Thyroid Balance

If there’s one constancy in my approach to the body, it’s that all the body’s systems are connected, and depend on one another for proper function.   In effect, folks, there is no “thyroid” “adrenal” “brain” or “digestive tract”, except as different parts of a coordinated system.
If there’s another constancy, it’s how the conventional approach to […]

One of the difficulties I have with Parkinson’s disease is how visible it is.  There’s no getting around the fact that, when people meet me, they noticed my shaking immediately.  It helps to form their first impression of me, I believe.
 I’ve been thinking about this as I watch the presidential race.  We live in a […]

I’ve just read a very interesting article in The New Yorker by Atul Gawande, entitled The Itch.  The article itself is worth reading.  Itching is a really bizarre sensation that we all get. Think of it, A touch has to be very deep and hard to cause discomfort.  But a tiny sensation like a bug’s […]

It should come to no one’s surprise that I’m not a John McCain supporter. But I have to admit I get a little itchy win the issue of his age is brought up. Now, in the interest of full list disclosure, I must say that yesterday I took another step dangerously close to 60 years […]

As the saying goes, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you.”  Sometimes, practicing out of the conventional medicine mainstream, you can feel like someone’s out to get you, or at least that you’re Alice in Wonderland.  Nowhere is this more obvious than when treating chronic Lyme disease in one of […]

Two related events marked this week’s trip to visit my parents in Boca Raton.  My father proudly showed me his plummeting cholesterol and LDL cholesterol (termed “Lousy” cholesterol by his doctor to distinguish it from HDL “Happy” cholesterol).  And, my mother showed me the stock market drop that Schering Plough had taken that morning.  The […]

As I’ve written about before, vitamin D  is the current sexy vitamin.  In fact, it’s probably not a vitamin at all but a hormone that controls much of our metabolic and immune function.  New information on the wondrous web of vitamin D activities comes out all the time.What fascinated me about this article in the journal […]

Every couple of years my patients go to the pharmacy to refill their prescriptions, only to have the same rumor gets whispered to them: Armour thyroid is going off the market.  It’s happening again.In the past four months, it has been increasingly difficult for patients to get 120 mg (2 grain) and 15 mg (1/4 […]

 In the late 1970s I was Medical Director of the Marco Polo Rest Home in East Boston.  Anxious to improve the health (as I saw it) of the residents, I contracted with Quebrada Bakery (which coincidentally now lies down the street from my office).  Twice a week, they would deliver whole grain bread to the […]

It happened again this year.  The Thanksgiving table got cleared and the dishes done and immediately the over 30s crowd sunk deep into the living room couch (there is a very long couch at my folks’ house) and started the evening dozing.  It took the promise of decaf and multiple desserts (gluten-free for me, various […]