Medicine

A new lasik procedure has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This new procedure promises to offer hope to those who could not previously receive the lasik procedure.

This new procedure utilizes WaveLight(wavefront-optomized Allegretto Wave system). This system allows the treatment of patients with mixed astigmatism.

In the past, those with mixed astigmatism were less than prime candidates for lasik procedures. The patients that were approved, were required to undergo two separate procedures.

The new WaveLight system will allow almost all of these patients to be approved for the procedure. Another benefit of the WaveLight system, is only one procedure is neccessary.

Patients will love that.

The FDA also approved a new laser that will speed up lasik procedures by 50%. The new laser, named the LADAR6000 is manufactured by Alcon Inc.

As ...

The statins are a group of drugs that are now the most frequently prescribed medicines in the world. Taken by millions of people, they generate mountains of profit for the drug companies.

Some of the names are– atorvastatin, simvastatin, pravastatin, fluvastatin and rosuvastatin.

They all work by slowing down the amount of cholesterol your liver makes. Normally the average liver makes about 1,000mg of cholesterol a day.

Depending on the drug and the size of the dose, a statin can lower cholesterol by between 20 and 60%. Usually taken at night, it takes between four and six weeks to have maximum effect. The theory is that if you lower cholesterol, the risk of heart disease gets lower too.

But, that’s not all the statins do. They also help relax blood vessels, reduce the stickiness of platelets and have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity. The combined act...

Medical Billing is the process of submitting claims to insurance companies to receive payment by a doctor or health care provider for the services rendered by him to a patient.

When the patient comes to the health care provider, he first examines the condition of his patient and then makes a medical record depending on the examination. The medical report will contain a summary of treatment given to the patient and demographic information related to him.

The Process:

Medical Billing will take place after an interaction between the heath care provider and the insurance company. To determine the procedure code the treatment given, the diagnosis and the duration of the treatment will be combined and then used to bill the insurance company. The provider can do this with the help of a billing specialist or a medical coder after which a billing record will be generated. Thi...

If I asked you to picture a surgeon in your mind's eye, you almost certainly would picture an individual in medical scrubs (most likely white or green scrubs), wearing a mask, etc. But it hasn't always been that way. Medical scrubs are actually a relatively modern practice.

Until the 20th century, surgery was (compared to today's standards) a rather crude operation, which did not really involve any sanitation, least of all anything like medical scrubs. Sterilization was not even a consideration, because there was really no understanding of how disease and germs spread. Many scientists believed in spontaneous generation, meaning that germs spontaneously generated from nothing. Little or no consideration was given to basic sanitation, so the mortality rate was very high.

Actually, many surgeons wore a butcher's apron, and since they did not don a clean one between patients, ...

Sex is an important part of a personal relationship. Don’t jeopardize your relationship due a mere dysfunction which can be treated effectively. Levitra is a magic potion that can relieve you of the erectile dysfunction (ED) with ease. Erectile dysfunction or dysfunction erectile impotence basically implies the failure to achieve or maintain erection until the completion of a sexual intercourse.

Wondering how do you find out if you are coping with erectile dysfunction or not? Symptoms of erectile dysfunction or dysfunction erectile impotence include failure to achieve erection, inability to sustain erection, inability to enter into your cohort i.e. loss of hardness with penetration.

Erectile dysfunction or dysfunction erectile can be a consequence of either physiological or psychological factors, or a combination of both. It can also surface due to side-effect of any medic...

Are you unable to maintain an erection firm enough to last throughout an intercourse? Is dysfunction erectile impotence challenging the strength of your manhood? Levitra can provide an easy solution to almost all your problems pertaining to erectile dysfunction. Levitra is a magic potion for those who are coping with erectile dysfunction. Erectile dysfunction or dysfunction erectile impotence denotes a repeated inability of men to get or maintain erection throughout an intercourse to achieve that ultimate sexual pleasure.

Levitra has been FDA approved to treat Erectile dysfunction. It is an oral prescription drug which augments the blood flow in the penis to accomplish and sustain erection. It is also referred to as PDE5 inhibitor as it targets the PDE5 enzyme. Levitra cannot give you an erection by itself. Intake of Levitra has to be accompanied by a sexual stimulus, to achieve...

Celiac disease, also known as gluten sensitive enteropathy is very common but frequently missed. It is a autoimmune disease of intestinal damage due to gluten in people who are genetically predisposed. Classic Celiac disease is diagnosed by abnormal blood tests and an abnormal appearing intestine on biopsy and symptoms that resolve with gluten free diet.

