Top medicine articles for October 2014
A collection of some interesting medical articles published recently:Hand-grip strength is an amazingly good predictor of future rates of mortality and morbidity, or sickness http://buff.ly/1BK759H -- Hand grip strength should be considered as a vital sign useful for screening middle-aged and older adults http://buff.ly/1DglFaI -- Measuring hand-grip strength is very simple and cheap. Every primary care doctor should have a dynamometer in their office. At every visit, the doctor could check grip strength for older patients. If someone was in the 45th percentile for their age and the measurements were stable, great. But if ...
Source: Clinical Cases and Images - Blog - October 24, 2014 Category: Universities & Medical Training Tags: Health News of the Day Source Type: blogs
Calling Mrs. Kafka
By HANS DUVEFELT, MD “Prior Authorizations, Mrs. Kafka. May I have your name and the patient’s policy number.” “My name is Hans Duvefelt, and I don’t have the patient’s number but I have her husband’s – it is 123456789”. “Thank you, Doctor. This is for Harry Black?” “Well, no, it’s for his wife, Harriet. We asked […] (Source: The Health Care Blog)
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 30, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: THCB Cymbalta Dead German writers Kafka Lyrica Megascripts Source Type: blogs
I dont travel well any more
I used to travel at the drop of a hat. Skiing for the weekend? No problem. Run off for a weekend hiking in the mountains? Bring it on. Drop everything and head for the beach? Sure. A day in the city followed by dinner out? Let's go!!Now, can we go off for a day of fun? Only if I get enough sleep first. A weekend away? Let me count out my pills to make sure I am prepared. Is there plenty to do if I need to lie down for a bit (so my husband isn't too bored). Are there wimpy activities if I need to change plans? I am traveling, by myself, with my newest purchase, a four wheeled suitcase which is much easier on my back. I will...
Source: Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog - August 1, 2014 Category: Cancer Tags: lack of sleep pills travel Source Type: blogs
Not tonight dear, I had zymosan A injected into my hind paw
This study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience, and the strongly worded quote above is how the authors chose to conclude their abstract. They go to great lengths to “prove” that the loss of libido was due to lack of sexual motivation in the female mice, rather than a direct consequence of pain. The authors also stretch the clinical applicability (and evolutionary validity) of their work a bit beyond belief, in my view. Why? Perhaps because promoting a viable animal model of low sexual motivation in women will ultimately serve drug development purposes (Farmer et al., 2014):The link between pain and sexual moti...
Source: The Neurocritic - May 4, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Am I supposed to be suffering?
I read stories all over the internet and in print about people who are suffering from, a victim of, or a survivor of some ailment I have. I do not consider myself to be suffering, a victim of, or a survivor of any damn thing. I am just living.I do have a new ailment.... Oh joy. But its not that exciting to me. Its called... drum roll.... are you ready.... well.... its.... dry eyes. See, its not exciting just like I said it wasn't and I probably blogged about it before. But its just another little pain in the ass thing in my life. A sign that my body continue to fall apart at an amazing rate. Dry eyes don't sound that...
Source: Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog - March 18, 2014 Category: Cancer Tags: ailments annoyance dry eyes medication costs suffering Source Type: blogs
Fibromyalgia foibles
I have been taking my time to deal with fibromyalgia as it is somewhat complicated. Its not easily understood by most people - as it can have many differing symptoms - all of which have one thing in common: PAIN.My husband knows that he doesn't understand fibromyalgia either and he wants to. He signed us up for a community education course at a local school on fibromyalgia. Originally only he was going but then it turned out both of us were going. I mean I should probably learn as much as possible about one of my many ailments. I know how to spell and pronounce it but there is obviously a lot more.We went to the class. As ...
Source: Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog - March 14, 2014 Category: Cancer Tags: fibro fog fibromyalgia learning pain Source Type: blogs
Pain Medicine News - Fibromyalgia Now Widely Recognized as Requiring Multimodal Approach
Israeli fibromyalgia guidelines published online in November 2013 and Canadian guidelines published in May 2013 follow in the solid footsteps of the 2010 American College of Rheumatology preliminary diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia. The Canadian and Israeli documents eschew an extensive physical examination and a tender-point count, focus on the importance of nonpharmacologic treatments and recognize fibromyalgia as neither a distinct rheumatic nor mental disorder. German guidelines cut from similar cloth were published in 2008."All three guidelines focus on a multimodal approach; and we emphasize the primacy of physic...
Source: Psychology of Pain - March 13, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
You would think I had this under control
I never remember to take my pills. There I said it. Its a combination of being a space shot and well... being a space shot. I remember my morning thyroid pill 99.9% of the time. Its been 32 years so you think I had that one down pat. Then the rest of my day gets complicated.I have a whole pile of pills that I take at dinner time. 98% of the time that happens as well.But the rest of them, forget it.Here are the complicated ones:I am supposed to split up my calcium pills and take one in the morning and one in the evening in the 'pile'. That never happens. I have to take it four hours after my thyroid pill which puts it in th...
