Skin Cancer And Driving An interesting social change has happened in America. More often older men get skin cancers on their left side and most older women on their right. This is believed to be due to older generations’ attitudes. They believed a man should be the driver and the woman’s place was in the […]
Sometimes You Should Give Antibiotics A Rest
The Uses And Abuses Of Antibiotics
"Doctor I think I have a spider bite!"
To your health care provider, that means MRSA until proven otherwise. Many people who believe they were bitten by spiders actually have Staphylococcus abscesses. MRSA, or Methicillin-resistant Staph aureus, is a strain of bacteria on the march.
Skin Care Tips #1
Getting A Base Tan? Getting a baseline tan before you go on vacation does not offer the sun protection you may think. In fact it probably will lead to a false sense of security and lead to longer exposure time. A baseline tan grants the average Caucasian skin a built-in SPF of about 2-4. You […]
The Fountain Of Youth?
Don’t Fall Prey To So-called Youth Elixirs
The fight against aging is nothing unique to our time.
Ponce de Leon landed in the New World and embarked upon a fruitless quest to find the Fountain of Youth. The first Chinese emperor employed alchemists to concoct mercury elixirs to grant him immortality.
Fingernails And Your Health
What Do You Know About Your Fingernails?
We paint them. Polish them. Trim and manicure them. Bite them. Run them down chalkboards. Our hands are intimate parts of our being and the nails are their crowning symbols. They broadcast our health, diseases, and personalities.
Shingles – The Virus, The Pain and The Vaccine
What Are Shingles?
If you are over 60, chances are that your doctor has immunized you with the shingles vaccine or counseled you to get it. At least that is what the folks at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta hope will happen. But even the best laid medical plans go awry in our world of managed care, cost shifting, and vaccine phobia.
Dispelling the Myths of Rosacea
Suffering From Rosacea? Are you a flusher? A blusher? Tired of that chronic redness on your face or your adult acne? You may very well have a treatable condition called rosacea. Rosacea, or the “Curse of the Celts” as it is historically known, tends to plague those of northern European heritage unequally higher than other […]
Chronic Itch – Important Tips to Stop the Itch
It is said that “chronic itch is the skin equivalent to pain.” Itching disrupts sleep, limits your activities, diminishes your concentration and generally is quite maddening. We will scratch, claw and tear up our skin to satisfy that annoying itch sensation. It is poorly understood by modern medicine but the burden on patients is very […]
Moles And Cancer – Are Your Moles Melanoma?
So You Think Your Moles Look Fine? You have heard the message by now: Melanoma is deadly. You also probably know that it is the fastest growing cancer in the United States and that one American every hour dies from melanoma. Millimeter for millimeter, it is the deadliest cancer. Rather than bore you with statistics […]
The Truth About Baldness
As P.T. Barnum said, “There is a sucker born every minute.” Perhaps nothing speaks better to the validity of this than the multi-billion dollar industry for hair loss. We are all suckers for our hair. It defines us. We groom and style it to communicate different messages to others. We color, twist, braid, clip, and […]