DocTalk

The fear of spinal cord injury haunts every football player but the mantra of personal invincibility and pretending ignorance allows each to play the next down. Jermichael Finley is the reminder that football is a sport of controlled violence.
This week's column
http://mddirect.org/2013/10/21/spinal-cord-injury-2/

 

A trio of comments this about about Josh Freeman's concussion, Shane Victorino's back and Peyton Manning's ankle.

http://mddirect.org/2013/10/28/heads-backs-bones/

 

Early column this week. Bronco's John Fox has heart valve disease and needs his aortic valve replaced. Discussing the basics in the special edition Sunday column

http://mddirect.org/2013/11/03/aortic-valve-real-estate/

 

Most embarrassing post I've ever had on here (and with a handle of BurnsWhenIPee, I see the irony) ...

Was on jury duty for a week a little while back, and something about those hard benches, hard folding chairs in the waiting area and everything else have left me with a nice case of hemorrhoids. Started Wednesday afternoon and hasn't gotten any better. Been washing gently and lathering myself up with Preparation H cream and suppositories at every turn.

Today after a BM, I wiped with a Preparation H wipe and looked down to see a nice steady dripping of blood into the stool. It must have clotted up quickly, because there was no blood present until I used the bathroom before bed, and it looked like the Prep H wipe I used then pulled off all the clotting matter - so now I'm bleeding like I'm in a heavy flow mentruation situation. It feels like there is a ball of an exterior hemerrhoid outside the left side of my rectum, about an inch in diameter, which is where the blood was coming from. The right side is fine.

Do I keep slathering the whole undercarriage with Prep H and give it more time, or how much time do I need before I hit my regular doctor or urgent care?

 

Bleeding hemorrhoid a are a common complaint. Warm sits bathes may help. That said, any rectal bleeding should not be ignored. Even if you are certain that is from a hemorrhoid, other possibilities and coincidences do occur. Your family doctor is the first step. He/she might be able to look inside with a short scope (anoscopy) to find bleeding source and potentially resolve it.

 

Thanks Doc. I decided to play it safe and saw my general physician today. She said it was thrombosed (?) hermorrhoids and sent me straight to the colo-rectal surgery center, where they looked at it, said it's too big to do in their office so now I go in first thing in the morning to go under general anaesthesia and have them removed.

Have a feeling the next 3-4 weeks are going to suck.

 

Good luck going under the knife.

I'm reminded of the story of the (please insert your favorite professional here) who had to retire after having a hemorrhoid surgery... no longer a perfect asshole.

 

This week's column talks about low back pain, a disease that affects almost half of all Americans. Unfortunately, it now is the burden shared by Texan, Arian Foster, but his requires surgery.

http://mddirect.org/2013/11/11/low-back-pain-2/

 

This week, it's not about sports.

New cholesterol guidelines from American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology may have errors. This week's column links to the new online calculator developed to let patients learn their 10 year heart disease risk. However, it seems that there is a problem with the numbers.

http://mddirect.org/2013/11/18/rules-dont-work-cholesterol/

 

I had the ER duty this weekend when the Packers and Vikings played. It doesn't get any quieter but perhaps it was a little more festive.

This week's column: http://mddirect.org/2013/11/25/small-favors/

It's also Thanksgiving week and I just wanted to let the board know how grateful I am for the support you have given me over the years and how much I've learned.

 

The Aaron Rodgers watch continues. Only in Wisconsin would he be considered the cure for a defense that gave up over 500 yards.

Expecting him to return from a fractured collarbone in only a month is perhaps wishful thinking. This week's column talks about the process of bone healing. the body is pretty amazing.

http://mddirect.org/2013/12/02/healing-bones/

 

It was a record breaking week for scoring in the NFL, but what about teh snow and cold. This week's column talks about hypothermia and frostbite.

http://mddirect.org/2013/12/09/cold/