients with opioid-induced constipation that has not responded to standard laxatives, but there is limited evidence of potential adverse effects. Therefore, judicious use preceded by a discussion with patients about known risks and benefits is warranted.”
The Cochrane Library recently discussed this review in its Journal Club feature, which includes open access to the full text of the review, a podcast by the authors, discussion points, and a Powerpoint slide presentation of the review’s main findings.
Additional resources for physicians and patients on advanced directives, hospice care, and ethical issues are available in the AFP By Topic collection on End-of-Life Care.
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The above post was first published on the AFP Community Blog.
*This blog post was originally published at Common Sense Family Doctor*
December 11th, 2011 by admin in Health Tips, Quackery Exposed
Tags: Alternative Medicine, Arthritis, Diet, Evidence Based Medicine, Mercola, Pomegranate, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Rheumatology, Snake Oil
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There’s an old saying in medicine: “Use the new medicine while it still works.” This is more than just a cute quip. The saying encompasses a few different phenomena. When a drug is tested on a few thousand people, the luck of the draw may show a greater effect than would be seen in a larger, more diverse population. Also, less common side effects will become more evident in a larger sample. Once several million people take the drug, it may turn out that the drug isn’t as spectacular in a large, diverse population, and that certain side effects, though rare, are serious.
This is one of the reasons I’m a very conservative and skeptical physician. Today’s miracle drug may be tomorrow’s Vioxx. Less conservative doctors may make much more enthusiastic recommendations. I found one physician promoting pomegranate juice for rheumatoid arthritis (or at least linking to the article on Joe Mercola’s site without comment). It sounds harmless enough, but what’s the evidence? (You can hunt for the page yourself; I’m not linking to Mercola.)
The statement is based on a pilot study out of Israel consisting of data from six patients. The measures used seem quirky, but are irrelevant anyway. There are no conclusions that can be drawn from such a small sample. Despite this, the authors conclude (and Mercola and the doctor who posted the link presumably endorse) that, “Dietary supplementation with pomegranates may be a useful complementary strategy to attenuate clinical symptoms in RA patients.”
Really? Based on what? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
