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Pap smear: Saving Lives Since 1943
The Pap smear is a screening tests for cervical, vaginal and endocervical cancer. To be more specific, a physician looks in and up the vaginal canal with a clear vaginal speculum, opening the vaginal canal to see the vagina and cervix. The cervix, ... Views: 708
Pancreatitis: How Serious is it?
The pancreas, like many other of our organs, doesn’t come to mind much when it is humming along doing its job. The problem is that when something starts to misfire in the pancreas, pandemonium commences to result in the rest of the body. For instance, various ... Views: 1154
Natural childbirth
I keep a copy of the obstetric bill for my birth and mother’s four day stay in the hospital. It was $63.29. Of course it was 1947, but still. The average hospital birth these days with a discharge in twenty-four hours is $8,000 to $10,000. Childbirth is the biggest source of ... Views: 712
Nausea and Vomiting
I don’t think anyone of normal intelligence and human experience needs a long dissertation on the experience of nausea and vomiting. Nausea is the anticipatory sensation that one is going to vomit. Vomiting itself is the reflex mechanism by which the stomach upwardly expels ... Views: 819
Auto Accidents
Motor vehicular accidents are a leading cause of death and non-fatal trauma in the United States. Although statistics have improved with safer cars, more diverse law enforcement and better roads, annual deaths in the US still exceed 41,000. There are over 1,700,000 crashes a ... Views: 691
MRSA
Staphylococcus aureus: This bacterium, often called Staph, is one of the most common causes of skin infections. It is a double sphere shaped bacteria. Staph is one of the most common causes of skin infections. It is differentiated by a coagulation test. They place the bacteria in a test ... Views: 901
Moles
There are parts of skin cells within the skin called melanocytes. The melanocytes normally produce pigment and are evenly spread throughout the skin. They are stimulated by the sun light to grow and expand. Sometimes they grow together in clumps surrounded by normal skin. This clump of ... Views: 976
Miscarriage of Pregnancy
With all things considered, the birth of a normal, healthy baby is quite the miracle. Most people aren’t aware that estimates of miscarriage range between 20% and 50% of all pregnancies. Some are inevitably so early that the mother never knew she was pregnant or had ... Views: 785
Menopause
Menopause is the normal process of the ovary ceasing to produce eggs for reproduction. As a consequence, in the absence of developing egg follicles where estrogen was previously produced, the female body attempts to adapt to the decreasing levels of estrogen. Sometimes this can be a ... Views: 683
Melasma the Mask of Pregnancy
Melasma is called a facial dyschromia, that is, a disorder of facial pigmentation that accompanies about seventy per cent of all pregnancies. It usually starts after the third month of pregnancy, and most commonly affects the centrofacial area which includes the ... Views: 885
Marital Problems
I’ve never seen a marriage in which the couples did not enter with a lot of optimism about the future. We’ve all been confronted on a daily basis with the conflicts which couples go through, either by our hearing gossip, or seeing the drama played out on television or in the ... Views: 827
Lymph Nodes: Big or Swollen?
I’ll bet when you go into see your doctor for all or part of a physical examination, you wonder why he probes and presses around your neck, under your arms, maybe around your elbow, in the left-sided spleen area, perhaps in the groin or behind the knee. He is ... Views: 4687
Lower Back Pain
In a busy primary clinical practice, at least one patient a day comes in with a backache. It is one of the most common human ailments. Most of the problems are with the lower back; and no wonder. The lower back is the "foundation" on which most of the other muscle movements base ... Views: 641
Loss of health insurance
The current economic situation of job loss, occupational insecurity, and the hardships of unemployment continue to be a topic of discussion in our community, within the healthcare industry, and in governmental policy making organizations. The job loss numbers for 2008 ... Views: 692
The current economic situation of job loss, occupational insecurity, and the hardships of unemployment continue to be a topic of discussion in our community, within the healthcare industry, and in governmental policy making organizations. The job loss numbers for 2008 were 2.6 million jobs, and ... Views: 772
Energy and mass are two primary states in the universe. One is matter and the other is energy which does possess minimal mass. Energy usually has a specific frequency which is how wide the wave, which is the width which is the wavelength. Amplitude of how high or low the peak and trough of the ... Views: 831
Unfortunately, kidney stones are a fact of life. One out of ten Americans will experience a kidney stone sometime during their lives. They seem to occur with greater frequency in the Southern United States, hence the name, "The Stone Belt." Although a great number of tiny stones are probably ... Views: 975
