Two related ideas come together in this Health Tip and I want to convey why this is all happening. First, a large part of our day at WholeHealth Chicago is spent dealing with insurance companies denying you benefits. Second, many patients have been telling me about the wave of anxiety they feel every time a […]
Category: Women’s Health
A Gynecologist Joins The Team At WHC: Welcome Andrea Lee, MD
It may surprise you to learn that WholeHealth Chicago has been trying to find the right gynecologist to join our group for more than 16 years. “What?” you ask. “Why so long?” We did know we needed one. Just sit in our waiting room or shop the apothecary and it occurs to you that a […]
Can Your Diet Actually Prevent Breast Cancer?
An important study published this week in JAMA Internal Medicine confirmed what doctors had suspected for some time but had been unable to prove. You can definitely reduce your risk of developing invasive breast cancer by pledging to follow that Mediterranean Diet you’ve read about but never got around to taking seriously. Researchers in Spain […]
Some Good News About DCIS and Worrisome Mammograms
I’ve lost track of the number of women who’ve told me something like this: “My mammogram experience was horrible. They called me back with this get-in-here-right-away sense of urgency. I was terrified. They took lots of pictures, talked about calcifications. I had one biopsy, then had to return for another. The suspense was horrible.” And […]
The Girl Who Smelled Like Pennies
She could not get rid of the awful taste in her mouth. Metallic, she described it, like having pennies in your mouth. Two years it had been. She’d tried a tongue scraper to no avail. Changed her diet, swished an assortment of mouthwashes, rinsed her sinuses with a neti pot, and then, thinking she might […]
How Many Women With PMS Does It Take To Screw In A Light Bulb?
(Snarl your answer) “JUST ONE! ME! HEY, BUDDY–YOU GOT SOME SORT OF PROBLEM WITH THAT?!” Ah, PMS. Even if you don’t ever want a baby let’s see if we can fix things so you don’t have to put up with this crap for 30 years. I can write about PMS, and over the years have […]
WTF Happened To My Sex Drive?
I don’t mean to catch you mid-croissant on this topic, but I want to report the latest research on a woman’s libido and its relationship to her masturbation activities. If you’re a woman in your mid-40s or older, partnered or not, straight or gay, you may have noticed something about your sex drive you’re not […]
Menopause and Acupuncture: Great News For Women
Some women sail through menopause like they’re traversing the calm waters of Walden Pond. You know who you are. First, your periods seem to be changing a little–shorter, longer, irregular, but overall not worth much thought. Then one day you realize you haven’t had one in months. “Well,” you think to yourself. “That was a […]
Melanie’s PMS Hell
A smart woman in her mid forties, Melanie had written “Bad PMS” neatly on our patient intake form, and then gone on to trace the word “Bad” several times with her pen and underlined it. Until about ten years ago, the odds were stacked against women like Melanie, trying to get help from their doctors […]
What’s Your Risk? Breast Cancer in the News Again
I was pleasantly surprised to learn how much damage occurred at the Susan G. Komen Foundation in response to its astonishingly wrong-headed decision to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood. Women (and smart men) around the country were rightly outraged that money earmarked for the breast cancer screening of low-income women–not for family planning or […]
DIY Sex Drive Enhancement for Women
I suspect men have wanted to control female sexuality since the dawn of time. Certainly aphrodisiacs (named after Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and desire) appear in the medical writings of ancient Greece, and in Chinese medicine the perfect combination of acupuncture and herbs is supposed to work wonders. Ayurvedic practitioners have suspected that chiropractic […]
Qigong for Women’s Breast Health
True prevention for breast health is an active, life-enhancing process. From the Chinese medicine perspective, maintaining a strong internal energy system is the key to true prevention. Life force or the intelligent energy that powers your body’s physical organ systems must flow smoothly throughout the body and the organ systems have to work together harmoniously. […]
Women, Baseball Bats, Men, and Serotonin
One morning a couple weeks ago, I opened the Chicago Sun-Times to see photos of two accomplished young women who’d been beaten unconscious by a man with an aluminum baseball bat. They’d both been admitted to an intensive care unit. The perps were tracked down when they used one of the victim’s credit cards to buy gas.
Women, ADD, and the Drugs That Help
In my last couple health tips we’ve been discussing Claire, a woman in her thirties with attention deficit disorder (ADD). Last week we reviewed Claire’s non-medication approach. This week, I’ll go over the conventional medications used for this very common condition.
Women and ADD: Part 2
Last week we introduced Claire, one of the millions of women with ADD (attention deficit disorder), who readily acknowledged the condition explained her struggles with school, job, relationships, and the general chaos of her apartment. And why she was a half hour late for her appointment.
Women and ADD: Part 1
Already ten minutes late for her first appointment, Claire phoned from her car that she’d be in the office in five minutes. Fifteen minutes later, she arrived flustered and embarrassed, and “Oh, my gosh, I left all the forms on my kitchen table, but I did fill them out,” and “My insurance card? I’m sure I had it, I can call my husband, he has one, I think,” and “Could you please put money in the meter for me, I just realized I forgot and I have s-o-o-o many tickets…”
Women and Weight: Don’t Shoot the Messenger
During a typical week in the office, sometimes I think the number of women who tell me “I’m trying to lose weight” is equal to the very number of women patients I see.
Hopping for Strong Bones
Although it’s the Christmas season, the title is not Shopping for Strong Bones. It is actual hopping, of the jumping-up-and-down variety. With or without a mini-trampoline (great fun, by the way, and readily available online).
Exercise researchers are spending more time these days determining which forms of exercise actually produce specific health benefits. Several weeks ago I wrote about the findings that exercise didn’t help with weight loss unless you cut calories, too.
Mammogram Controversy
As if we didn’t have enough health concerns to worry about, with H1N1 flu in our midst, health insurance reform bills in the Senate, and the specter of no insurance as a consequence of the recession.
Now mammograms.
More on Infertility
Many couples struggle with issues of infertility, and last week I voiced my concern about the one-size-fits-all approach that most conventional infertility centers take, along with their reluctance to offer simple, inexpensive, and safe nutritional and alternative therapies first.