Healthline Blogs
Dr. Paul Auerbach is the world's leading outdoor health expert. His blog offers tips on outdoor safety and advice on how to handle wilderness emergencies.
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Oct 15 2012
No Antibiotics for Acute Bronchitis
Acute bronchitis is a cough-related illness of the air passages (bronchi) cough persists for more than five days (it often lasts for 1 to 3 weeks), with or without production of sputum (whitish, yellow or green phlegm, or “secretions”), and som...
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Oct 12 2012
Steroid Injection for Plantar Fasciitis
Plantar fasciitis is inflammation of the fascia (tough connective sheath tissue) that encloses the muscles and tendons that traverse the bottom of the foot. It is a syndrome of overuse, caused by excessive walking or running, particularly assoc...
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Oct 10 2012
Hemostatic Dressing to Manage a Bleeding Leech Bite
In the Spring 2012 issue of the journal Wilderness & Environmental Medicine appears a terrific case report by Preston Fedor entitled “Novel Use of a Hemostatic Dressing in the Management of a Bleeding Leech Bite: A Case Report and Review of ...
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Oct 04 2012
A Newly-Recognized Tick Borne Illness
In the New England Journal of Medicine (2012;367:834-41), there is an article by Laura McMullan, Ph.D. and colleagues entitled “A New Phlebovirus Associated with Severe Febrile Illness in Missouri.” Two men from northwestern Missouri are descri...
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Oct 01 2012
Nifedipine for High Altitude Pulmonary Edema
In the Spring 2012 issue of the journal Wilderness & Environmental Medicine appears an article by Rajesh Deshwal and colleagues entitled “Nifedipine for the Treatment of High Altitude Pulmonary Edema” (WEM 23, 7-10, 2012). It is an interesti...
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Sep 27 2012
Turn Off the Cell Phone and Pay Attention to What You're Doing
It’s well established now that talking on a cell phone while driving leads to increased motor vehicle crashes. So, the law states that one must use a Bluetooth device or be on a speakerphone while driving. Worse than talking on the phone, whic...
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Sep 25 2012
Trimethoprim-Sulfamethoxazole and Drug Interaction
Urinary tract (bladder or kidney) infections are common in all age groups. Many antibiotics are used and are effective to treat these infections. In the overwhelming majority of cases, there aren’t any problems with prescribing antibiotics. Ho...
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Sep 21 2012
Steroids for Bell's Palsy
Bell’s palsy is a form of facial paralysis caused by a problem with a specific nerve (the seventh [facial] cranial nerve) that supplies the face. It is rapid in onset, and can cause the muscles of one side of the face to be completely paralyze...
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Sep 18 2012
New Test for Dengue
Dengue is a viral disease, transmitted by mosquitoes of the genus Aedes, that afflicts many travelers to tropical regions, such as the Caribbean and southeast Asia. Part of the problem with diagnosing dengue is near total reliance upon the clin...
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Sep 14 2012
Vision and Falls in Elders
In the past, I wrote about the impact of wearing bifocals on the risk of falls. The concept remains that having two different foci of vision that are easily confused while walking would cause a person to fall. What about other causes of dimini...
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