Category: Health

Kate Mitchell was 10 years old when she started having pain in her ankle. It wasn’t until she was 19 when she got diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). And by the time she found  medication that worked for her, she was 21.  In the meantime, she turned to remedies ranging from ice to acupuncture to feel better.  Kate Mitchell “I have tried many, many things over the years,” says Mitchell, of Boston, now 32.  People with rheumatoid arthritis often experiment with different treatments before finding the best way to handle their symptoms. Sometimes they’re searching for solutions before they’ve been ... Read more

July 25, 2023 – Losing weight is an important part of type 2 diabetes care – it could help lower blood sugar and reduce the need for some diabetes drugs. To shed the extra pounds, new research shared on Monday shows that intermittent fasting is an effective way to cut calories for people with type 2 diabetes.  Intermittent fasting refers to eating only within a limited time window. In this study, featured at the annual conference of the American Society of Nutrition, patients assigned to that group could only eat between noon and 8 p.m. each day – a practice also called time-restricted ... Read more

Three people share their experiences with the chronic condition and what they’ve learned about finding treatments that really help. Anikah Salim got a headache in September 2014. No big deal. She had dealt with headaches since she was a kid. Usually, over-the-counter medication was enough to chase them away. But this one was different. The drugs didn’t seem to dent it. Plus, it just wouldn’t go away. After enduring 3 days of excruciating pain, Salim took herself to the emergency room. It would be almost a year before her headache disappeared. “It was like basically a hammer, just someone pounding ... Read more

July 26, 2023 – Summer is a time of fun and enjoyment, vacations, camp, and family trips. But many popular activities of summer, such as swimming, can have safety risks, especially to the eyes and ears. Usiwoma Abugo, MD, an ophthalmologist in Norfolk, VA, and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, shares the story of “Linda,” 16-year-old who recently consulted her because her right eye was red, irritated, and severely painful in sunlight. (Abugo changed the patient’s name and identifying information to protect her privacy.) Linda had no history of trauma, and nothing like this had ever happened ... Read more

July 26, 2023 – Ditching meat and eating vegetarian may lower your cholesterol, help you lose weight, and improve your blood sugar control, new research shows.  Those benefits help those of us with heart or other vascular diseases, or are at a high risk of having them.  The findings were published this week in the journal JAMA Network Open. The results “demonstrate that consuming a vegetarian diet exerts a modest but significant effect in … reducing multiple key risk factors,” including the “bad” LDL cholesterol; HbA1c – a measure of average blood sugar over 3 months; and body weight, especially ... Read more

When 69-year-old Keith Guernsey from Gainesville, GA, first found out he had multiple myeloma, it was a complete shock. He’d just gotten past prostate cancer surgery and was looking forward to putting cancer behind him. He hadn’t noticed any signs of another health problem. But, blood tests his doctor ordered related to the earlier cancer led to the unthinkable: Guernsey was facing a new, and this time treatable but incurable, cancer diagnosis. “My wife became my sole caregiver because the rest of my family is scattered,” Guernsey says. He took advantage of online support groups, where he met people all ... Read more

Multiple myeloma is a rare type of blood cancer that affects less than 1% of Americans. It can take a serious toll on your life. But better treatments and more awareness of the disease bring power and hope. And a diagnosis doesn’t mean you have to put your life on hold. Here are a few other things you may not know about multiple myeloma. Multiple myeloma affects plasma cells, infection-fighting white blood cells that are a key part of your body’s defenses, or immune system. The cancer starts in your bone marrow, the soft, spongy tissue inside bones where blood ... Read more

Ramae Hamrin, 50, learned to expect the unexpected in her personal relationships after she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2018. The northern Minnesota resident says her best friend distanced herself, seemingly unable to deal with Hamrin’s cancer diagnosis and strongly suspicious of modern medicine. Hamrin had drifted from her nearby mother and sister, but she expected those emotional bonds to reform given her condition. That didn’t happen. They came around less often after she seemed to improve during chemotherapy, Hamrin says. Fellow teachers sent cards with money and gifts, but only one consistently kept in touch. “I was surprised ... Read more

If you or a loved one has just learned they have multiple myeloma, the diagnosis may come as a surprise. Chances are that you don’t know much — if anything — about this type of cancer, so you’ll likely have a lot of questions for your doctor as you take in the news and begin to make decisions about your treatment. “The majority of patients have never heard of multiple myeloma,” says Krina Patel, MD, a myeloma specialist at MD Anderson Cancer Center. “They’ve all heard of melanoma [skin cancer]. The first thing we tell them is that multiple myeloma ... Read more

Lane Taylor was 23, working as a health center assistant, when her joints became so painful that she began typing with just one finger of each hand. “My fingers were red and swollen like a mild bee sting,” she says. “They hurt all the time.” She tried using ice. The pain subsided, then returned. Sometimes she felt sharp stabs in her knees as well, frequently enough that she stopped playing tennis. One rheumatologist dismissed her concerns. But Taylor, who’d become medically savvy thanks to a cancer diagnosis at age 20, did her own research and felt convinced that she had ... Read more