Check out the video for the latest update on the devastating spread of Ebola in West Africa and the rise of enterovirus D68 infections in the United States. There’s also a little bit of good health news: chocolate may be good for you after all.
Having Houston Texans in your eyeballs (for Halloween or tailgating) is even more scary if you bought these from a rack at a flea market (Photo: Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports)
With Halloween closer than merely around the corner, you’re perhaps admiring your costume and contemplating add-ons. Wax lips, perhaps? An extra hole in your Charlie-Brown ghost sheet?
Those are fine. but if one idea happens to be those yellow or striped or whatever contact lenses you picked up at a flea market or nail salon somewhere, we’d like to make a tiny suggestion in as gentle a way as we know how:
DON’T EVEN THINK OF WEARING THEM.
This account Martin L. Faber, a therapeutic optometrist at Key-Whitman Eye Center, pretty much captures why this is an idea that is beyond silly. Reading this, I want to immediately flush the lenses I bought — oh wait; I didn’t buy any.
Anyway, he’s telling about a patient who did. She made her purchase at a nail salon, and here’s what happened next:
“She was given no instruction on how to insert, remove or sterilize the lenses, and consequently ended up with corneal ulcers,” he writes on this blog. ““Unfortunately, the young lady couldn’t get the lenses out of her eyes and delayed getting treatment because she was afraid to tell her parents.
“We were able to get the infection under control, but unfortunately, she ended up being legally blind in one eye.”
A corneal ulcer, as the name suggests, has to do with the cornea. It occurs when a bacterial infection occurs under the lens, and that tends to occur the lens doesn’t fit correctly. Contact lenses aren’t like muumuus; they’re not one-size-fits-all. You need to be fitted by a professional for them (a professional eye person, not a professional manicurist).
If, by the way, you ever experience any of these symptoms while wearing contact lenses — those that look bloodshot or your very own run-of-the-mill safe variety — check with your eye professional promptly:
Inability to remove them
Eye pain
Inflammation
General redness that doesn’t go away, coupled with increasing pain
Light sensitivity
Eyelid bumps
If you have your heart set on the decorative lenses, ask your eye professional, who just might be able to prescribe a pair.
As a spectator, I cringe a lot at football games. Not because my team is winning (Go Cowboys!) or losing, but because of the direct body impact these guys sustain during aggressive physical play. I also cringe a lot when I watch America’s Funniest Home Videos. Those pitiful scenes when someone gets hurt tend to upset me more than make me laugh. My kids blame my “doctorness” (that is not a real word), and tell me I am an over-actor when I cover my face during the “funny “ scenes. I just know those guys and gals hurt in the morning when they get out of bed (we won’t even get into Tony Romo….). I wonder how many of them experience back pain.
New onset low back pain is what brings many patients into our clinic and “acute” back pain episodes are defined as six to twelve weeks of pain. Low back pain is located between the mid to low back and when pain radiates down one or both legs it is called sciatica.
For many readers, this information seems repetitive, here are some facts released by the American Academy of Family Practice and some of this information is new to me. You will find interesting:
Many times, staying at home and using heat and *anti-inflammatories and maintaining usual activities as tolerated is best care for acute back pain. However, if pain worsens or begins to extend down the leg or is accompanied by fever, you should seek help thru your medical provider. If you have a history of cancer, it is highly important you follow up to ensure there is no cancer recurrence in your bones. When in doubt, it does not hurt to seek medical advice.
*You should always discuss with your medical provider whether anti-inflammatories are safe in combination with your prescription medications or your ongoing medical problems.
Sometimes being passed can spur you on to a pretty nifty run (Photo: Alex di Suvero/The New York Times)
I started out on a morning run last week with a goal that wouldn’t exactly be considered lofty. Namely, don’t push myself. This wasn’t because I’d been working hard and needed reining in; I simply wasn’t in the mood to do much but plod.
That lasted about a block. I had been lost in my usual zone when suddenly –whoosh! A man dashed by my left side, totally startling me. I was momentarily caught off guard, and then was overtaken by a rush of competition.
An aside: I run alone, so the only person with whom I’m competitive is myself. But seeing this fellow made me pick up my pace and decide to see how long I could keep it up. Well, I almost caught up with him, but then he made a U-turn at the end of the block — no doubt because he didn’t want me to overtake him. And yes, I’m kidding.
Anyway, I had a really, really good run. Not only was my pace brisker than usual, but I felt more energized when I’d finished — all because a stranger I’d never recognize in the light of day (if at all) unknowingly gave me a much-needed push.
Jim Rossman ambles around my neck o’the DMN woods periodically. Mostly though, our paths cross when I am acquiring yet another now-defunct iPod model from him. Not that I tend to wash the ones I have or misplace them or step on or anything.
One day not long ago, I saw Jim and he was, as the saying goes, a shadow of his former self.
“Jim!” says I. “You look great!” And, just in case the reason wasn’t some dark slimming outfit he was wearing or that I didn’t have my contacts in, I added: “Have you lost weight?”
