Patients and physicians unfamiliar with fibromyalgia are rightfully a bit shocked when they learn the average fibro patient uses five prescription drugs to make it through her day. Not one of these is “for fibro,” in the sense of a cure, the way penicillin cures a strep throat. The medications don’t even actually treat fibro, the way insulin treats diabetes. At their best, the drugs (sometimes) reduce symptoms.
Fibromyalgia: Gender Discrimination and Fibro Pain
Let me start with a fact that many doctors acknowledge but prefer not to discuss: Numerous well-conducted studies have shown that all chronic pain patients, but especially women, are seriously undertreated by physicians.
Fibromyalgia: The Fatigue Part
Right up there with pain, the second most common symptom of fibromyalgia is a constant sense of profound exhaustion. Disability insurance companies, people who don’t have fibro, and (sadly) most doctors can’t appreciate the extraordinary degree of this fatigue.
Fibromyalgia Explained: Why the Pain?
To understand fibromyalgia and why so many doctors tell their fibro patients, “All your tests are normal,” you need to think about serotonin, the brain chemical that acts as a buffer against stress.
Fibromyalgia Explained: Part 1
Hey, listen. Since May has been declared Fibromyalgia Awareness Month, even if you don’t have it I’d appreciate your plowing through the next couple of health tips and learning something about this miserable condition, which affects more than 15 million people, 95% of them women.
Women + Certain Carbs = Early Death
This is one of those “Not fair!” studies, an “Is there no justice?” piece of research that underscores the importance of gender in health.
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.
Food Sensitivity Elimination Diet
Purpose: To identify hidden food allergens that may be causing some or all of your symptoms. During the elimination period, all common allergens are completely eliminated from the diet for two to three weeks. After your symptoms improve, foods are added back one at a time to determine which foods provoke symptoms.
Don’t Shoot the Messenger
I recently listened to the sociologists-epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett discussing their book The Spirit Level on NPR. A few days later, they were on Book TV and soon I was reading a lengthy piece on them in the London Review of Books. The publicity worked and I bought the book. By the way, a spirit level is the same as a bubble level, the carpenter’s device containing a bubble in liquid to ensure whatever’s being constructed is plumb.
Health Care Reform: My Long Sigh of Relief
I’d been watching CSPAN on and off since 9 a.m. Sunday morning. Twelve hours later, by the time the House finally passed the health care reform bill, I was emotionally exhausted, had a throbbing headache, and was getting depressed over how I’d write this health tip if the bill failed to pass.
Poisoned by an Antibiotic
Although he was only in his early thirties, he moved like an old man with widespread arthritis. At the stairs, he supported himself on the short banister to keep his full weight off his feet. It looked as if every one of his muscles were in pain.
Europe’s Healthcare System
I’m writing this health tip to respond to a question I get almost daily from my patients, who ask not my opinion of the current health care bill, but rather whether or not I’m worried about “government control” or “socialized medicine.” Since most Americans haven’t studied how health care is financed elsewhere in the world, here’s some information to consider.
Help for Your Fading Sex Drive
In last week’s health tip, I talked about Big Pharma’s predilection for creating illnesses to fit new chemicals, and how the controversial hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) was a “perfect match” for a failed antidepressant called flibanserin.
Your Sex Drive, the FDA, and Big Pharma
Strange trio, right? But keep this health tip in mind a few months from now when you’re watching a sexually charged TV commercial for a (yet unnamed) prescription libido enhancer as your wonder “Didn’t I read about this somewhere?”
Healthcare PTSD
A new syndrome is on the rise, and I call it healthcare PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). I’m seeing more and more examples of it among my new patients and it’s got me worried. Why? Patients are coming to me with symptoms of depression/anxiety and/or obsessive thinking triggered by having entered the health care system. Our US health care system, allegedly the finest in the world.
Riboflavin (vitamin B2)
Riboflavin is a water-soluble vitamin which is also known as vitamin B-2 or vitamin G. Riboflavin plays a key role in the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins in the body. In the body, riboflavin is converted into flavin mononucleotide (FMN), which is then converted to the coenzyme, flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD). As part of the electron transport chain in the mitochondria, FAD is central to each cell’s energy production. These two flavoproteins and other enzymes that rely on them are also involved in the metabolism of several other vitamins.