health weblog

A bill has quietly been working its way up through Capitol Hill and has just arrived at the White House. Any day now, it will cross the desk of President Bush so he can go through the motions of signing it into law. The aim of this new law is to allow the DEA to take more positive control over the online pharmacy market. According to the lawmakers, too many internet outlets are supplying drugs without a prescription. The whole point of the current face-to-face system is to provide some level of control over who gets access to sometimes dangerous drugs. From the statistics of abuse provided by the Emergency Rooms around the US, many people are abusing prescription drugs. The need for new powers is all the more pressing when the drugs in question are already listed as controlled substances. As it happens, the bill is limited in its scope. It does not apply to online pharmacies unless they are physically based within the US and it does not apply to non-controlled drugs such as the hair-loss medication Propecia. Even more significantly, it does not affect the payment systems. The key measure that effectively shut down many of the online gambling sites targeted credit card payments. There are no provisions to limit credit card or other payment systems, there are no limits on the results on search engines - Google can continue to carry the sites of the offshore pharmacies - and there are no new powers to stop packages as they enter the US. The DEA has been active in shutting down pharmacies or prosecuting those behind online pharmacy operations based in the US. Their primary concern has been to close operations that supply controlled substances in bulk. There is little the DEA can do to prevent people from buying one or two tablets from a street dealer, but it is trying to prevent easy online access to drugs in quantity. As to all the other medications such as propecia, there is no need to worry or change any of your existing practices. Online pharmacies based outside the US can continue to supply you with your medication at a discounted price. In the case of propecia, for example, you can make major savings as against the normal retail price payable in your neighborhood pharmacy.

Headlines are the life blood of newspapers. So any animal story is like a gold to any headline. Now this is the ultimate cat story because the headline misses out the vital reference to squirrels. Yes, it was a double attack.

The cat and the killer squirrels would have been more accurate. But we don’t do sensationalism for its own sake here. We kept it simple. Richie Simmons’ cat was sick. She had visited with the local veterinarian to get drugs. A few days later, she was flat on her back with a high fever. It took a month for the lab to identify the problem. One day, Richie cut her finger but thought nothing of it as she tended to the cat.

Her diagnosis was tularemia. What is this? Well, back in 1911 there was a disease that almost wiped out the squirrel population in Tulare, California so they called it tularemia (creative!). One thing - it was highly contagious between humans and animals. How did the cat come to be infected? It’s going to remain a mystery. Did the cat travel back in time or just visit with some squirrel cousins in California? We will never know… The good news Doxycycline was an almost instant cure. Just goes to show. Once you know which bacteria are making you sick, you get the right antibiotic and get better fast.

Ask a doctor how to deal with constant pain and the most prevalent answer is to prescribe a painkiller, e.g. Ultram. It’s commontrue that the medical profession is under pressure. Not enough doctors are prepared to work in general practice. But prescribing pills is a lazy answer. It gets patients out of the door quickly, but it’s not treating them as human beings with a problem to solve.

The main thought I want to say is that, rightly or wrongly, painkillers have a bad press. Open a newspaper and you’ll routinely see stories of people arrested for dealing in narcotic painkillers, or hooked on them and going into rehab. Folks often need reassurance that a drug like Ultram is safe. More importantly, they need options if they prefer to avoid taking medication for their problems. The medical profession has the resources to deliver physical therapy. Sometimes, it’s at the light end with massage. Other times, it’s at the heavy end with manipulation.

The aim we are trying to achieve, is very simple. Pain, acute or moderate, often arises because joints stiffen and people lose muscle tone through inactivity. So people need to be reintroduced to the idea of mobility. In this, the social interaction between the patient and the therapist is crucial. If trust is established, people work their way through the fear of movement to find they can move without feeling pain or with less pain than they expected. This doesn’t mean people should avoid Ultram. It simply means they should take Ultram only for a limited time and work more at getting better naturally.

Sometimes, a comedian just hits the right note of humor and intelligence to pass through the television screen and feel like a real human being. So often actors and comedians are trying too hard. There’s an archness about their performance. Bernie Mac was a rare talent and to lose him is really disappointing.

The standard treatment is Prednisone. This corticosteroid modifies the immune system, reduces inflammation and, in many cases, induces remission. Bernie Mac had been in remission for some three years before his death.

Although the official cause of death this August was pneumonia, he had been fighting sarcoidosis for many years. This is an autoimmune disease that, somewhat unfairly, operates along racial lines. Black Americans are sixteen times more likely to die than white Americans. There is no cure for this disease.

Although there are some side effects if you take a steroid like Prednisone over longer periods of time, e.g. an increase in body weight, fluid retention, etc. these are prices worth paying for those with this disease.

If it enters the heart or brain, you get symptoms mimicking a stroke or seizures. That Bernie Mac kept going and entertained so many for so long is a testament to the kind of man he was and the therapeutic quality of Prednisone.