Hemorrhoids are varicose type veins of the anal area. They are much like a surgical glove squeezed in the fingers to create a big bulge. These bulges filled with blood coagulate and form clots. This stretching of the blood vessel causes pain, and the clot maintains stretching of the vein causing ... Views: 4097
There are basically two kinds of human colons: happy colons and unhappy colons. When it’s happy, all five feet of it, it is the terminal end of the digestive tract and functions to remove water and salts from the foods digested above it, and it is the structure which forms regular evacuations of ... Views: 915
It’s easy to take your feet for granted. Day after day they perform without a hitch until that one day when something is just not right. Sit in a busy podiatrist’s office one day and watch the people hobble in on crutches canes, splints and bandages, and you’ll quickly get the drift of this ... Views: 948
Flu (Part 2)
There is one other very important Flu group: Kids. Their immune systems just have matured and acquired the antibody response that healthy adults have. In shear numbers, children get the Flu 2 to 3 more times than adults. That is why we are hearing tragic stories about otherwise ... Views: 739
Flu (part1)
The 2009-2010 flu seasons was supposed to be "routine." Usually, patients take their seasonal flu shot. Those people who had flu symptoms normally go to the doctor's office for an exam and testing. It is usually easy to spot the flu patients. Among the usual nasal congestion and ... Views: 1304
Financial Stress and Hardship
The American public is diffusely under financial stress and hardship. More and more people are finding difficulty paying for things they once considered necessities. Steaks for dinner are giving way to dishes of macaroni and cheese. People are skipping lunches ... Views: 1311
Common Eye Problems in Primary Care
Almost every day that goes bi in Primary Care, one or more eye problems present for care. These may range all the way from simple and easily remedied to emergent, needing quick referral to an eye specialist. The purpose of this article is to present a ... Views: 2690
The Dangers of Dehydration
Most adults understand the concept of dehydration. It is the state where the body puts out or loses more water than it takes in. A lot of common sense advice stems from this understanding: “drink plenty of fluids if you are going to be working in the sun” or “Rest ... Views: 1980
A cough may be a good thing or a bad thing. Mostly, it's a good thing. It alerts your nervous system, both consciously and subconsciously, that some problem is in the respiratory airways that shouldn't be there. This is not the case where someone has a psychogenic problem where they cough when ... Views: 1022
Let’s suppose that you were laid off in your construction job due to the decrease in housing starts. Other than the obvious change in income, you notice an interesting phenomenon: that rash on your hands and feet gradually goes away. You’re wearing jogging shoes instead of your favorite work ... Views: 1422
Conjunctivitis is an inflammation, redness, edema, swelling, hypervascularization, discharge, or infection of the conjunctiva. The conjunctiva is the clear, very thin protective membrane that covers the white sclera of the eye and the inside of the eyelids. The conjunctiva can easily become ... Views: 1347
Chlamydia and Sexually Transmitted Infections
All physicians want every sexually active patient to know and understand that one of the most prevalent Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) is Chlamydia. It occurs in about an estimated 4 million patients per year. The second most common is ... Views: 733
Chest Infections, Asthma & Allergy
Bronchitis is an infection/inflammation that can be caused by viral, bacterial, mycoplasmic, rickettsiae, parasitic or allergic reaction in origin. This affects the big, main air transportation tube systems of the lung all the way to the smallest tubal at ... Views: 2279
Breast Feeding
Breastfeeding is considered by many experts to be the final phase of pregnancy. The mother is continuing to supply everything the infant needs to grow and develop. However, in this process the infant is learning the physical dimension of feeling and sensation, and is beginning to ... Views: 872
Let’s say, for purposes of illustration, that I am a primary care practitioner seeing a three year old boy for the first time. He evidently has been seen elsewhere for colds and minor illnesses but I do not have access to his well baby check-ups, if he has had them at all. I notice that the ... Views: 1455
Arthritis Osteoarthritis and Gout: The Top Three
There are many forms of arthritis. Arthritis means inflammation of a joint. It can be due to trauma with damage to the cartilage and bleeding into the joint. It can be due to infection, with disseminated bacteria or a puncture wound into the ... Views: 1340
If you’re sitting in a tornado shelter feeling apprehension about a tornado warning on the radio, then you probably have a normal fear response to your circumstances. If you’re sitting in there on a clear day, trembling, sweating and feeling doomed, then you probably have an anxiety disorder. ... Views: 845
Anxiety is a medical and psychological condition or feeling very hyper or overwhelmed in different situations. It may have shortness of breath, increased heart rate, sweating, increased respirations, shaking, and even very rarely emotional blackouts. It may result in forms of panic, tension, ... Views: 716