Anxiety and panic symptoms are natural responses to help your body escape from danger or harm. They quickly elevate your heart rate and increase the force of each beat, similar to symptoms of atrial fibrillation. If you’re hiking and run into a bear, the anxiety you experience will help you get away. This is a normal response. But at times, your mind and body can experience anxiety from abnormal responses....
At least temporarily (the Biden administration is appealing), the judge’s order ended obligatory mask-wearing on airplanes — a requirement that has lead to screaming fights between passengers and even assaults on flight attendants. Which raises the question, is it really safe to stop wearing masks, especially now that the highly contagious omicron subvariant BA.2 is causing COVID-19 cases to spike in some parts of the country? We asked Carlos del Rio, MD, distinguished professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, for his take on all things masking....
Currently, about 45 percent of people in the United States are fully immunized against COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and almost 54 percent have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Still, that leaves a lot of Americans only partially vaccinated or not immunized at all. And COVID-19 hasn’t gone away. While infections, hospitalizations, and deaths are on the decline across much of the United States, the highly contagious Delta variant is spreading rapidly....
Yes, it sounds like you experience a classic spring allergy, which is a reaction to trees and, later on in the season, grass. Plant pollens in the air cause the body to release chemicals called histamines, which can lead to a variety of inflammation-related symptoms. For some people, allergy symptoms include watery eyes, sneezing and/or a runny nose. Your main symptom is itchy skin, which is sensitive to the pollen in the air and further irritated by rough fabrics....
If you’re wondering what conditions and symptoms stress can make worse, the answer is simple: all of them. Stress can be experienced in every part in the body. “Basically, our nervous system flows to every tissue in the body,” says Philip Barr, MD, an integrative medicine physician at Duke Integrative Medicine in Durham, North Carolina. “If the stress side of our nervous system is overactive, it literally affects every tissue in our body....
Recognizing Symptoms of Arthritis in the Hands Women are more likely than men to have arthritis in their hands, and often people experience arthritis symptoms in their hands before other signs of arthritis show up. Different forms of arthritis affect the hands in different ways. For example, psoriatic arthritis, a type of arthritis related to the skin condition psoriasis, is most likely to cause pain in the joints closest to the fingernails (called the distal joints), while in osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, cartilage can wear down in all the joints in the fingers and thumb....
How do you get ready for something that will no doubt forever change your life? Facing a breast cancer diagnosis or increased risk of developing breast cancer, is daunting enough, but preparing for a mastectomy — the surgical removal of cancerous or potentially threatening growths in the breast — can be downright terrifying. As you begin planning for your surgery, your brain may be flooded with questions like: What will I be able to wear after surgery?...
“Arthritis Awareness month is an important time to stop and recognize the impact that arthritis has on individuals living with these conditions," says the rheumatologist Alexis Ogdie-Beatty, MD, an associate professor of medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and a medical adviser to CreakyJoints, a support, education, advocacy, and research organization for people living with arthritis and rheumatic disease. “Cancer gets a lot of press and research dollars because people understand the impact that cancer has on a patient and the patient’s loved ones....
Still, here are five important tips to get you started: Protein Liberally BeansLentilsChickpeasTofuTempehSeitan Occasionally ChickenFishSeafoodEggs Rarely or Never Red meat (beef and pork)Cured meats (bacon, sausage, and salami)Processed meat products (chicken nuggets) Oil and Fat Liberally Extra-virgin olive oilAvocados and avocado oilOlives Occasionally Canola oil Rarely or Never Trans fatsMargarineButter Fruits and Veggies Liberally Nonstarchy veggies, (zucchini, eggplant, bell peppers, artichokes, and dark greens)Starchy veggies (sweet potatoes, potatoes, and root vegetables)All fruits (peaches, cherries, apricots, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries)...
Mobility refers to the way your joints move inside their socket. “Mobility is the ability to move your joints freely with the surrounding tissues allowing the movement to happen smoothly,” says Denise Cervantes, an ACSM-certified sports performance and fitness specialist based in San Bernardino, California. Think, for instance, the way the shoulder moves when you’re doing an arm windmill or arm circle. It’s related, but not synonymous with flexibility. Flexibility refers to the ability to lengthen or hold a muscle in a stretch....