I want to warn all weight watchers. The Japanese have just published a scientific report in Polar Biology - another of those must-read journals. OK, so when did you last see a minke whale on your bathroom weighing scales? He’s got a point.

So if you’re holidaying in the polar regions this Fall and see a Japanese researcher coming towards you with one of those big samurai swords, you may decide that you don’t want to be a part of the research. Except that he’s talking about Antarctic minke whales. It’s hard to get a whale to stay still long enough to get an accurate reading. And then there are those caliper things, the “fat pinchers”. Participants lose an average 10% of their body weight and an average 3 inches (8 cm) from their waists. Where would you get pinchers big enough? Seems hard to have to kill them to find out whether their diets are working. How would you like it in a clinical trial? Take these Acomplia tablets for six months and then we’ll kill you to find out how much adipose weight you’ve lost.

Can’t they just guess? Actually, when it comes to human clinical trials, they use advanced science like tape measures for waists. Acomplia has done well. Maybe the minke whales are buying Acomplia online. Let’s not kill them to find out.

Drive down a highway in Australia and you’re likely to see a billboard with the burning question of the day, “Do you want longer lasting sex?” You can think about did they ever think about auditory of readers that will see this advertisement.
I suppose the target market is middle-aged males. The research in Australia shows that only 11% of men who have erectile dysfunction get any treatment. That’s a remarkable finding from a survey. Where do the other 89% of men live their lives? How can they not know about Viagra and how easy it is to get a prescription or buy it online? Frankly, I don’t believe men answer surveys of this type with complete honesty. Be that as it may, men who have problems of impotence are likely to slow the car and read carefully. Suppose they have children in the car with them. Are those same men going to want to answer the inevitable questions, “Do you want a longer sex, Daddy?” or “That’s what Mummy wants!” Parents almost always don’t want to be put in the situation of having to explain sex to their own children. It should all be left to come naturally when they have their first chance on their wedding nights. And what about the religious and high-minded who think that it is never appropriate to talk about sex in public (or most anywhere else for that matter - never sure how these people reproduce)? And these adverts were soon became prohibited.

Back in the 1950s, Richard Boone starred as Paladin in one of the best TV Westerns ever made about a gun for hire. It had a name Have gun, Will travel. No one knew who invented such a funny name for a movie. How can anyone bear to be seen in public with their faces all messed up with zits and pimples? So, they are all in the market to buy Accutane, the surest way to kill acne stone dead. But you can’t have everything. But who cares so long as it works. Obviously, the kids they asked in High School gave higher amounts if their acne was bad. Curiously, their parents averaged around $250 - just to get a little peace around the house. Well, the good news is that $275 buys you a truck load of Accutane - more than enough to see off that acne, so buy some online today!

So, the summer has arrived. That means we have to get interested in Lyme disease all over again. So let’s get the bad news out of the way first. Again and again infections are breaking in. Why is this happening? Because more people are building their houses out in the countryside where there are deer and other animals that carry the ticks. Now add in climate change including global warming. It’s influencing tick feeding behavior.

The good news is that Doxy continues to be a steady performer. You pop the pills for two to four weeks, and the infection clears up. So, many people use antibiotics every year. But over the next two years, there likely to be a change. The Center for Disease Control has begun development of a slow release version of that medication. This may be by injection or by patch for those who are needle-shy. Until this comes out of the lab, you’ll just have to pop the tablets, but life may soon improve.

Doxycycline is one of the tetracycline antibiotics that was developed during the 1960s by Pfizer Inc. It received its FDA approval in 1967. Being a little long in the tooth, it has passed out of patent protection so there are now generic versions on the market. This is great for patients as consumers because the competition between Pfizer and the new manufacturers has brought the price tumbling down. That means if you are unlucky and contract one of the infections caused by a susceptible bacterium, you have a cheap cure available. So if you’re down with pneumonia, a respiratory or urinary tract infection, one of the sexually transmitted diseases or something less common, reach for

If your wifes are gathered together that means that they are talk about food. This statement is right almost in every case. It’s like that bit of Latin geeks use, quid pro quo, which actually means “this for that”. So we get this extra weight for that extra food. Cause and effect. To reverse weight gain couldn’t be easier. And if the diets don’t work, there’s always the pills like Acomplia. All the clinical trials have shown this top European drug shaves an average 10% of your body weight and slims down those waistlines. Most men never talk about diet only when they are talking to their wives. You can’t see man in a company of his friends discussing profits and disadvantages of different types of diets. If they do get worried about their weight, they tend to do it behind closed doors. But still there are many ways to tell Most men I know walk in the house, open the refrigerator and pick out a cold one. It’s a kind of ritual to mark the end of the hunter phase - gather a beer. But now men are giving up beer. They’ve done the math. They know how many calories are in each bottle or can. If that fails, there’s always a cold Acomplia.