A review of data from 51 countries finds that adolescent girls and young women using hormonal contraception had lower odds of being anemic. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37978956/
Survey finds that people want more information from their primary care provider about fertility; they report having fertility concerns dismissed by healthcare providers; and feel that healthcare providers lack sensitivity in discussing fertility related issues.
You can also print the document (8 pages) to bring to your next appointment. I've given it to several doctors - and so has my husband, who does not have ME/CFS!
Sharing information about the Mayo ME/CFS document (Diagnosis and Management of ME/CFS) - and the associated CME (Continuing Medical Education) - is a great way to immediately improve patient care for people with ME/CFS.
Remember, roughly half of Long Covid patients meet the ME/CFS diagnostic criteria.
Need help crafting an email to send to your doctor? Here's a template:
In the final stage of his kidney disease, Rick Slayman did humanity a favor by testing the next generation treatment for kidney failure. May he rest in peace and the research data gleaned from his transplant helps others #MedMastodon
🔗Pig kidney ‘xenotransplant’ patient dies two months later
No indication that Richard ‘Rick’ Slayman’s receipt of genetically modified kidney caused his death, says Massachusetts transplant team
Foreskin Morbidity in Uncircumcised Males
Sneppen and Thorup, Pediatrics 2016
"In our patient population, we found that 7.2% (95% CI 3.4–11.0) were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as a concomitant disease (Table 3). A recent Danish study calculated the prevalence of ASD in Denmark to be 1.5% among boys."
Association found between ASD and childhood penile surgeries. This is reference 1, next toot has #2.
Two different research groups have now found a relationship between early childhood penile surgeries and autism spectrum disorder. The two different studies had different goals, different recruitment approaches, different study variables, and yet the relationship between ASD and circumcision remains quite striking!
For boys undegoing penile genital cutting before age five, the risk of ASD is even higher.
Is the #pharmaceutical industry behind a disinformation and #media campaign relating to national #pharmacare? This report, announced by The Council of Canadians, says yes.
You can also print the Mayo Proceedings document (8 pages) and bring it to your next doctor appointment. I gave a copy to my cardiologist. I know he read it because he referred to it in my chart notes! 😁
California has only 1 pediatric medical toxicologist for its 8.7 million children & 1 child abuse specialist for every 258,000 kids, Claudia Boyd-Barrett writes for California Health Report. Such shortages put children at risk, especially those needing specialty care.
"We are excited to announce the kick-off of #MillionsMissing 2024 – our ongoing campaign to Teach ME and Treat ME by educating medical providers across our nation’s hospital systems and medical schools about myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)."
If you can, tell your doctor(s) about the Mayo CME (continuing medical education) for ME/CFS. There's an email template available that has a link to the CME:
I’ve tried every level of government and they simply won’t help. Ask people in real life if they have somewhere for me to go. Is anybody an #advocate? I need help.
I’ve tried every level of government and they simply won’t help. Ask people in real life if they have somewhere for me to go. Is anybody an advocate? I need help.
Condividete la notizia di #astrazeneca e rischio trombosi ma assumete ogni tanto farmaci per mal di testa, mal di schiena ecc? Questi farmaci hanno come effetto collaterale raro la trombocitopenia. Avete già chiesto la rimozione dal commercio di Voltaren, Oki e simili? In alcuni di questi farmaci oltre al rischio di infarto del miocardio, ictus ed evento letale, questo rischio di valori anormali nel sangue può interessare una persona su 10.000 e non qualcuna su milioni. 1/2 #MedMastodon
My new story for the Medical Post/Canadian Healthcare Network. #Doctors and #pharmacists in Canada can log on for free. Here are a few paragraphs.
Could a century old treatment be an answer to antibiotic resistance?
In a first in Canada, a patient with an #antibiotic resistant artificial joint infection has received treatment with phage therapy and is showing promising early responses.
“This is cutting edge stuff, and a potentially new technology,” said Dr. Marisa Azad, the infectious diseases physician who treated the patient. She is also an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa.
The patient presented with severe periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) in the summer of 2023. She had already undergone multiple surgeries and had experienced several relapses and infections with the same persistent bacteria.
“She’d been on multiple very prolonged courses of antibiotics and had a severe drug allergy to two major drug classes of antibiotics. I was extremely limited in what I could use to treat her,” Dr. Azad told the Medical Post in an interview.
That’s when the idea arose of trying an experimental treatment course with phage therapy. The team got approval for doing the experimental treatment from Health Canada, and worked with Winnipeg-based Cytophage, which supplied the phages.
“We developed a protocol and gave her therapy over two weeks while she was admitted to hospital. She’s completed her therapy. Now we’re monitoring her closely and giving her adjunctive antibiotics,” she said.
The idea didn’t come out of the blue. In the medical literature, a study from just last year in Clinical #Infectious Diseases provided a review of 33 previously published cases of patients with end-stage, refractory bone and joint infections (BJI) who underwent treatment with phage therapy. The authors found that from those case reports, “29 (87%) achieved microbiological or clinical success, two (5.9%) relapsed with the same organisms, and two (5.9%) with a different organism” with no serious adverse events.
The conclusions of that paper stated there were “important advantages, disadvantages, and barriers to the implementation of phage therapy for BJIs.” Yet, at the same time, the authors added they, “believe that if phage therapy were to be used earlier in the clinical course, fewer cumulative antibiotics may be needed in an individual treatment course.”
The word phage is short for #bacteriophage, a word coined in 1917—literally meaning bacteria-eater. They are viruses whose lifecycle depends on certain types of bacteria.
“They latch on to specific types of bacteria and inject their genetic material into the bacterial cell." Dr. Azad explained. "They take over the bacterial cells’ machinery to produce more little viruses inside and explode or burst open the bacteria,” releasing viral particles that can go and infect other cells of the same type of bacteria.
Intriguingly, each #phage targets a specific type of #bacteria...
The story of phages started over 100 years ago. They were independently discovered, first in 1915 by a British pathologist, Frederick Twort, and then again in 1917 by French-Canadian microbiologist Felix d’Herelle. And...
Zu medizinischen Bildern einfach mal #ChatGPT befragen? Bei Bildern aus der #Nuklearmedizin ist das keine gute Idee, so eine Studie von #CharitéBerlin. Die KI liefert widersprüchliche Antworten und markiert krankhafte Veränderungen, wo gar keine sind.
Just ask ChatGPT about medical images? According to a study by #CharitéBerlin, this is not a good idea for images from nuclear medicine. The AI provides contradictory answers and highlights pathological spots where there are none.