Back pain: Will treatment for the mind, body—or both—help?
If you’ve ever struggled with low back pain, you know that it can be surprisingly debilitating, even if the discomfort is short-term. You may find it difficult to grocery shop,…
Heart problems and the heat: What to know and do
This spring, many parts of United States experienced historic heat waves. Now summer is officially underway, and experts are predicting hotter than normal temperatures across most of the country. Extreme…
Year three of the pandemic is underway: Now what?
Let’s not kid ourselves: the pandemic is still with us, despite how it may sometimes seem. Increasingly, people are going back to work in person. Schools reopened this spring. And…
Recognizing and preventing sun allergies
No one is truly allergic to the sun, but some people are quite sensitive to different types of sun rays and may develop mild to serious reactions after spending time…
Untangling grief: Living beyond a great loss
"The horse has left the barn." Those six words, said by my husband’s oncologist, changed our lives forever, although the sense of impending loss had begun weeks earlier with a…
Weight stigma: As harmful as obesity itself?
Weight stigma, as defined in a recent BioMed Central article, is the "social rejection and devaluation that accrues to those who do not comply with prevailing social norms of adequate…
Younger adults with kidney disease struggle with health disparities
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects an estimated 37 million people in the United States. Often, it begins and progresses silently, causing no obvious symptoms until kidney function is severely impaired.…
Numb from the news? Understanding why and what to do may help
In the spring of 2020, the pandemic catapulted many of us into shock and fear — our lives upended, our routines unmoored. Great uncertainty at the onset evolved into hope…
Corneal transplants becoming more common
At one time, replacement parts for the eyes must have seemed unimaginable. Nowadays, if the inner lens of the eye becomes clouded by a cataract, a routine surgery to swap…
Ring vaccination might help curtail monkeypox outbreaks
By now, you’ve probably heard that there is a monkeypox outbreak traveling around the globe. Cases have spread far and wide, including in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia. It’s…