Staff Bios
Joe Tougas
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Home dermatology only goes skin-deep
Published: Nov 17, 2009
The TV commercial for a do-it-yourself microdermabrasion kit ends, and you find yourself wondering whether you could be trusted to blast high-pressure microcrystals onto your face.
As it turns out, the procedure is safe and generally has nice results. The worry is that hopes may be too high in terms of how much can happen.
Microdermabrasion is a noninvasive procedure in which a hand-held device "polishes" the skin by way of spraying microcrystals to remove the outer layer of dry, dead cells. Invented in the mid-'80s, this procedure is typically performed by dermatologists on patients seeking to literally smooth over wrinkles, acne scars, stretch marks and the like.
Lately, home...
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Waiting and whiting
Published: Oct 11, 2009
The best remedy for white teeth? Ask your dentist
Not so long ago, the only hope of whiter teeth for non-movie stars was a hopeless devotion to Colgate, Crest or Close Up. And waiting.
Those dark -- or at least yellow -- days are gone, and today we are promised whiter teeth tomorrow. With Internet ads in particular offering pearly whites quicker and cheaper every day, brilliant teeth are smack dab in the grasp of the middle class. There's still waiting involved, but nothing money can't shorten.
It was in the 1990s that things changed for the whiter. The chemical compound of carbamide peroxide was shown to be effective in whitening teeth and as something that could be applied at home...
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Backs for the future
Published: Sep 06, 2009
Lynn Waterbury became an increasingly strong believer in chiropractic care with each of her three children. So much so that she was getting adjustments while pregnant with her third.
"When I was adjusted the entire pregnancy was great," says Waterbury, a Mankato, Minnesota mom. "Within minutes of delivering her I wanted to be up, out of the bed and just moving around. ... My recovery time was a lot less after she was born, which was nice because I had three kids now to chase after."
Her third child, Grace, made her first visit to the family chiropractor at the age of two weeks. By that point, Waterbury was well convinced that her kids had benefited from visiting the...
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How to prepare for the future
Published: Aug 02, 2009
Key paperwork may save your family from misery down the road
Talking with parents about estate planning is as easy for some as discussing lawn care. Everything from funeral plans, living wills and who gets the souvenir spoon collection is discussed freely and frankly.
Then there are most families.
For a topic so fraught with emotion, finding the right time and place to raise issues of aging, death and money seems to require a delicacy difficult to summon. But awkwardness around the kitchen table is nothing compared with the hassles in a courtroom if basic legal arrangements aren’t in place.
Kathy Heider, 55, and her five siblings grew up on a dairy farm near Janesville, Wis. Her...
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Finding his own way
Published: Jul 05, 2009
The key to one man’s successful bout with prostate cancer was to keep researching and keep asking
In 2001, Dr. James Priest was two years into his life as a retired surgeon when the phone rang.
He picked it up as a busy author working on a fantasy series. He hung up as a 62-year-old man with newly diagnosed prostate cancer.
Here’s the spoiler to the story: Today he’s fine. His cancer is essentially gone, and he’s long since returned to his writing. Yet for a while his life was as dramatic as any novel he could concoct. And his own story’s tagline would be something like: He was the surgeon who refused surgery.
The anxiety that occupied Priest’s mind...
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Summer allergies: When weeds and grasses are out to get-choo
Published: Jun 09, 2009
Simple measures to help slow the runny eyes, noses and other signs of summer
The good news for summer allergy sufferers is usually winter.
The other three seasons aren’t much help. Spring is tree pollinating time, the heart of summer gets grass pollinating and early fall is all about weed pollen. With the overlaps, summer allergies are basically three seasons tag-teaming against one head.
Here’s what’s going on in that head of yours: Grasses and weeds shoot out pollen — the male reproductive cells — which gets nabbed in the noses of a good number of people whose immune systems mistakenly see the pollen as an invader.
The system then releases antibodies...
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The changing face
Published: Apr 05, 2009
As more patients seek out less-invasive procedures, the idea of plastic surgery doesn’t seem so odd anymore
In just 10 years, cosmetic surgery has undergone a serious makeover. A one-time exotic procedure reserved for the well-to-do-with-nothing-to-do has become more specialized and accessible.
And by the looks of things — namely noses, bellies, eyelids and breasts — we’re going for it. A new report by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons says that in 2008, U.S. plastic surgeons performed 1.7 million cosmetic surgical procedures. It’s down a bit from previous years (1.8 million in 2007), but it’s far from sagging.
Separate from those numbers are...
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Penning the pricks, pokes and prods of diabetes
Published: May 03, 2009
Author shares experiences and finds release
When she was a kid spending summers in Maine, Amy Mercer would take part in a traditional clothes-and-all jump in the lake after the Fourth of July parade.
Mercer recalls the first time she made that jump — how the weight of the clothes pulled at her, how hard she had to tread water just to keep her head above the surface.
That’s how she describes living with Type 1 diabetes, how it requires constant monitoring of everything from diet to blood sugar to mundane body functions such as yawning.
A columnist, essayist and soon-to-be memoirist, Mercer, 38, artfully chronicles the frustrations, the pokes, the pricks, the myths, the...
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