To which he said yes. I knew he’d been wearing this nifty new Vivosmart (which he reviewed here), although he reminded me that just wearing something is no guarantee you’ll lose weight. In fact, he doesn’t even wear it all the time like tracker-obsessed I do.
He mostly relies on Lose It! The app helps him keep tabs mostly on what he eats. He said he tends to eat the same things — half-pound of turkey for lunch, for instance, or Zoe’s Kitchen steak kabobs with a double order of roasted vegetables for dinner. So when he punches the first few letters of those into his phone, up pops the info. It also tells him how many calories a day he’s allowed to lose two pounds a week — a very sensible rate of loss.
Since May (when he determined to start losing weight) he has dropped 74 POUNDS! SEVENTY-FOUR!!
Jim told me he limits his eating window to eight hours; for him, that’s noon till 8 p.m. He’s not a breakfast eater, thus refuting the oft-quoted rule that you need to eat that first meal in order to drop pounds. Besides, for him “breakfast” meant stopping by his favorite doughnut shop every day and getting two big ol’ — well, I forget, actually. I remember one was a sausage something surrounded by dough. AND the first of his Diet Cokes.
He attributes a lot of his weight loss to stopping his six? eight? more? Diet-Cokes-a-day habit. They just left him feeling bloated, he says. Plus, they’re flat-out not good for you. They’ve even been shown to possibly raise the risk of developing diabetes.
Now he drinks only water or unsweetened tea.
What else does Jim do? Well…guess you gotta watch the video and find out. And if you’ve lost a lot of weight in a sensible manner (no only-pickle-juice-and-cheese kinda diets please) by all means, drop a note to lgarcia@dallasnews.com.
Just after my mother was admitted to the hospital for heart beat irregularities, my entire family came to visit. A family of 3 doctors and 2 lawyers, I was the first to pipe up and ask my mother if I could run out and buy her a most coveted drink. “Coffee!” my cardiologist sister blurted out, “But, she is in the hospital for heart palpitations!” Ok….In my best efforts to provide comfort food and drink to my mother, clearly I was not thinking like a doctor.
But for most of you, go ahead, have another cup of Joe. That cup of coffee (minus the sugar and crème) may be the natural health supplement your body needs. This is interesting and important for health care providers because a part of our risk disease questionnaire includes “how many cups of coffee do you drink daily?” Historically, this portion of the health screening suggests that high coffee consumption is risky business. But maybe we should just “Forget about it”… Now evidence shows that you may keep enjoying your coffee and its health benefits and here are 5 reasons why:
Overall, the positives are strong for your daily cup of black coffee. However, if you are ordering a grande (more than 6 ounces), adding the half and half, doubling up on the sugar, or mixing in the syrup flavors and whipped crème, then just “forget about it”, because that assumed health benefit is just not happening. Also, be sure to avoid the jelly donut with the coffee. That is a doctor-instructed “no-no”.
For the lawyers in my family, let me phrase this carefully: As long as you do not suffer heart rhythm abnormalities, or other caffeine-aggravated physical ailments (such as stomach ulcers or heartburn) consider adding a few cups of daily coffee brew. But at regular medical office visits, always review your habits with the medical provider to be sure that your coffee habit is a healthy habit.
It’s a day of celebration in Dallas as 51 people complete their 21-day Ebola monitoring period. The outbreak of enterovirus D68 continues to spread across America, and another medical mystery unfolds: an outbreak of paralysis among children is being investigated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Could enterovirus D68 be the cause? Check out these headlines plus a story about diseased rats in New York City on our health news video.
I woke up Friday morning and thought, “Oh, my, the Capital to Coast relay started an hour ago!”
Why did I care about that? Because of the courageous and athletic guys I wrote about here – oh yeah, they also happen to have diabetes.
They did indeed finish the relay, which started at 4 a.m. Friday in Austin and ended 233 miles later in Corpus Christi. It took the team 40 hours and 9 minutes and they were the last team to cross the finish line. To which I say — THEY FINISHED!!!! HOORAY!
I asked Don Muchow, who sent me the original email about their journey, for a recap on the relay, and he was happy to comply:
“I don’t think I have ever slept so little in my life — nine hours in about four days, two of which were the last days leading up to the race. Most of the team’s blood sugars ran high from adrenaline; everyone’s second leg was good. Exhaustion set in after that.
“After the first day, we were only an hour behind schedule; that slipped to three hours on the second day after temps climbed into the mid-90s with 70% humidity. We were the last team to finish, at 40 hours and 9 minutes.
“But we finished!”
He sent this to me on Tuesday morning:
“When we got to Corpus, we were practically hallucinating from lack of sleep; but our sugars were good, and we got there without injury. Not so well with some of the other teams. At least two teams lost a couple of runners to injury, and a third (“Sexy Shorts”) had a team member who was bitten by a snake. The worst to happen to ours was being chased by wild dogs.”
