Dr. B Speaks Out

Alzheimer's:Blessing in Disguise?

Dr. E (Ph.D.) Speaks Out:Guest Blogger

While watching Sargent Shriver, who has Alzheimer's Disease, wave goodbye at his wife's (Eunice Kennedy Shriver) funeral several weeks ago, and having recently placed a relative with age-related memory loss in a long term care facility,  I had some thoughts. 

Of course, every Baby Boomer in America wants there to be a prevention and cure ASAP for Alzheimer's and other age-related dementias and memory loss conditions, and that would be great, no doubt about it!  But if not, could it be that these conditions are Nature's way of helping us face old age and death?   Might Alzheimer's be a blessing in disguise?

For elderly people with Alzheimer's, they may not know what or who they don't remember, so maybe their condition is not upsetting to them.  Perhaps Sargent Shriver was told he was there to say goodbye to his wife, but since he may not remember her or their long life together, he did what a child does when told to say goodbye.  He smiled and waved, like a child at a parade as people march by, rather than feel the unbearable pain of his terrible loss. 

And since elderly people with Alzheimer's may not remember they are old or perhaps even know any longer what death is, how can they be depressed about it or fear it?   Ignorance is bliss, in a way, isn't it?

It is hard on family and friends who miss the person who used to be, for sure, and who fear ever being like the person with memory loss.  But maybe the fear is not necessary.

Now, mind you, I am talking about these dementias in only elderly people, not early onset memory loss, which is a real tragedy with no upside at all.  But otherwise, let's work towards prevention and a cure, but not worry too much if that doesn't happen.  And if there is a prevention and cure, we will have to find another way besides Alzheimer's to cope with old age and death.

I'm Dr. E., Guest Blogger.

For more on the subject, check out the following:

Alzheimer's From the Inside Out

The Myth of Alzheimer's:What You Aren't Being Told About Today's Most Dreaded Diagnosis 

Alzheimer's:A Caretaker's Journal

Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias:A Practical Guide  

Do Katie Couric, Meredith Vieira and Natalie Morales Have to Be Blondes?

Dr.E (Ph.D.) Speaks Out: Guest Blogger

Just before Katie Couric left her position as cohost of "The Today Show," she let her short brunette hair grow longer and gradually get lighter.  She was a blonde when she started anchoring the CBS Evening News.

Then, soon after Meredith Vieira took over Katie Couric's spot on NBC's "The Today Show," I watched her hair color get lighter and lighter.  It ended up being a pretty color and a good bleach job, but her brunette hair was a pretty color without a bleach job.  Now, I'm talking about only hair color, not hair quality or hair styles.

Some time ago,  I watched another NBC "Today Show" anchor's hair getting lighter and lighter.  Natalie Morales, like Meredith Vieira and Katie Couric, had a beautiful brunette hair color. 

One day while having my gray hair colored, I was chatting with my colorist Kathy and mentioned how disturbing it was to see Natalie Morales gradually lightening her hair.  "I'm her colorist," Kathy replied.

Although I was embarrassed, I stood my ground.  I said I couldn't understand why someone as attractive as Natalie Morales, with such beautiful brunette tresses, would want to bleach her hair lighter and lighter.  Kathy  said something about the cameras and studio lighting "liking" blonde hair.

You know what I think, though?  I think it's the male bosses who like blondes!  And in the competitive business of tv news, these women know they have to compete with other blondes and they know how important it is for them to please the male bosses!

Funny thing is, those men and these women seem to have forgotten that Katie Couric was never more popular and never had higher ratings than when she was a brunette!

I'm Dr. E., Guest Blogger.

For more on this topic, click on the following:

News, Gender and Power

Seen and Heard:The Women of Television News 

Blonde Like Me:The Roots of the Blonde Myth in Our Culture 

Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes?  

Punishment for Teen Offenders

Dr. E. (Ph.D.), Guest Blogger

 Recently, after people heard that 5 teens in Florida set  Michael Brewer, one of their peers, on fire over a bicycle and video game incident, leaving their victim with burns over 65% of his body, many wanted those bad kids to be locked up forever.  Coincidentally, the very question The United States Supreme Court will be considering this session is whether teens should receive the sentence of life without parole.

