January 2003
Ask Dr. Marks: 01/03
Subscribers Only I’m a new subscriber. I suffer from moderate joint pain, and I suspect it may be arthritis. I’ve decided to go to a doctor, but I’m confused. What type of doctor should I go to? If you suffer from moderate joint pain, it’s best if you bring this to the attention of your primary care physician. He will examine you and obtain the necessary lab studies to rule out rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory conditions. If…
Six Fixes For Lower Back Pain
Subscribers Only Four out of five adults will experience significant lower back pain sometime during their life. The wear and tear of age can cause degenerative changes in the disks and arthritic changes in the small joints—and if you’re reading this, you’re probably one of them. But here’s the good news: Most cases of lower back pain are not serious and respond to simple treatments that you can perform yourself. …
Diet And Arthritis: More Hype Than Hope?
Subscribers Only Although a connection between diet and arthritis has been suggested for more than 30 years, scientific evidence in support of this theory remains sketchy at best. Rather than focusing on which foods to add or eliminate from your diet, nutritional experts recommend that you consider how osteoarthritis medications can affect your nutritional needs. …
IDET: New Hope For Back Pain
Subscribers Only Nearly 50 percent of lower back pain is related to disc problems. Though discs sometimes cause pain by bulging out and irritating nerves entering the spinal column, at other times the pain comes from discs that simply dry out and begin to crack with age, leaving the nerves within the disc exposed and irritated. IDET—or intradiscal electrothermal therapy— is a new procedure in which a wire is inserted into the affected disc and then heated…
In the News: 01/03
Subscribers Only Can Arthritis Medications Put You At Heart Attack Risk? A study published in 2001 in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that two popular arthritis drugs, Celebrex and Vioxx, were associated with an increased risk of stroke and heart attack. The news has been reported widely in major national magazines and newspapers. Is the media blowing smoke? According to researchers at the Cleveland Clinic, it’s no joke. In fact, they suggest that physicians whose…
Dangerous Liaisons: Drugs At War
Subscribers Only At first, a 71-year-old patient was feeling better after he began taking Celebrex to relieve pain in an arthritic hip. But he was hospitalized a week later because he was feeling weak and nauseous, and his stools had become loose and dark. He was feeling fine in the six months prior to his hospitalization, even though he had a history of atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure, heart failure, mini-strokes, gout, and heartburn. For these pre-existing…