Source: Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog - November 27, 2013 Category: Cancer Tags: medications memory Source Type: blogs
Damn, more meds!
And an expensive one at that. My pain doctor put me back on Lyrica. We tried it about four years ago for the nerve pain issues I was having with my back. We decided it didn't really work for me after about 9 months so I went off it. But now that I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, my doctor is suggesting I try Lyrica again.I don't have a problem with it. My fibro pain has been pretty bad. Just sitting still, knitting, watching TV, driving, or whatever, all of a sudden I will get a bone deep pain in my arm that shoots up to about a 9 or so. Then it goes away. So its no like you can treat it specifically. Sometimes I ic...
Source: Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog - November 16, 2013 Category: Cancer Tags: doctor appointments prescriptions Source Type: blogs
Medical Mispronunciations and Misspelled Words: The Definitive List.
Hearing medical mispronunciations and seeing misspelled words are an under appreciated joy of working in healthcare. Physicians often forget just how alien the language of medicine is to people who don't live it everyday. The best part about being a physician is not helping people recover from critical illness. The best part is not about listening and understanding with compassion and empathy. Nope, the best part about being a physician is hearing patients and other healthcare providers butcher the language of medicine and experiencing great entertainment in the process. Doctors c...
Source: The Happy Hospitalist - October 2, 2013 Category: Internists and Doctors of Medicine Authors: Tamer Mahrous Source Type: blogs
Pain, Insomnia, and Diabetes
By David Spero
Studies show that sleep problems contribute to Type 2 diabetes. But diabetes seems to increase pain sensitivity, and pain makes it harder to sleep. What a vicious cycle! What is the pain/sleep/diabetes connection, and what can we do about it?
I've written several times about diabetes and sleep, and also diabetes and pain. But this week I read an article that links all three problems. In the drug information journal MPR (Monthly Prescribing Reference), Debra Hughes, MS, discusses these issues with Victor Rosenfeld, MD, Medical Director of the Sleep Center at the SouthCoast Medical Group, Savannah, Georgia.
...
Source: Diabetes Self-Management - September 11, 2013 Category: Diabetes Authors: David Spero Source Type: blogs
Cases: Anti-epileptic Medicines for Pain Management
Discussion: Tri-cyclic antidepressants (TCAs), serotonin-norepinephrine
reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) and anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) are the mainstays
of adjuvant therapy for neuropathic pain.
This Case of the Month will focus on oral anti-epileptic neuropathic
pain analgesics. Due to lack of head-to-head data, evidence is presented as
numbers needed to treat (NNT) and numbers needed to harm (NNH). For instance,
an NNT of 5 for 50% pain reduction means for every 5 patients treated with a
drug, only 1 of them would achieve a 50% reduction in pain. Gabapentin (Neurontin)
and pregabalin (Lyrica) are considered firs...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - August 30, 2013 Category: Palliative Carer Workers Authors: Christian Sinclair Source Type: blogs
Pfizer's Umpteenth Settlement (for $491 Million Plus a Guilty Plea), but No Person Held Responsible
The world's largest research based pharmaceutical company was in court again, as reported by the New York Times, The drug maker Pfizer agreed to pay $491 million to settle criminal and civil charges over the illegal marketing of the kidney-transplant drug Rapamune, the Justice Department announced on Tuesday. In particular, The recent case centers on the practices of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, which Pfizer acquired in 2009.Rapamune, which prevents the body’s immune system from rejecting a transplanted organ, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1999 for use in patients receiving a kidney tra...
Source: Health Care Renewal - July 31, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: Wyeth impunity crime marketing Pfizer whistle-blowers legal settlements Source Type: blogs
Pfizer Creates Three Separate Businesses, But Spinoffs Are Not Imminent
As promised, Pfizer execs have settled on the latest installment in a much-discussed plan for splitting apart their various businesses. The next step begins in January and involves creating three entities - two will collect prescription drugs, over-the-counter items and vaccines, while a third will specifically house drugs that already face generic competition and still more that will lose patent protection by 2015. Each will operate as a separate global business.
The idea, of course, is to eventually ‘unlock’ shareholder value, a move the drugmaker has increasingly explored over the past two years as a way to deflect ...
Source: Pharmalot - July 29, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: esilverman Source Type: blogs
Scant data on seizure drugs for women's genital pain | Reuters
Although doctors sometimes prescribe anti-seizure drugs to treat chronic pain in the vulva, just a handful of low-quality studies have examined the drugs' effects, according to a new review.
Based on these studies, "it's very difficult to make definitive statements on efficacy," said Dr. Raphael Leo, the study's author from the State University of New York at Buffalo. "Certainly, more investigation is warranted."
Still, "I think that there is promise" for the use of anti-seizure medications, he added.
Chronic pain in a woman's genitals, also called vulvodynia, affects as man...
Source: Psychology of Pain - June 20, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
