I?ve had sciatica for a couple of weeks now. I?d like to exercise, but I don?t seem to get any better or worse whether I do or don?t. The pain is worse at night and first thing in the morning. I?ve had X-rays, but they don?t show anything. Can I exercise 4 days a week to keep on my fitness schedule? My back doesn?t hurt at all ? it?s just the sciatica.
Mothers multitask more than fathers, and they feel more stressed out about it. So says a new study in the American Sociological Review. Researchers used data from a 12-year-old study of mostly college-educated parents. Most of them were professionals who worked longer than average hours. The 368 mothers and 241 fathers in the study wore special wristwatches that beeped several times during the day. They were supposed to write down whatever they were doing at that moment. They also wrote down what they were thinking and feeling. Mothers spent 48 hours of their week multitasking. Fathers spent 39 hours. For mothers, 53% of the multitasking involved household chores, compared with 42% for fathers. Mothers spent 36% of their multitasking time on child care. Fathers spent 28%. Men’s multitasking was more likely to include tasks for work or self-care.
I am 57 years old. My maternal grandmother and mother both had Alzheimer?s disease. There have been some times when I feel like I?m waking up from a fog or mental sleep. I sometimes feel disoriented, or just plain scared (especially when I?m driving). Should I be worried?
New York City health officials are urging doctors to prescribe medicine earlier to people infected with HIV. The medicines help to keep down the amount of virus in a person’s body. Health officials noted that people who get treatment are much less likely to spread the virus to others. But the drugs are expensive. Standard practice has been to prescribe them only after the immune system weakens. New York City health officials said costs will go down as the drugs become generic. They said preventing spread to others also will lower costs. More than 110,000 people in New York City are infected with HIV. That’s more than in any other U.S. city. The city health department is keeping track of 66,000 who are being effectively treated with drugs to suppress the virus. Officials estimated that their new advice would help about 3,000 more people begin treatment.
Many people taking the blood thinner warfarin may cut their risk of blood clots in half by doing required blood tests at home, a study finds. The best dose of warfarin varies, even for the same person. To prevent clots or excess bleeding, people get regular blood tests. Based on the results, they may need to take a different dose. The new study put together results from 11 prior studies. They included a total of 6,400 people. All of the studies compared people who got standard office tests with those who tested at home. The people who tested at home used a special meter to test a drop of blood. People who used office or home testing had similar risks of excess bleeding or death. For some groups, blood clot risk was cut in half or more with home tests. Those who benefited most included people with mechanical heart valves and people under age 55.
Can recent vaccinations cause a false positive elevation in an antibody test for rheumatoid arthritis? I recently had a hepatitis and HPV vaccine and two weeks later, my test came back with an elevated level of 36.