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As I sit and type today, I am surrounded by boxes, tubs, bags, and packages of holiday decorations that have been vomited from said storage space through that portal to the garret. Add to that the sound of heavy downpours of hail on the roof windows in advance of a North Atlantic storm, and I’ve all the heralding of winter I need. I spent the morning making sure the garden was storm-proofed: barbecue into the shed, planters tucked into corners, all missile hazards secured as best I could....

That’s one reason why, like a lot of exercisers during the COVID-19 pandemic, you’re quarantining your workouts to home, right? Maybe you’ve stocked a corner of your living room or basement with some cardio equipment, free weights, or resistance bands. But if, again, like a lot of exercisers, you haven’t given much thought to cleaning that equipment, you may benefit from breaking out the disinfectant. “Of course there’s a risk if you’re sharing the gym with multiple people in your household, but even if you’re the only person using your at-home gym, that doesn’t mean you aren’t bringing bacteria and viruses into it from external environments,” explains Iahn Gonsenhauser, MD, chief quality and patient safety officer with The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus....

Take a year and a half of living through a global pandemic as an example. It’s likely you had to adjust some self-care practices in some ways, whether it was socializing via video calls, exercising at home rather than at the gym, or wearing a face mask when you left your home. Seth J. Gillihan, PhD, a clinical psychologist in private practice in Haverford, Pennsylvania, and the author of A Mindful Year: 365 Ways to Find Connection and the Sacred in Everyday Life, explains that when it comes to self-care, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, and there’s not even a one-size-fits-you answer that will work for you all the time....

Its roots go back millennia, and the popularity of kombucha has fluctuated over the past 100 years, according to a review published in the February 2019 issue of Annals of Epidemiology. Now it’s reportedly the fastest-growing product in the “functional beverage” market. These are drinks that are marketed for their health benefits beyond nutrition. Kombucha is a fizzy drink made by fermenting tea (generally black tea, though sometimes green tea or oolong tea) and sugar with a biofilm of microorganisms known as a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) for 7 to 10 days....

Resuming physical activity after having COVID-19 has an extra layer of complexity because of the potential of complications, such as myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle), for those individuals known as long haulers, who experience prolonged symptoms of the virus, says Michael Fredericson, MD, professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation in the department of orthopedic surgery at Stanford Medicine in Palo Alto, California. “I think the best advice about exercising after having COVID-19 is to be very careful — this is a challenging disease,” says Dr....

One of the overarching goals in bipolar disorder is to prevent mania, says Konstantin Nikiforov, MD, associate director of the Galynker Family Center for Bipolar Disorder in New York City. Mania is the period where people may make choices that destroy relationships, harm their reputation at work, and create financial problems, among other potentially life-altering consequences. In general, lows follow highs, and “the higher you go, the lower you go,” says Dr....

For many people, the least-expensive way to take insulin is using a needle, syringe, and vial, because these supplies are most likely to be covered under Medicare, state Medicaid plans, and private insurance than other injection methods, according to a study published in European Endocrinology. But syringe delivery is also the most painful and difficult method, with a higher risk of dosing errors and hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) episodes than other methods....

In the Denver metro area alone, there have been 11 reported cases of invasive group A strep (sometimes shortened to iGAS) in children between 10 months and 6 years old, according to a press release from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Although these infections are still rare, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is currently investigating a possible increase. What is invasive group A strep and what symptoms signal a dangerous infection?...

The report, titled “Major Depression: The Impact on Overall Health,” found that diagnoses of major depression swelled by 33 percent between 2013 and 2016, based on data from more than 41 million Blue Cross Blue Shield members. The total of commercially insured Americans suffering from major depression has topped 9 million, according to the research. Depression rates were highest among young people, leaping by 63 percent for teens and 47 percent for millennials....

The coronavirus changed that. What used to be ideological disagreements are now matters of life and death. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, Helen, an accountant, began working from the family’s home, near Chicago. She closely follows guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to reduce her risk of infection by wearing a mask and social distancing when she goes out in public. Richard is a civilian military worker who routinely interacts with others on his job but refuses to take coronavirus safety measures because he believes the virus isn’t a big deal....

