“Liver damage, particularly cirrhosis, plays out over a few decades,” explains Andrew Muir, MD, chief of the division of gastroenterology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. While many people with hepatitis C can be treated with direct-acting antiviral (DAA) medications, some, including those who’ve suffered liver damage from cirrhosis or developed liver cancer, may also need to have a liver transplant. “The key is separating out the presence of the virus and how sick the liver is,” says Dr....

— Annette, New Jersey How wonderful it is that you are thinking about donating blood or an organ. It is a constant struggle for the blood banks and transplant centers to maintain an adequate supply. The answer to your question is not the same for both organ and blood donation, so I will first address blood donation. Yes, you can donate blood, if you meet the following criteria: Your sugar level is controlled....

For women with migraine who become pregnant, some of these changes may be worrisome. Will migraine attacks become more frequent, and if so, is it possible to safely manage migraine pain when you’re expecting? There are a couple of different issues to consider when it comes to migraine and pregnancy, says Amaal Starling, MD, a neurologist and migraine specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona. “One is a concern that if there’s a correlation between hormones and migraine, what is going to happen during pregnancy with migraine?...

Zeiger came in fourth place in the 2000 Sydney Olympic triathlon and fifth at the Ironman World Championships that same year. She won the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in 2008. (Remember, the Ironman is no walk in the park; it includes a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike portion, and 26.2-mile run.) After her competitive racing days, she continued to run, hike, snowshoe, and cycle regularly. “I was fitter than someone else in the general public who didn’t spend their life as a competitive athlete,” says Zeiger....

I also suffer from dry skin caused by psoriasis and eczema, and the extremely low relatively humidity brought in by this year’s Diablo wind events made my skin issues even worse. I didn’t need a weather station to determine just how little moisture was in the air; the dermatologist I’ve seen since I was in my twenties, Dr. Ostreicher, showed me a simple way to check. During one visit, he asked me to lightly scratch my skin and look for a white streak — the sign of a dry spot....

For myself, living with multiple sclerosis (MS) for the majority of my adult life, the golden hour could be called by many other names: the lucid hour, the hour of possibility, the exercise hour, the only hour … How MS Shrank My Days Before diagnosis, but while definitely experiencing the disease, I remember feeling like my ability to make it through a working day was shrinking. I worked in a field where 12- to 14-hour days were not unusual....

In a clinical trial, published on March 29, 2021, in JAMA Neurology, ponesimod (marketed under the brand name Ponvory) was found to reduce fatigue significantly better than teriflunomide (Aubagio), another commonly used drug in the treatment of RMS. In addition, the drug was found to surpass teriflunomide in lowering the MS relapse rate in study participants and in reducing the risk of new or enlarging lesions seen on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans....

Curious if this ingredient has a place in your skin-care regimen? Read on to find out what you need to know about this beauty booster. “Even though niacinamide is water-soluble, and theoretically it can be peed out if you take too much, there’s still a risk of liver toxicity with oral intake,” Nazarian explains. If you do want to take a niacinamide supplement, don’t take more than is contained in a multivitamin unless instructed by your physician, she says....

Some people with gallstones never exhibit symptoms, while others experience severe pain. If you are experiencing pain in the upper abdomen or right side of the body, you may have gallstones, and will want to seek treatment to avoid further complications. At least in the United States, about 25 percent of newly diagnosed patients with gallstones will need treatment. The gallbladder’s main function is to store bile, a substance secreted by the liver that helps with digestion....

RELATED: The Best Ways to Reduce Stress When You Have Rheumatoid Arthritis What Makes a Rheumatologist Appointment Positive and Effective? Too often, people living with rheumatoid arthritis come away from their doctor appointments feeling dissatisfied — or even worse — like they don’t know what just happened. It is important to have an effective appointment. By “an effective appointment,” I mean that you need to accomplish certain things while you are with your rheumatologist and not allow time to tick away, nor overlook what needs to be discussed....

