For me it was a summer night in the 1960s, at the Aragon Ballroom on Lawrence Avenue in Chicago, the club during those years temporarily renamed The Cheetah. Seemed like a cool name to me, with my shoulder-length hair, bellbottoms, and paisley everything else. The band for the evening was Blue Cheer, billing itself as the loudest band in rock and roll. I was in the first row.
Category: Knowledge Base
Stop the Thyroid Madness
I went to medical school for awhile in London and, it being the late 1960s (and London), I really don’t remember much about it. The school, that is.
However, two lessons from a certain professor have always remained with me:
1. If you listen to your patient carefully enough, and use your diagnostic skills, she’ll tell you her diagnosis. You won’t need anything else. Just listen! (By the way, this idea is widely attributed to the early 20th century physician Sir William Osler, but I was an impressionable med student in the classroom of a speaker who sounded and looked like Winston Churchill…in a white coat.)
Male Menopause–Is It Real?
Short answer: Yes, but don’t hope for any quick fixes—that’s so-o-o pharmaceutical industry think.
Another way to view male menopause: Sure, a ball will bounce, only less and less.
I get asked about male menopause all the time, almost always by women (admittedly they represent the majority of my patients), but only rarely by my male patients who, for the most part, don’t seem to sense much of a problem. Could men be viewing male menopause the way they view weight gain? While women buy diet books and serially starve themselves/gain everything back, men buy larger pants with elastic belts.
Meet Elaine
So twice a year I head to Florida to visit my 88-year-old aunt. Except for the fact she’s a Fox News Republican, we enjoy each other’s company by agreeing to avoid political arguments. I might add she’s a former nightclub singer and makes a mean martini.
Will Alzheimer’s Skyrocket?
In 2006, the very dark comedy Idiocracy played local theatres for what seemed like a few hours before disappearing into DVD bins and obscure cable channels. Its Rip van Winkle story involves a not particularly bright Army librarian, recruited into a Pentagon hibernation program, awakening centuries into the future and finding himself the most intelligent person in America.
De-Cluttering Your Life
My staff people were chatting up the TV show Hoarders, about people who obsessively hoard stuff. I think you can’t really use the word “enjoy” or even “be entertained by” reality TV. At best the German word schadenfreude might apply, which loosely translates as “secret pleasure in watching the misery of others.”
You! Off Your Duff and On Your Bike!
Yes, I mean you. You were the one complaining about your weight, right? Yeah, I thought it was you.
“You Are Corn”
Since you’ll never find the film King Corn in theatres, I strongly urge you to rent this important independent documentary (netflix has it here). It certainly was an eye opener for me.
I’d always known that high fructose corn syrup is bad for us, but King Corn reassured me the problem was actually much worse.
Bedbugs! (and a PS on Ticks)
I could sense anxiety in her e mail: These…things…on my skin. I don’t know what they are. Red itchy blistery things. They just appeared. Because they’re all in a line up my leg, a friend said she thought it might be shingles and to contact you.
Lyme Disease Attacks Local Physician (!)
During these lovely summer days we’re tempted to be outside enjoying nature, but beware: predators lurk in the weeds. Here in the Midwest, we’re in a Lyme disease area so I thought it might be a good idea to let you know what symptoms to watch for, a task made sadly easier when my associate Dr Rubin, known for his love of the outdoors and risky gardening habit…well, I’ll let him tell you what he did on his summer vacation.
Hypnotized by Big Pharma
Virtually every day, a fax arrives asking me to participate in one market research study or another on some medical issue related to Big Pharma. If I happen to be interested, I call a phone number, am asked a few questions to determine if I qualify (they especially like primary care doctors), and am scheduled for an appointment. Sometimes I arrive and there’s a group of doctors, sometimes it’s a one-on-one.
Big Pharma, Bad Medicine
Great title. Too bad it’s not my original, but this link will take you to the current issue of the Boston Review, and figuring we don’t see much of this magazine in Chicago, I’ll summarize its key points and hope (if you care a smidgen about your well-being) you’ll then read as much as you can endure without screaming.
Health Risks of the Oil Gusher
I still have t-shirts in a drawer somewhere from the 1980s: “Everything You Know is Wrong,” “They are LYING to You,” and “Question Authority.”
These came to mind when I see that everyone who fancies him or herself an “authority” on the deep-sea Gulf oil gusher–spokespeople from university medical schools, government agencies, and the oil industry itself–mainly trying to “reassure” us.
Fibromyalgia: An Almost Natural Approach
One of the best ways to envision fibro is as a generalized anxiety disorder of the muscles, initially triggered by a stressful event and then perpetuated by the pain of the muscles themselves.
Fibromyalgia: Conventional Treatment
Patients and physicians unfamiliar with fibromyalgia are rightfully a bit shocked when they learn the average fibro patient uses five prescription drugs to make it through her day. Not one of these is “for fibro,” in the sense of a cure, the way penicillin cures a strep throat. The medications don’t even actually treat fibro, the way insulin treats diabetes. At their best, the drugs (sometimes) reduce symptoms.
Fibromyalgia: Gender Discrimination and Fibro Pain
Let me start with a fact that many doctors acknowledge but prefer not to discuss: Numerous well-conducted studies have shown that all chronic pain patients, but especially women, are seriously undertreated by physicians.
Fibromyalgia: The Fatigue Part
Right up there with pain, the second most common symptom of fibromyalgia is a constant sense of profound exhaustion. Disability insurance companies, people who don’t have fibro, and (sadly) most doctors can’t appreciate the extraordinary degree of this fatigue.
Fibromyalgia Explained: Why the Pain?
To understand fibromyalgia and why so many doctors tell their fibro patients, “All your tests are normal,” you need to think about serotonin, the brain chemical that acts as a buffer against stress.
Fibromyalgia Explained: Part 1
Hey, listen. Since May has been declared Fibromyalgia Awareness Month, even if you don’t have it I’d appreciate your plowing through the next couple of health tips and learning something about this miserable condition, which affects more than 15 million people, 95% of them women.
Women + Certain Carbs = Early Death
This is one of those “Not fair!” studies, an “Is there no justice?” piece of research that underscores the importance of gender in health.