Globally, a record high of nearly 40 million children missed a measles vaccine dose last year, including 25 million kids who didn’t get the first of two recommended doses, and an additional 14.7 million who missed their second dose, according to the report, which was issued jointly with the World Health Organization (WHO) November 23. “The record number of children under-immunized and susceptible to measles shows the profound damage immunization systems have sustained during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said the CDC’s director, Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, in the report....

No Substitute for Rheumatoid Arthritis Medication It is important to note that among RA experts, there’s a consensus for early, aggressive, and conventional treatment for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). People diagnosed with RA should never use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies in place of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), which have been proven effective in altering the course of the disease. No other treatment can stop the inflammation, prevent the joint damage, and reduce the risk of long-term complications that are associated with RA the way DMARDs can....

Over time the top COVID-19 symptoms have changed as well. In an updated report issued on December 13, the U.K.-based Zoe Health Study (formerly the COVID Symptom Study) identified the most common current COVID-19 symptoms on data gathered over the course of 30 days prior to December 5 from more than 4.8 million people who use a special app to report signs of infection. According to the most recent analysis, symptoms of infection with the prevailing omicron variant often resemble those of cold and flu....

While I don’t feel nauseated when these episodes hit, I can see how someone might. For me, it’s like the world is moving in a way I’m not used to, and I am trying to move through it the way it used to be. I perceive my vertigo as something of a physical manifestation of what I’ve seen visually represented in film — like the ripples in the air in The Matrix — or something I’ve seen myself, like the view up into the sun from the bottom of a pool on a bright day....

A similar thing might be said for the temperature and price translations (conversions, really) we were asked to make upon moving to our little corner of the EU. At some point, we stopped multiplying the Celsius temperature by 9/5 then adding 32 to get it in Fahrenheit and just got on with accepting that 18 degrees C was a fine day. As for prices, there was no way I was going to look up the currency exchange rate each time I needed to buy petrol in Euros to figure out the price in U....

Still, being diagnosed with MS is not a death sentence — in fact, far from it. In addition to there being several types of MS drug treatments that can reduce the number and intensity of relapses and slow the progression of the disease overall, there are also numerous types of rehabilitative therapies that can help people maintain their mobility and independence and manage their MS symptoms. Many people with MS also try one or more complementary therapies to address symptoms, relieve stress, and improve quality of life....

This trial was initiated on March 23, 2020, at the Montreal Heart Institute in Quebec, and researchers are now partnering with the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “We wanted to bring this study to New York City because our community members are hit hard by this pandemic,” says Michael Pillinger, MD, a professor of medicine and biochemistry and molecular pharmacology at NYU Langone Health and part of the research team....

Because it’s often at its worst when you’re sitting or lying still, pain from nr-axSpA can interfere with your sleep. “A lot of patients with [nr-axSpA] have sleep disturbances compared with the healthy population,” says John Miller, MD, an instructor of medicine in the division of rheumatology at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore. That includes “issues with getting to sleep, staying asleep, and the depth of sleep when a patient is asleep....

An arrhythmia is an abnormality in the normal sequence of electrical impulses in the heart. This can cause the heart to beat improperly and may hinder its ability to pump blood effectively. During surgery to correct an electrical path that was causing Vollmer’s abnormal heartbeat, her doctors thought they discovered something much more serious: long QT syndrome. Long QT syndrome is a heart condition that is usually caused by a genetic abnormality in a ion channel in the heart....

RELATED: What Does Arthritis Pain Feel Like? No Miracle Treatments on the Horizon, Despite New OA Guidelines Under Development The ACR is about to preview new overall osteoarthritis guidelines, but so far there appears to be little change in the recommendations for hand osteoarthritis (OA). Study Asked: Is There a Better Way to Control Hand OA Pain? A small study published November 11, 2019, in The Lancet looked at the effect of low doses of prednisolone, an oral steroid, on pain and function in patients with hand osteoarthritis....