Columns
Category: General Medicine
Drugs could eradicate a fatal cancer
For years now, the incidence of some types of lymphoma – the cancer that killed former US Sen. Paul Tsongas, Jackie Onassis and Jordan’s King Hussein – has been among the fastest rising of all cancers, and no one is quite sure why. The death rate has been increasing, too. This year, 64,000 Americans will…
Is there a doctor in the hospital
Several months ago, when Lloyd A. Coombs, 61, a retired machinist from Springfield, was rushed to the hospital with congestive heart failure, he was surprised to find the person in charge of his care would not be his primary doctor but one he’d never heard of with a title he’d never come across: hospitalist. Actually,…
Beating anger
Blame it on Aristotle, who believed that watching tragic plays led to a healthy catharsis of emotions like pity and fear. Or on Freud, who, at least in his early days, also took the hydraulic view — that pent-up feelings, like steam in a pressure cooker, need release lest they cause hysteria or phobia. Or…
Lyme disease vaccine is only part of answer
With summer — and tick season — fast approaching, there’s a new weapon available to reduce your chances of catching Lyme disease: a vaccine called LYMErix, approved by the Food and Drug Administration late last year. Now, the bad news. The vaccine isn’t approved for kids under 15 or people over 70. It protects about…
Skin ailment leaves people red-faced
What Allison Taylor hates most about rosacea, the skin problem that turns faces red and makes people look like they’ve had a few too many, is the chronic embarrassment. “I wear a lot of makeup because I’m so self-conscious,” says Taylor, 35, who manages a medical practice in Boston. “I always look sunburned. People ask…
Alcohol’s insidious grip
Barbara Raymond, now in her mid-50’s, started drinking hard as a 15-year-old in Abington. At the time, she had no idea why, though she later linked it to depression. She made her first suicide attempt at 16. At 18, in the throes of alcoholic amnesia, she married a man she’d known for two weeks. He…
Hopes dim for controversial breast cancer treatment
Convinced by doctors that bone marrow transplantation offered the best chance at survival, thousands of women with breast cancer have agreed to the controversial procedure — despite the lack of proof that it could save, or even prolong, their lives more than standard therapy. Indeed, so many women — about 5,000 women a year —…
Chronic pain often goes untreated because some doctors don’t believe their patients
James Murphy is only 26, but some days, he can hardly get out of bed. Three years ago, Murphy, a North Easton man who used to fix power tools for a living, damaged a disc in his back lifting a steel workbench. The injury allowed the jelly-like material that cushions vertebrae to ooze out and…
Anxiety over antidepressants
Modern anti-depressants, for which Americans spent more than $5.6 billion last year, have been a huge boon, partly because they have few disastrous side effects, even in overdose. With older, “tricyclic” anti-depressants like Elavil, for instance, “a 10-day supply could kill you,” says Dr. Michael Jenike, associate chief of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. The…
New drugs fight sores from cancer treatment
The worst part of Colleen Combes’ breast cancer treatment three years ago, besides losing her hair, was the awful mouth sores caused by chemotherapy. These ulcers “were like canker sores that had broken open, only much worse. They were everywhere – on my tongue, the inside of my lips, my cheeks. It was very painful….
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