A good friend was just diagnosed with what the hospital called “alcoholic hepatitis.” What category of hepatitis does this fall under? Is it contagious? If she stops drinking alcohol will this condition go away or has irreversible damage been done to her
A new drug may help to prevent blood clots in the legs without causing a risk of bleeding, new research suggests. Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a blood clot that forms in a vein. If it travels to the lungs, heart or brain, it can be deadly. After hospital treatment, people with VTE take warfarin (Coumadin) for 6 to 12 months to help keep new clots away. The risk of new clots continues after this time. But people don’t take warfarin longer because of a risk of bleeding. The new study included nearly 2,500 people who had completed standard treatment with warfarin after VTE. They were randomly assigned to receive apixaban or placebo (fake pills) twice a day. Apixaban reduces the risk of clots in a different way than warfarin. During the next year, 9% of those taking the placebo and 1.7% of those taking apixaban had a new VTE.
I’ve recently started dating a man who is afraid of dogs. The problem is: I love my 10-year-old Golden Retriever. Are there any treatments for dog phobia?
My elderly uncle can’t seem to recover from the loss of his dog. Is it normal to grieve for months when a pet dies? When is it time to encourage him to seek mental health help?
“Hands-only” CPR saves more lives than the traditional kind that includes mouth-to-mouth breathing, a new study finds. In 2008, the American Heart Association said that people giving CPR should stick with doing firm, rapid pushes on the chest. It said “rescue breaths” were not necessary. The hope was that this would get more people to do CPR. Early research also showed it was effective. The new study included 1,300 people who had a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital. In each case, someone saw the person collapse. Bystanders gave shocks from an automated defibrillator and also did CPR. Of those who got hands-only CPR, 46% were alive a month after their cardiac arrest. About 40% of those who got traditional CPR with rescue breaths were alive. More people kept good brain function with hands-only CPR — about 40%, compared with 33% of those who got rescue breaths.