Your doctor will keep a close eye on your TB once you start receiving treatment to make sure that the tuberculosis treatment is working and that you’re no longer able to pass the disease on to anyone else. Doctors will look for physical signs that you’re improving and that the active tuberculosis disease is being destroyed. Tests will also be done to look for signs that your body is responding to tuberculosis treatment....
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has followed suit and is also updating its website with the term “mpox.” The WHO made the change in an effort to fight racism, discrimination, and stigma that has been associated with the disease, which primarily affects men who have sex with men. “In several meetings, public and private, a number of individuals and countries raised concerns and asked WHO to propose a way forward to change the name,” wrote the organization....
We get fatigued, and any cognitive symptoms we may have seem to worsen. And as we find ourselves more burdened by this cog fog, we seem to become even more overwhelmed and fatigued. It’s like the ascending and descending staircases of an M.C. Escher lithograph: We don’t know if we’re going up or down or even if we’re moving at all. The Worse the MS, the More the Impact of Fatigue A recent study helped researchers identify why it is that people with progressive MS in particular experience what they deemed “fatigue and dual-task impairment of walking and cognition....
As for technical medical staff, there are the seen and the unseen. From blood tests and MRI scans to physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and getting braces fitted … for each person we work with directly, there may be three or four with whom we do not. The same is true for pharmacy staff. And then there is our support network of family, friends, professional assistance, and patient advocacy organizations to consider....
National Multiple Sclerosis Society 800-344-4867 Multiple Sclerosis Association of America 800-532-7667 Multiple Sclerosis Foundation 888-MSFOCUS (673-6287), 954-776-6805 National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke 800-352-9424 Brain&Life Patient education from the American Academy of Neurology Can Do Multiple Sclerosis 800-367-3101, 970-926-1290 Race to Erase MS 310-440-4842 MS International Federation 44 (0) 20 7620 1911 International Progressive MS Alliance RealTalk MS Podcast hosted by Jon Strum focusing on MS news and research National Multiple Sclerosis Society Find Doctors and Resources U....
Each month, we dive deeply into lab reports, journals, and conferences to bring you the most highly anticipated innovations coming down the pike for one of the most dreaded diseases: cancer. This month, in honor of Lung Cancer Awareness Month, our focus is on lung cancer. Among the new developments to keep an eye on: A Drug That Works Against Breast Cancer May Help Fight Lung Cancer, Too The tumors of some people with breast cancer express a high level of the protein HER-2, or there are HER-2 mutations that help the tumors grow and proliferate....
To save money on lodging, the group drove in shifts. After arriving in Boulder, Colorado, after 20 hours of travel, they all felt nauseated, headachy, and a little short of breath, symptoms of altitude sickness. While camping at a national forest that night, Burgess noticed that her left leg was swollen and painful. The next day, when the group began climbing Mount Elbert, Colorado’s highest peak, Burgess felt even worse....
Diagnosed in about 55,000 Americans each year, pancreatic cancer is predicted to become the second leading cause of cancer death, behind only lung cancer, by the year 2020, according to a research review published in June 2016 in Future Oncology. While pancreatic cancer accounts for only 3 percent of malignancies in the United States, it has a high mortality rate and accounts for about 7 percent of all cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society....
The fellow vocalist called 911 and helped Marciel remove her head piece and change out of her swimsuit and into street clothes. “While we were waiting for the ambulance, I laid on the floor with all these folks who were part of the production and the lead singer surrounding me, holding my hand and telling me everything was going to be okay,” she says. “It was a surreal experience.” In the hospital emergency room, the doctor told her that she was having a heart attack....
A new Canadian study presented as a late-breaking clinical trial on December 12 at the National Lipid Association Conference found that the prescription drug Vascepa (icosapent ethyl) shows some promise for treating the symptoms of mild to moderate COVID-19. Those treated with the drug had a 25 percent reduction in the inflammatory biomarker high sensitivity C-reactive protein (CPR), and COVID-19 symptoms were significantly reduced compared with patients who were untreated....
