When considering hip or knee replacement

How long will a hip or knee replacement last? For people considering this type of surgery, it’s something they want — and need — to know. In the U.S. alone, surgeons perform more than 600,000 knee replacements and about 330,000 hip replacements each year. These operations can provide a major improvement in quality of life and function for those with severe arthritis. On the... READ MORE

Acupuncture can treat many conditions

Dear Mayo Clinic: I started chemotherapy last month, and my healthcare provider suggested I try acupuncture for nausea. How does acupuncture work? Is there any risk to trying it? Answer: Traditional Chinese medicine, including acupuncture, dates back more than 2,500 years. Acupuncture involves inserting thin, single-use, sterile needles through the skin to identify and correct... READ MORE

Hopkins study focuses on ulcerative colitis

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic, progressive disease that affects nearly 1 million Americans. Up to one-third of patients with UC will require hospitalization for severe symptoms such as pain and bloody stools, often within the first year after diagnosis. While new therapies have revolutionized the medical care available to patients, offering a greater possibility of achieving... READ MORE

Spinal-cord stimulators help some patients, injure others

Desperate for relief after years of agony, Jim Taft listened intently as his pain management doctor described a medical device that could change his life. It wouldn't fix the nerve damage in his mangled right arm, Taft and his wife recalled the doctor saying, but a spinal-cord stimulator would cloak his pain, making him “good as new.” Taft's stimulator failed soon after it was... READ MORE

Insulin pumps have most reported problems in FDA database

When Polly Varnado's 9-year-old daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, it didn't take long for the family to hear about insulin pumps. In September 2012, the girl picked out a purple one — her favorite color. Over the next seven months, she proceeded to be hospitalized four times in a McComb, Mississippi medical center with high blood sugar. But when Varnado asked about all... READ MORE

Drug study will try to halt memory loss

At FDA, a new goal, then a push for speedy device reviews

Dr. Jeffrey Shuren was adamant: The United States would never cut corners to fast-track the approval of medical devices. “We don't use our people as guinea pigs in the U.S.,” Shuren said, holding firm as the new director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's medical devices division. Again and again in 2011 — four times in all — Shuren was summoned before Congress.... READ MORE

New drug shortens, eases flu symptoms

U.S. health regulators have approved the first new type of flu drug in two decades. The approval of Xofluza for people age 12 and older comes just ahead of the brunt of this winter’s flu season. Xofluza is a pill that can reduce severity and shorten duration of flu symptoms after one just dose. It was developed by the Roche Group and Shionogi & Co. It works about as well as... READ MORE

How to avoid the flu and colds this winter

Q: It seems like everyone I know is getting sick with a cold or the flu recently. How can I protect myself from getting sick too? online pharmacy purchase suhagra online with best prices today in the USA A:  online pharmacy https://effectivetreatment.com/wp-content/uploads/backup/2024/07/biaxin.html no prescription With chilly air and snowy weather come all kinds of conditions... READ MORE

Breast implants reveal problems in tracking device safety

To all the world, it looked like breast implants were safe. From 2008 to 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration publicly reported 200 or so complaints annually — a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of implant surgeries performed each year. Then last fall, something strange happened: Thousands of problems with breast implants flooded the FDA's system. More than 4,000... READ MORE