Back in the Hospital Again

I found myself unexpectedly back in the hospital last month, some 10 years after my last treatment for an aggressive prostate cancer. Fortunately, it had nothing to do with my cancer; my P.S.A. level, a measure of prostate cancer progression, has been undetectable since 2009. Rather, I was there because of a thick, solid rash…

Resolving to Be Coached

My teenage patient looked nervous as I reviewed her glucose readings from her glucometer and her glucose logbook, which people with diabetes use to track their blood-sugar test results. There were a lot of high levels — ranges in the 12’s and 14’s, when the goal was around 7 or 8. The peaks were mostly…

Letter of Recommendation: Ginger Gum

A few months ago, on a Megabus ride into New York from Philadelphia, my assigned seat was the front row of the bus’s upper level, providing an overwhelming panoramic view of the pavement ahead of us — like one of those 3-D IMAX experiences, except instead of being about volcanoes or sharks, it was about…

Predictors of chronic migraine

London, UK: A meta-analysis published in the journal Cephalalgia, the official journal of the International Headache Society, highlights the predictors of chronic migraine. The study, entitled “Predictors of episodic migraine transformation to chronic migraine: A systematic review and meta-analysis of observational cohort studies”, was coordinated by Dr. Dawn Buse, from the Department of Neurology at…

Some surprisingly good news about anxiety

TORONTO, ON – Anxiety disorders are the most common type of psychiatric illness, yet researchers know very little about factors associated with recovery. A new University of Toronto study investigated three levels of recovery in a large, representative sample of more than 2,000 Canadians with a history of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). The study reports…