The cases that have prompted this review by our highest court are also about Florida teens, one of whom was convicted of committing a rape at age 13; the other was convicted of armed robbery at age 16.  Both were sentenced to life in prison without parole. 

In 2005 The United States Supreme Court  banned the death penalty for juvenile defenders stating that adolescents are unformed, susceptible to peer pressure and capable of change.  Their decision drew on international law and pointed out that "the United States is the only country in the world that continues to give official sanction to the juvenile death penalty."  And some groups say the U.S. is also the only country where teens can be sent to prison for life without parole.

New brain imaging techniques have found that teens, indeed, do not have fully formed brains and, thus, are not capable of the same reasoning and do not have the same decision-making skills that adult brains allow.  It does seem reasonable, therefore, that the Supreme Court's 2005 decision regarding the death penalty for teens would apply also to these cases of sentencing teens to life without parole.

There is no question that teens who commit crimes must be punished.  As a society, though, we must find appropriate punishment for this age group and provide prison environments that allow teens to mature, to change for the better, when at all possible, and then to become contributing, law-abiding fully developed adults. 

I'm Dr. E, Guest Blogger.  For more information, click on the following resources:

Reforming Juvenile Justice

Youth and Crime 

Treating the Juvenile Offender 

Youth, Crime and Justice:A Global Inquiry 

Young People, Crime and Justice 

Judging Children as Children:A Proposal For a Juvenile Justice System 

Youth, Crime and Justice 

Judging Juveniles:Prosecuting Adolescents in Adult and Juvenile Courts  

Suzanne Somers:Questions Raised by Her New Book

 In Suzanne Somers's new book, Knockout, she tells us that when she went to the emergency room feeling ill as she was going into anaphylactic shock, an allergic reaction that can be deadly, she was treated for it.   Because she had breast cancer in 2000, howevever, one of the doctors told her to have a CAT scan which allegedly showed cancerous tumors all over her body.

Two things are striking about this,  if this is what indeed happened.  First, according to Somers, an oncologist told her, "You've got cancer.  I just looked at your CAT scan and it's everywhere...your lungs, your liver, tumors around your heart...I've never seen so much cancer."  There is no mention of Somers being physically examined by the doctor, only reference to the CAT scan.

Second, according to Somers, based on the CAT scan another doctor had told her, "We don't know what is wrong with your liver, but it is so enlarged that it is filling your entire abdomen."  The liver is an easily palpable organ; it lies right under the abdominal wall.  With the exception of severely obese people, a thorough physical exam simply using two hands can diagnose an enlarged liver and a cancerous liver as well.

If Somers had so much cancer in her body, it is unlikely that she would have been symptom free.  Remember, she sought medical help for an allergic reaction.  Furthermore, there was no mention of tumors in Somers's brain.  When breast cancer metastisizes, it is usually in the lungs and brain first, and  knowledgeable doctors know that.  Even small lesions in the brain produce serious symptoms, and Somers was symptom free with no mention of brain lesions on the CAT scan.

Since the CAT scan findings were unusual and did not fit the clinical picture Somers presented, she needed to be fully examined by her doctors using their common sense and medical knowledge.  Doctors, relying only on machines, should not give someone a death sentence before ruling everything else out.  Machines and laboratories can be faulty and are not always accurate.

Somers  enthusiastically advocates alternative medicine and nutrition.  When the prognosis is poor because of multiple secondary cancers, no one can tell you with certainty what the right course is for you or your loved one.  Alternative medicine may be helpful sometimes.  Traditional treatments may be helpful other times.  And some cancers continue to be invariably deadly regardless of the intervention.

Chemotherapy saves and cures some, but it does not cure everyone, and then cancer can progress in a body weakened by chemotherapy.  I know people who chose alternative medicine and died.  I know people who followed traditional medical advice and died.  I know people who were doomed only to resurface later symptom and cancer free.

You have to become informed and learn all the options.  Then you have to discuss them with a doctor who takes all the particulars of your illness and your body into consideration, and then the patient must be careful not to listen to only what he/she wants to hear.

