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Burning Mouth Syndrome May Be Cured With Magnesium Supplements

Patients with burning mouth syndrome (BMS) have two major findings: one, burning sensations in their mouth and two, no anatomical changes present in their mouth to relate to this burning.

Dr. Henkin and colleagues at the Center for Molecular Nutrition and Sensory Disorders have clinically distinguished two major groups of patients with BMS. One group has burning limited only to their tongue – called GLOSSOPYROSIS. The other group has burning in their entire mouth, including their tongue, lips, palette, gums and pharynx – called OROPYROSIS. They have recently been able to distinguish these two patient groups biochemically.

Patients with GLOSSOPYROSIS have lower levels of magnesium in their red blood cells (erythrocytes) than do patients with OROPYROSIS or normal subjects. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Fauquier ENT Blog*

Gastroenterologists Need More Training To Be Competent With Colonoscopies

Much more practice is needed than gastroenterological professional societies currently recommend, concluded Mayo Clinic researchers in Rochester, Minn.

Current recommendations are that 140 procedures should be done before attempting to assess competency, but with no set recommendations on how to assess it, wrote the author of the research. But it takes an average of 275 procedures for a gastroenterology fellow to reach minimal cognitive and motor competency.

Now, the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy is rewriting its colonoscopy training guidelines to reflect the need for more procedures and emphasize the use of objective, measurable tests in assessing the competency of trainees. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

Plavix And The Purple Pill: Are They Really A Dangerous Combination?

When the medical press seizes a story, it can become an obsession. Any physician who is reading any journal is aware of the reported interaction between clopidrogel (Plavix) and proton pump inhibitor (PPI) drugs, including Prilosec and her cousins. PPI medicines are not exotic elixirs known only to medical professionals. They are known to any person with a working TV set or who still reads a newspaper, since ads for these drugs are omnipresent. Just google ‘purple pill’ and begin your entrance into the PPI Chamber of Advertising.

PPI medicines are highly effective for peptic ulcers and gastroesophageal reflux, although I suspect that most patients on these medications do not have any true indication for them. (Disclosure: I’ve pulled the PPI trigger too quickly on many patients who do clearly require acid blocking medicines.) PPI medicines are prescribed to hospitalized patients almost by reflex, and are often administered by the intravenous route, even when patients can swallow pills adequately.

Medical studies in 2009 reported that PPI medications appeared to make Plavix less effective. Since thousands of patients are on both of these medicines, this drug interaction could affect a large cohort of patients. Plavix serves to keep coronary stents open and to prevent heart attacks and strokes. Clearly, any force that could diminish Plavix’s potency could have serious ramifications for patients. But, is it really true? Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at MD Whistleblower*

Patient Eats Toxic Chemical, Emits Hazardous Gas In Hospital

Absent other information, the referred to ‘rodent poison’ is probably a superwarfarin. It’s like regular people-coumadin, but superconcentrated. It kills rodentia by causing them to bleed to death.

Which makes the ‘gas effect’ seem really odd, but possibly explainable.

A patient who apparently ingested rodent poison and is emitting potentially harmful gasses has created a hazardous material situation at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor.

The man is isolated in his room in the medical intensive care unit on the hospital’s sixth floor, 5301 McAuley at East Huron River Drive, hospital spokeswoman Lauren Jones said this afternoon.

via Patient emits potentially harmful gas; hazmat called to Ann Arbor hospital | Detroit Free Press | freep.com.

Two thoughts: 1) I sincerely hope this patient recovers, and 2) if this is just upper GI bleed smell someones’ going to have rotten egg smell on their face.

I looked up superwarfarins, found a couple of interesting case reports, but none that talk about abnormal gases.

(For the uninitiated, the smell of digested blood is amazingly awful. It’ll make experienced, hard ED staff retch). I can understand why the smell would set off alarms, except that it’s not that uncommon, so it shouldn’t be a surprise.

It’ll be interesting to see what come of this.

Lighting matches in the hospital is a nono, by the way.

*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*

Mom’s Perspective: A Gluten-Free Diet In Baby’s First Year To Reduce Risk Of Type 1 Diabetes

(Alternate tittle:  “Bring out yer bread!”)

Now that the little bird is the big O-N-E, we have completed one year as parents.  And one year doing the gluten-free diet with our baby.  This was important to me because I felt strongly about the ties between the early introduction of gluten and type 1 diabetes diagnoses. And after doing some research and discussing this as a family, Chris and I decided to keep our BSparl gluten-free for her first year.

It was pretty easy, to be honest, keeping a little baby off gluten.  (Especially since she doesn’t have celiac, so our decision was elective instead of required.) The ease came mostly from the fact that BSparl breastfed for almost six months, and didn’t start on solid foods until just after she turned six months old.  All breastmilk and/or formula made for a pretty streamlined food schedule for that first half year.  When we introduced solid foods into her diet, we went with organic rice cereal and formula first, then mushed up fruits and assorted other mushed up items (like avocado and shredded chicken breast) mixed with food pouches like these from Ella’s Kitchen. Her diet was pretty mushy for a good long time, since it took about 8 months for her first tooth to bust through. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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