That’s the race part. He goes on to talk about the disease:
“To me, the stigma around Type 2 diabetes is the most damaging, and the myths the most hurtful. At least Type 1s can point out to others that it’s an autoimmune disorder.
“That’s why we decided our mission was to Cure Diabetes Ignorance. Nothing speaks for self-efficacy and against the idea of self-inflicted harm quite like Getting Out There And Doing Difficult Things.
“This is a fantastic bunch of folks whom I am honored to call teammates and friends. We are already talking about next year and about other epic projects. One person wants to do the 100k run at Bandera…another wants to do an Ironman… and they all want to lean on each other for support, help, and encouragement as they push their boundaries.”
So um…what’s our excuse for not getting out there and moving? These guys kind of put everything into perspective, eh.
Sugary sodas can lead to shorter telomeres, which isn't a good thing. (AFP/Getty Images)
Sodas have lots of sugar and lots of calories. Yeah yeah yeah, so what else is new?
Well, funny you should ask. Not “funny” as in ha-ha, but “funny” as in…you gotta be kidding me.
This report comes via the Washington Post, which in turn saw it in the American Journal of Public Health. But enough giving credit where it’s due. The important news is this: More soda = shorter telomeres = shortened life span.
All of which means nothing if we don’t know what a telomere is. So here goes: A telomere “is a region of repetitive nucleotide sequences at each end of a chromatid, which protects the end of the chromosome from deterioration or from fusing with neighboring chromosomes.” That’s what Wikipedia says.
In layman (and Leslie) terms, a telomere is this: A cap at the ends of our chromosomes. As we age, telomeres get shorter. The shorter they get, the tougher it is for a cell to regenerate. Thus, aging occurs.
Which brings us back to the role sugary sodas plays in this. For the study, scientists at several universities studied 5,309 U.S. adults who took part in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2002. Participants, who ranged in age from 20 to 65 and had no history of diabetes or heart disease, were not tracked; they were measured at only one point in time. Using stored DNA, researchers determined that more soda made for shorter telomeres.
Senior author and University of California San Francisco psychiatry professor Elissa Epel said this to CBS San Francisco: “We think we can get away with drinking lots of soda as long as we are not gaining weight, but this suggests that there is an invisible pathway that leads to accelerated aging, regardless of weight.”
Specifically, a 20-ounce soda a day is linked to 4.6 years of — as The Post says — “additional aging.”
So what to do with this info? Drink water. Or perhaps don’t drink as many sodas. Or tell everyone who gives you a hard time about your soda habit that telomeres are going to shrink anyway. One of those aging things, ya know.
Still….if you could lessen your chances for developing more cavities and adding extra pounds AND perhaps slower-aging telomeres, wouldn’t giving up that daily fix be worth it?
“Doctor Sadler, I am considering moving back to Dallas. Is it safe for me to come home due to the Ebola outbreak in Dallas?” An innocent (yet informed) patient called me this past Monday. Gently, I reassured her that there is no Ebola “outbreak” in Dallas and that it is perfectly safe to return to the homeland.
Even my local homeowners association is flooded with misinformation that it is causing argumentative member emails.
Every day the government andCenters for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are stepping up medical protection protocols. According to CDC director Dr. Frieden:
“For any hospital, anywhere in the country that has a confirmed case of Ebola, we will put a team on the ground within hours.” Dr. Frieden implied that there was a lapse in response to the viral containment in our city and, “…with 20/20 hindsight we could have sent a more robust infection control team and been more hands on with the hospital from day one about exactly how this should be managed.”
The CDC has now actively pursued all people with contact to Ebola patients in our area and other areas of the country especially now that airplane passengers may be at risk.
Furthermore, our local Garland Independent School District (GISD) has painstakingly cleansed certain schools where students in remote contact with the most recent Ebola patient attend. Dallas County Health and Human Services has provided communication and reporting information as well.
My own clinic has in place Ebola protocols and we are equipped with special protective gear. Patients are all verbally screened when they walk in the door and our clinic and hospital system have been educated and trained with information about the signs and symptoms of the Ebola infection.
Do we now all share a heightened concern about Ebola? Yes, because this virus has the potential to be a devastating widespread disease. In Africa scientists attribute much of the Ebola spread to its presence in crowded urban towns with poor sewage systems and lack of access to basic hygiene (New England Journal of Medicine Oct 2014) .In Dallas, the initial medical response to a single case of Ebola was delayed, but we don’t face the same sanitation challenges and we now have sufficient measures in place to contain and decrease the possibility of an Ebola outbreak here. The important news here is that everyone be responsible for their own safety and the safety of their loved ones. Use good decision making and contact your local Dallas County Health and Human Services or your medical provider if you feel you may be at risk. Follow ALL their instructions especially if isolation is needed.
*written with assistance from Zhaleh Amini-Vaughan, 3rd year medical student Texas A&M Scott and White Health Science Center