During the spring of 2010, Baumann experienced weeks of abdominal bloating and discomfort. When those symptoms subsided, she put them out of her mind and busied herself planning the annual trip she and her husband took from Florida to Maine to spend the summer with her son and his family. Two months later, that uncomfortable feeling returned, this time accompanied by vaginal bleeding, an indication that something was very wrong....

When compared with people not taking a PPI, individuals taking a PPI once daily were twice as likely to report testing positive for COVID-19, while for those on a twice daily dose of the medication that risk was nearly fourfold. “Proton pump inhibitors and infection risk is something that’s been linked for a long time, certainly in hospital safety work,” says Iahn Gonsenhauser, MD, chief quality and patient safety officer at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus....

Dr. Pemu trains medical students and new medical doctors in the area of internal medicine. Through her research, which is informed by her daily experiences with patient care, she explores the best ways to improve the long-term health of those who live with chronic illness. In February 2020, she gave a TED Talk on “culturally congruent coaching,” a program she developed with her team in order to empower patients living with chronic illnesses through the care and assistance of a trained coach from their local community....

Increase in Colorectal Cancer in Those Under 55 Is Not Due to Increased Screening What’s new The increase in the prevalence of colorectal cancer in people younger than 55 is not solely due to improved colorectal cancer screening and detection, according to a study published July 11 in the Journal of Medical Screening. The study, by the American Cancer Society, looked at colonoscopy screening among more than 5,000 people ages 40 to 54 in the National Health Interview Survey....

“I felt dizzy and lightheaded, and my right leg was numb and looked white,” says Hills. By the time she arrived at the emergency room, the vision in her right eye was blurry. Seven months earlier, Hills came close to having a heart attack and nearly died during a procedure to open her blocked coronary artery. But this time her problem wasn’t caused by a blocked artery. It was something she had never heard of: atrial fibrillation, also called afib....

There Are 100-Plus Types of Arthritis and Rheumatic Diseases When people learn that “arthritis” is an umbrella term for over 100 different types of arthritis and rheumatic diseases, they are surprised, if not overwhelmed. When they start to learn more, they realize that there are types of arthritis that are potentially more serious and severe than minor pain conditions for which you can simply take an aspirin, rub on Bengay, and be good to go....

“In general, washing your skin is necessary for good hygiene; however, people with eczema have a compromised skin barrier and are at greater risk for bacterial colonization and skin infection,” explains Adam Wulkan, MD, the director of laser and cosmetic dermatology at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center in Burlington, Massachusetts. Also known as atopic dermatitis, eczema is a chronic skin disease that causes a variety of symptoms, including itchiness, swelling, redness, and scaling, according to the Mayo Clinic....

Most people with Crohn’s disease experience some inflammation in both the small intestine and the colon (large intestine), which moves stool to the rectum. (1) The exact nature of Crohn’s disease symptoms are different in each person. Even in the same person, symptoms are likely to vary over time. (2) Factors that can affect Crohn’s disease symptoms include what areas of the digestive tract are involved, whether your Crohn’s is responding well to your treatment, and how long you’ve had the disease....

But there is disagreement over whether these and other characteristics of antisocial personality disorder are a result of a person’s genetics or whether they develop as a result of a person’s environment in childhood. What is considered most likely is that in most cases, it is a combination of these factors. Functional magnetic resonance imaging brain scans of people with antisocial personality disorder have shown differences in their brains from what is typically seen in people without a personality disorder....

Talkspace Plans and Pricing Talkspace therapy costs range from $69 to $109 per week, depending on which plan you select and the availability of therapists in your state. You can choose to be billed monthly, quarterly, or biannually. You can also pay with your insurance, an option BetterHelp doesn’t have. Here are the three main Talkspace plans for individual therapy and the monthly prices without insurance: Messaging Therapy $276 per monthVideo Plus Messaging Therapy $396 per monthVideo Plus Messaging Plus Workshops $436 per month...