Several blood tests exist for Celiac disease. They have varying degrees of accuracy. Some are more sensitive, meaning they will be positive in milder forms of the disease but are not specific, meaning a positive test may not indicate Celiac disease. Others are felt to be very specific, meaning that when they are positive, it is almost certain you have the disease.

The most specific tests are tests for Celiac disease endomysial antibodies (EMA) and tissue transglutaminase sntibody (tTG) antibody tests. These two tests ...

Since breaking my back in 1998, I have been blessed with some exceptional physicians who believed in me and sincerely wanted to help me with my struggles with chronic pain.

Unfortunately, I have also encountered those who have not treated me so well. If you encounter a Doctor that does not treat you well or makes you feel uncomfortable; run, hobble, crawl, do what ever you have to do, to get as far away from the person as possible. There are plenty of great, caring physicians out there. Let’s put the other guys and gals out of business.

Let’s face it, even the best physicians are short on time and sometimes we get a little sensitive due to our pain, so it is important to plan ahead. I have a few tips I find helpful for me and my doctor. Hope you find them useful, as well.

1.Keep a diary of your symptoms, pain level, activity level, and other things your physician may...

Back problems come in many different types, including herniated or slipped disc, spinal stenosis, scoliosis, degenerative disc disease, and problems caused by weak muscles. This article will give you an idea of what different types of tests are available and how your doctor will determine the source of your back pain. What you are about to read is the culmination of information from many different places and resources.

Before your doctor can diagnose your condition and create a treatment strategy, a complete profile and physical exam are needed. This will give your physician a better idea of the reason for your condition. Then appropriate diagnostic tests may be recommended.

Complete History

Your doctor will want to get an account of your condition. While you are waiting to see the physician you may start by filling out a printed form. Your problem will be easier to...

Acetaminophen often refereed to as Tylenol, when taken at the highest recommended dose may trigger an abnormal result on an otherwise healthy blood test, according to new research.

The finding means, a perfectly healthy person may think they are sick when hearing the results of a common liver blood test.

In the study, 106 participants took four grams of Tylenol, equivalent to eight extra-strength Tylenol tablets, each day for two weeks. Some took Tylenol alone, and some took it with an opioid painkiller. Placebo pills were given to 39 others.

40 recent of the people taking acetaminophen had abnormal blood test results which could signal liver damage.

Dr. Paul Watkins of the University of North Carolina says, "This was a very surprising finding."

When treating this type of liver problem, doctors are trained to examine what drugs the patient is taking and r...

The Problem With Allergies

Allergies can be triggered by many substances. Seasonal allergies (also called hayfever) are often caused by the grass, tree, and weed pollens that are abundant in spring and late summer. Other types of allergies can affect your eyes year-round. Allergy symptoms include sneezing, congestion, and red, watery, itchy eyes.

Why Allergies Occur

Your body's immune system protects you against illness by staying alert for harmful agents entering the body. If this occurs, the immune system protects you by neutralizing, removing, or destroying the harmful agent.

Allergies occur when the immune system misidentifies a normally harmless substance, such as pollen or mold, as a harmful agent. The body responds by producing more of certain chemicals to neutralize the substance. These chemicals, called histamines, are what caused the...

Throughout the world, people are spending over $550 billion on pharmaceuticals. In the United States, we are spending over $250 billion on medication. Despite having a fraction of the world’s population, the US is purchasing nearly half of all prescription and non-prescription drugs.

Generic medications now account for 60% of all medication that are dispensed. While prescription dispensing overall increased 5% in 2005, the generic dispensing growth has jumped 21%. The share in the dollar market is significantly lower for generics because the cost is much less then the brand name drugs. Many generics are priced up to 80% less than the equivalent brand name medications. The reason is competition. A brand name drug has no competitors and the manufacturer can therefore set the highest price that the market can bear.

The future for generic medications is looking bright. ...

Naturally, the first and most important criteria is to find a doctor who is familiar with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. One of the problems of CFS is that its symptoms can be so similar to other illnesses such as autoimmune illnesses, cancer, hepatitis, diabetes, and so forth. So, if you do not have a doctor that is CFS knowledgeable, you may not be diagnosed correctly and could lose out on getting treatments that would benefit you.

Your best source for finding doctors in your area who are familiar with FCS is a support group as its members can tell you which doctors they are using that are CFS knowledgeable and have been helpful. If you cannot find a local CFS support group, you will need to contact one of the national organizations and ask how to contact a support group in your area.

If there are no CFS- knowledgeable doctors in your area, you may have to find an out-of-tow...

