Columns
Sometimes they need help, often they just need to talk
Suddenly, it seemed as if that old “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” TV ad had sprung to life. Louise Macnair, a widow who is now 93, crashed to the floor in the living room of her Cambridge home and thought, “This is the occasion. I’ve got to push that button.” She did, and…
When a teen-ager’s parent is facing death
Miranda Worthen, now 17 and a senior at Newton North High School, was nine when her mother told her she had breast cancer. Miranda had listened for years to her mother’s stories about her own mother, who died before Miranda was born. Now, as her mother put her to bed that night eight years ago,…
Menstrual cycles and rhythm of disease
What if you had breast cancer and discovered that timing surgery to coincide with a particular point in the menstrual cycle might make a difference in your prognosis? Or what if you had diabetes and learned that insulin sensitivity varies with menstrual rhythms? And what if you were plagued by other miseries, like migraine headaches…
Working with the body’s rhythms
The night belongs to asthma. If you’re one of America’s 10 million asthmatics, you may find that your symptoms vary like, well, night and day, with the odds of an attack vastly greater in the wee hours — about 4 a.m.– than in daylight. But if it’s heart attacks and strokes that worry you, early…
A common sense heat-survival guide
Last summer, a record-setting, five-day heat wave scorched Chicago, making headlines nationwide not just because of the sizzling temperatures — as high as 106 degrees Farenheit — but because older people died by the hundreds. By the time the heat wave was over, there had been more than 700 “extra” deaths, numbers so shocking that…
Painkillers often take toll on stomach
Gabriel Belt, 66, a retired Brookline accountant, figured he was doing the smart thing by taking an aspirin every other day. Both his father and brother had died of cardiovascular problems in their sixties and he knew aspirin could reduce his own risk. He also figured that if he took the aspirin only every other…
Don’t be afraid of . . . your Dentist
You’d rather face the IRS than the dentist? Relax, there are ways to fight the phobia; Michele DerVartanian, a 25-year-old student in Medford, says she was 10 when she learned to fear the dentist. She had a very sore, abscessed tooth, and “I had to have it pulled immediately,” she recalls. The whole family had…
The other heart attack risks – Anger, grief, fear
But just as you can protect against physical triggers, you can protect against the dangers of emotional stress Fifteen years ago, at 10:53 on a February evening, the people of Athens were jolted by an earthquake that measured 6.7 on the Richter scale. Within an hour of the quake and for three days afterwards, terrified…
Getting a Fix on the Thyroid
Three years ago, Ruth Hertz, 66, a self-described “LOL” or little old lady, began feeling lousy. A normally avid tennis player, she found herself dragging around the court. “The tiredness sort of seemed to come on suddenly,” she recalled last week. In fact, Hertz, who lives in Framingham, was “more than tired. I was lethargic….
Disease du jour
You’re convinced you have chronic fatigue syndrome, though you can’t get your doctor to believe you. Or maybe you think you’ve got multiple chemical sensitivity because you seem to be allergic to everything from fabric softener to perfume. Or perhaps it’s some kind of chronic Lyme disease – after all, ticks are everywhere and you…
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