Maybe My Vitamin D is Low...

The topic of increasing opioid use and the dangers of it has been in the news often lately. Opioids, or certain pain medications that can be addictive and contribute to other drug use in the end. But I am not going to lecture you today on the safety of your medications. Many of my patients are so familiar with the warnings that opioids come with that they have become the experts themselves. What I would like to address today is the other side of the coin. The patients who do not abuse their medication, who take it as prescribed, who feel judged every time they read an article in the newspaper discussing “these horrible drugs”. Those who do not disclose their medications to their friends or their loved ones anymore, for the fear of being lectured. Those who dread the visits to the doctor because they know their medication list will be scrutinized. Those who do not necessarily want to take pain medication, but rather have to because they are left with no other options. The Pain M

They haven’t developed a drug for this yet? What does it mean to get a drug “approved”? Will my insurance cover it if it’s not FDA approved?  I hear these questions all the time! They’re  challenging to explain and a perfect opportunity for a blog post!  When a company or a manufacturer thinks that they may have come up with a recipe for a medication, they have to test it on animals to make sure that it’s safe. Then, based on animal results, they need to let the FDA know, “hey, we think this would work well for people!”, and they submit an application called Investigational New Drug . This will allow them to enter the clinical stage of the testing, which has 3 phases in it.  Phase one typically consists of making sure that the drug is as safe for humans as it was for animals. This will also help the manufacturer to know what kind of side effects they’re dealing with. So, now we know that the drug is safe for humans and animals, but does it work for what it’s supposed it? 

Weight is an important contributor to depressive symptoms. I hear this all the time. Patients try to avoid drugs that will contribute to their weight gain, though at times this is not possible.  With January and the start of a brand new year, I’ve been hearing a lot of questions about the best way to lose weight. Not everyone can afford a medically supervised weight loss plan, as often insurance companies will not pay for such service. Evidence suggests that folks have the best success in losing weight when they are accountable; I’ve written about this in detail before, so look at my older posts. So how can you maintain how can you be accountable? Writing what you eat and how we exercise in a journal? Sure, that is a good idea. What I would recommend looking into are several applications and resources that I will now review.                          Lose it! This is the application that we use in our weight-loss program at Pearl Health in Idaho Falls However, the application its

If you are on an antidepressant and have had some side effects, which is not uncommon, this post may be of interest for you. Often, I hear complaints of gastrointestinal nature but there are several other issues that patients continue to ask about. Now, my philosophy is that there is no free lunch. If you chose to get pharmacological treatment, chances are that, yes you will, experi now SOME side effects, even of the mild nature. The key is, the should not be debilitating and they should resolve with time. If not, talk to your provider! There are a few things that you can do to ease your symptoms while your body gets used to the new medication. Below is a link to a wonderful article from Harvard Medical School discussing just that and I recommend that you take a close look at it, if this is something that you are currently struggling with. For instance, mouth dryness is something that comes up often with my conversations with patients. Having a small bottle of water with you at all ti

You’ll have to forgive my absence from the blog world this summer, I only now realized it has been 3 (three!!!) whole months since I published anything. But I am hoping that instead of sitting at your computer, you were able to keep busy outside and if you live in such a beautiful area as I do, I know you have gone on some wonderful adventures! As you may have read in the previous posts, our clinic recently began a Medical Weight Loss program and it is going great! Various adventures this summer bring to mind the role of physical activity and weight loss. If you are looking for scientific information, American College of Sports Medicine published a position statement arguing that minimum 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity physical activity was needed to improve health but between 200 to 300 minutes for long-term weight loss. So, what exactly is moderate intensity physical activity? This would include brisk walking, light swimming or mowing. Yes, mowing can be a form of e

Why is a weight loss program supervised by a medical professional thought to have higher success rates than individual efforts taken by those who want to lose weight? Most patients who are looking to lose weight with supervision have already tried to do so on their own and were not successful. A program that is supervised by professionals allows patients to ask questions, receive counseling and be guided in regards to their diet, exercise, medications. Let’s talk about some data . An article published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in April 2015 compared various commercial weight loss programs such as Weight Watchers or Atkins. Researchers have found that supervised weight loss programs where patients were held accountable for their nutritional intake and exercise, were most successful. Such programs include Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig. So this tells us that you don’t have to necessarily go to a doctor’s office to lose weight, right? Well, let’s look at some other stu