What’s in a name? A Lot A one-woman campaign has been going on since 2009**. It’s led to a blog, a foundation, awards and an awareness day (February 2). Yet this woman isn’t done yet! She’s on a mission to change the name and the understanding of a terrible autoimmune disease that affects over 1.3 million in the US according to data from 2009. ...
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Lung Cancer Facts In 2014, its been estimated that there will be 224,210 new cases of lung cancer and 159,260 deaths in the US. Sadly, one of the people lost was a brilliant young woman that we featured last year, Jessica Rice. She died March 14, 2014, after 2 1/2 years of treatment at age 32. Lung cancer patient survival rates have not increased...
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We’ve been asked by our subscribers to help them find online support groups/forums for their medical conditions. Therefore, from time to time, we’ll review a medical condition, and the online support forums and groups for this specific condition. We’re starting with hypertension / high blood pressure. The main reason we’re beginning...
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One of the most eloquent books about life, love and understanding is called A River Runs Through It. Written in 1976 it starts, “In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly-fishing…” and takes you on a journey through the natural beauty that is the Black River in Montana where fly-fishing is art and...
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“There is no health without mental health” This week is Mental Illness Awareness Week (October 5-11). Working at the intersection of physical and mental health is Ann Becker-Schutte, PhD, a Kansas City psychologist whose practice is focused on supporting people impacted by serious illness. “Challenging stigma requires that you have some...
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Being a Spoonie You may not know it but if you are a patient with a chronic illness, you may be a spoonie. In 2010 Christine Miserandino wrote a post called The Spoon Theory. In the post, Christine describes explaining to her best friend what it really feels like to live with Lupus. She asks her friend to hold 12 spoons and tells her that the spoons are...
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Why does nature repeat the same forms over and over again? This is a question that has driven Dr. Mina Bissell‘s cancer research. In a 2012 TED talk, Dr. Bissell spent 17 minutes summarizing decades of research–asking and answering unique questions that are toppling and evolving our understanding of cancer. Developmental Genetics Her talk...
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Blood pressure measurement history Before the first sphygmomanometer, doctors put tubes in arteries to measure systolic blood pressure. Happily, in 1881 Samuel Siegfried Karl Ritter von Basch figured out a way to measure blood pressure in a less invasive way, using a rubber ball that restricted blood flow to the artery and attaching that to a column of...
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“Based on our 20 years’ experience working with families with cancer-predisposing mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2, it is time to offer genetic screening of these genes to every woman, at about age 30, in the course of routine medical care.” A recommendation to screen all women, around age 30, for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations? “many women with...
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It’s TIME! Today is the first day of the “leading patient-centered conference on emerging technology andmedicine” the 2014 Stanford Medicine X Conference. For four days, patients, business leaders in new technology, health care professionals mingle, share, explore and learn from each other in amazing surroundings. It’s Silicon...
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When Peter Devereaux learned he had breast cancer, he was dumbfounded. He wrote in 2009, “It was the first time I knew I had breasts….It is such a weird ordeal not only to have cancer, but to also have a women’s cancer.” Devereaux, like many others with male breast cancer, was caught at a late stage- 3b- in 2008. In 2009, before he’d...
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In the Beginning Feeling alone in your life journey–with illness as your companion—can make the burden of chronic disease seem unbearable. As Kerri Sparling writes, “For much of my life, I was the only diabetic I knew…. Where were all the people who were living with this disease, like I have been since I was a little girl? Was I the only...
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