I'm Dr. Blokar.  For more information, click on the following resource:

Knockout:Interviews with Doctors Who Are Curing Cancer -- and How to Prevent Getting It in the First Place

Traits to Look For in Your Doctor

  A young relative of mine who is a college student in another state called me the other morning in a panic because when she woke up, the left side of her face was very swollen.  The same day she went to the student clinic where the doctor, after seeing her lab tests, ruled out the most common and benign possibilities.  At the same time, however, he told her that her calcium was high and her chloride was low, leaving her with the impression that her condition might be serious.

Because she is in another state and the sense of urgency, I did not have time to research doctors in her area and relied, instead, on the recommendation of a friend's friend.  Two days later, when her swelling had already subsided and she felt fine,  I was with her at this eye/ear/nose/throat specialist, who examined her with surgical gloves on and declared that he didn't feel anything unusual.  That was a "red flag," because one cannot feel fine structures in one's neck and under the chin with gloves on. Throughout the exam, the doctor was in a bad mood, another "red flag."  He was defensive and clearly not pleased by my presence, since I am also an M.D. 

As a result of this experience, here are my suggestions for what to look for in a doctor.  First, do your homework and become well-informed.  If you have a chronic or potentially serious condition, get visuals (through x-rays and/or other imaging techniques) of the organs and structures involved.  Do not talk about "blue" or "pink" pills; have a complete and accurate list of your medications and dosages.  It is natural to be intimidated and even to suspend your better judgment when you are needy, fightened and uninformed, so always bring another person to the doctor with you because your anxious state can sometimes get in the way of hearing and remembering correctly what the doctor says. 

If the doctor seems defensive or annoyed by your or the accompanying person's questions, run.  If your doctor objects to your wanting a second opinion, run.  Good physicians appreciate a patient who wants to know what's going on.  They are understanding and reassuring.  Those who do not have talent for medicine and those who lack curiosity and love of humanity, are merely technicians.  You need and want more than that.  You need someone who gets satisfaction  from making you sane and whole when you are ill and broken. 

 By the way, my young relative's swollen face was likely a simple viral infection, and the high calcium and low chloride were mostly from dehydration.  She is fine.

Practicing medicine is not only a science, it is, I believe, an art as well.

I'm Dr. Blokar.  For more information on this topic, click on the following resources:

How to Talk to Your Doctor:Getting the Answers and Care You Need

How Doctors Think 

How to Choose a Good Doctor 

Working With Your Doctor:Getting the Healthcare You Deserve 

The Practical Patient:How to Choose Your Doctor and Ensure Your Best Health Care 

Special Treatment:Ten Ways to Get the Same Special Health Care Your Doctor Gets  

Being in a Relationship With Someone With Narcissistic Personality Disorder!

Every romantic relationship requires some kind of give and take.  If both people are narcissistic and totally self-absorbed and not giving, a good relationship cannot develop.  There may be just a brief physical affair that dissolves quickly.  In good relationships, giving and sharing is reciprocal and equal.

While Narcissistic Personality Disorder is more often diagnosed in men than in women, women are not always just victims of being involved with or married to  a self-centered, not empathetic, and un- giving person.  Sometimes men find themselves in relationships with, or married to, women with these same characteristics. 

What kind of person, male or female, ends up with someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder?  People who are unsuspecting because of their youth, are naive, are inexperienced or are innately masochistic might be drawn to narcissists, who are self-serving, want to be admired, want to be idealized, and want to be served by unsuspecting victims.  The masochistic victim deep down does not know what he/she deserves. He/she will put up with neglect and humiliation while wondering what they are doing wrong and unable to reach or be understood by their partner or to be loved.

If one person in a relationship has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, the other person will be frustrated forever trying to reach them and pleading with them for closeness but ending up with just annoying them.  You cannot draw blood from a stone, and narcissistic people are like stone.  Stones do not give love, empathy of fulfillment of another human being's emotional needs. 

I'm Dr. Blokar.  For more information, click on the following resources:

Freeing Yourself From the Narcissist in Your Life

Narcissistic Lovers:How to Cope, Recover and Move On 

Why Is It Always About You:The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism 

When Your Perfect Partner Goes Perfectly Wrong:A Survivor's Guide to Loving or Leaving the Narcissist in Your Life 

Help!I'm in Love With a Narcissist