In our western communities, statistics have been offered which account for one person in four dying of cancer and one in four of heart disease. If these figures are accurate, the other half of our population is left to account for all the kidney failures, contagious diseases, arthritis, respiratory problems and other innumerable diseases suffered by so many. To this, we must add the deaths from accidents and now the horrifying forecasts that another one in four of the total population is anticipated to suffer from mental diseases of various kinds. Statistics may present us with certain facts about our society, but it is the human side of the equation that affects us most potently.

To avoid becoming another statistic, we are forced to think about what present day medicine can do to help us. Or perhaps we should ask if modern methods themselves are part of the cause of our pro...

Almost everyone has used an antibiotic like penicillin or Terramycin at one time or another. You may have tried using an antibiotic ointment for bad cuts or scrapes, or your doctor may have prescribed antibiotics to help you get over fever, boils, pneumonia and other infections. Antibiotics work very well against so many infections that they are often called "miracle drugs". But the more accurate name for them would be "microbe drugs" for that is what antibiotics really are. Antibiotics are essentially chemicals that helped kill or stop the growth of certain germs and bacteria. It comes from two Greek words meaning "against life".

More than 3000 years ago, Asian peoples had already stumbled on molds that could cure certain afflictions. The Indians of Central America as well the Chinese used molds to treat infected wounds in rashes however, they did not understand either dis...

Which types of organizations use an IRO to provide independent medical reviews or peer reviews? Many companies can benefit from this type of service.

Foremost are health plans and health insurance carriers that require an IRO in order to make sure that they adjudicate claims in a properly.

Second are third party administrators (TPAs) that administer benefits and claims for health plan payers.

Third are reinsurers or stop-loss carriers. Stop-loss carriers use independent review organizations as a way to assure that they are getting a second objective and unbiased opinion for their most expensive and complex medical claims that they are called to provide coverage for.

Fourth are large self-insured corporations that pay their own health care benefits. They are increasingly turning to IROs in order to help with their claims decision making.

Fifth are managed-...

An insect allergy is an allergic reaction to a sting or bite from an insect that has an irritant or toxin in its saliva or venom. In most cases a person bitten or stung by an insect will experience a swelling, redness and mild pain, but in some people a potentially life-threatening allergic reaction may be experienced.

As is quite evident, it is not possible to control when a person is stung by an insect, so if a person has a serious insect allergy it is important that treatment and preventative measures are followed.

As insect allergies cannot be predicted, the best course of treatment is prevention.

- Stay away from areas known to have large numbers of insects.

- Remove nests around the home by contacting trained experts.

- Check the house and garden regularly for the signs of insects and their nests.

- Keep away from rubbish bins and containers.<...

Herbalism

There is no actual record of when the use of plants for medicinal purposes first started, although the first generally accepted use of plants as healing agents were depicted in the cave paintings discovered in the Lascaux caves in France, which have been Radiocarbon dated to between 13,000 – 25,000 B.CE.

Over time and with trial and error, a small base of knowledge was acquired within early tribal communities. As this knowledge base expanded over the generations, tribal culture developed into specialized areas. These ‘specialized jobs’ became what are now known as healers or Shaman.

Egyptian Medicine

Medical information contained in the Edwin Smith Papyrus date as early as 3,000 B.C. The earliest surgery was performed in Egypt around 2,750 B.C.

Imhotep in the 3rd dynasty is credited as the founder of ancient Egyptian medicine and as the original...

Introduction

Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) as some other similar diseases belongs to the group of so-called overuse injuries. This is a manifestation of nerve and tissue damage from fast, forceful and seemingly harmless repetitive wrist and hand motions (prolong repetitive trauma), which result in swelling, tenderness and pain.

Carpal tunnel syndrome occurs mostly in middle-aged women, who does repetitive extensive hand work (e.g. typing) and mostly in dominant hand. It is also often seen in production and manufacturing workplaces (with repetitive activities such as cutting meat, dressing poultry and assembling automobiles). The condition is very common among musicians, who play string instruments and piano. During last 10-15 years people can get this problem as a result of extensive computer work (computer manufacturers now use warning labels to alert consumers that keyboa...

Anxiety is a feeling of apprehension, fear, or worry. Most everyone experiences temporary anxiety, a feeling of nervousness or fear, as a normal reaction to a stressful situation at some point in life. While anxiety is a natural response to some situations, it can develop into a debilitating disorder in some people. It is estimated that about 13% of the United States population has anxiety. Most peope suffering from anxiety do not consult a doctor as they believe only "mentally sick" people need to visit a psychiatrist.

The important thing is to understand that anxiety can be treated and that living with constant anxiety is not necessary. Untreated anxiety disorders can push people into avoiding situations that trigger or worsen their symptoms. People with anxiety disorders are likely to suffer from depression, and they also may abuse alcohol and other drugs in an effort to gain...