How parents influence healthy habits in children
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Ways to encourage your kids to get active
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Don’t sweat it – how to treat excessive perspiration
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This condition is called hyperhidrosis and is excessive sweating (“hyper” means much and “hidrosis” means sweating) particularly of the palms, armpits, and soles of the feet.
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Know the ABCs of diabetes control
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The hemoglobin A1C is best monitored daily with a home blood glucose monitor. This allows someone with diabetes to keep tabs on their glucose levels making the necessary adjustments by following a carbohydrate controlled meal plan, exercise, or medications.
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A Better Way to Determine Obesity
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It's the most widely used diagnostic indicator to identify a person's optimal weight depending on his height.
Read MoreCombat Yeast Infections Naturally
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Boric acid is probably the most famous natural treatment for a yeast infection. It's the one to which your grandmother turned, and for good reason.
Read MoreHow mood affects your blood pressure
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In other words, our thoughts, feelings, and actions may play a fairly significant role in influencing our blood pressure more than we realize.
Read More10 things to know about diabetes and hot weather
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To make sure you know how to beat the heat when you have diabetes, here’s what you need to know on how to handle hot weather to avoid any unexpected consequences affecting your diabetes.
Read MoreAllery skin tests – what to expect
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What happens if the skin test shows positive results for allergies?
Read MoreWhat is iron overload or hemochromatosis?
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Hemochromatosis is an inherited condition first identified in the 1800’s and by 1935 it was understood to be a hereditary disorder caused by a gene mutation.
Read MorePlantar fasciitis – a leading cause of heel pain
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A person who has plantar fasciitis can start with home treatment remedies that may take it away. Here are some options to consider:
Read MoreStaging the disease of prostate cancer
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Staging of prostate cancer gives the doctor the information he needs to know on how big the tumor is, whether it has spread or not and if it has spread, where has the cancer gone to.
Read MoreThe fastest growing cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. is liver cancer
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Liver cancer is now the fifth-leading cause of cancer death in men and the eighth-leading cause of cancer death in women. Only one in five patients survives five years after a diagnosis.
Read MoreWhy good posture matters to your health
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However, poor posture can be brought on by several reasons:
Read MoreLosing weight when you have hypothyroidism
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Start with these strategies to help jump start weight loss with hypothyroidism:
Read MoreChronic kidney disease – the numbers keep growing
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The CDC analysis also found that women are more likely than men to be affected by CKD, (16% vs 13%).
Read MoreUnderstanding COPD
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COPD is any inflammatory lung disease that causes airflow from the lungs to be blocked in some way.
Read MoreTop 5 steps to prevent glaucoma
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Glaucoma is a condition resulting in progressive damage to the optic nerve due to high pressure in the eye (intraocular pressure). In time, glaucoma can lead to loss of peripheral or side vision and eventually total loss of vision or blindness.
Read MoreMixing opioid painkillers and sleep medications -prescription for a deadly overdose (
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The use of the very strong opioid painkillers such as Oxycontin, Percocet, and Vicodin, is already well-known for their risk of physical dependence, drowsiness, breathing and heart problems, constipation and bowel dysfunction, fractures and depression. Now, a new study published March 14, 2017 in The BMJ finds that users of opioids who also use benzodiazepine such as Xanax or Valium for sleep or anxiety at the same time, are placing themselves at risk of a deadly overdose.
For the study data was collected on more than 300,000 privately insured patients, aged 18 to 64, who were prescribed a narcotic painkiller between 2001 and 2013. In 2001, 9 percent of those patients also had prescriptions for benzodiazepines. By 2013, that had increased to 17 percent which is an 80 percent relative increase. The finding from the data showed that those patients who were prescribed both types of drugs had twice the risk of ending up in hospital emergency rooms as did people who used only used opioids.
Nearly 30 percent of all fatal overdoses from narcotic medications also involved a person who was using a benzodiazepine at the same time.
This finding is not surprising as over the years, prescriptions for both narcotic painkillers and benzodiazepines have risen. The researchers with the study were not able to tell from the data whether the overdoses were intentional or accidental. The symptom that caused the patients to be rushed to an emergency room was due to suppressed breathing.
The takeaway from this study is that physicians need to assess the need for prescribing both an opioid medication along with a benzodiazepine medication. There is always the possibility some patients are using two different doctors to prescribe each medication separately in attempts to hide what medications they are taking together at the same time.
Some ways to help avoid this problem is for patients to always be completely truthful in informing their doctors as to what medications they are using. Another intervention that can be done is by having insurance companies help to monitor medications patients are using. In addition, electronic health records could be designed to flash a warning when a potentially dangerous drug combination is being prescribed.
It should be noted that this study was observational and does not prove that using both medications increases the risk of overdose.