I received this link from the father of patient of mine who is concerned about the affects of vaccines for his child. It will take me some time to deal with the entire article so I am just going to start what is likely to be a multi-part reply.

In paragraph 2, Donald W. Miller, Jr.,MD states what he calls the 5 most common causes of in children under 5. I don’t know where he got his information. This is different than the 2003 data published by the CDC in 2005: s, genetic diseases/congenital malformations, cancer, /assault, and heart disease. Of note, #6 and #7 are both potentially vaccine preventable (influenza/pneumonia and sepsis) depending on the organisms. That is, we have a vaccine for some causes of pneumonia and for influenza, as well we have vaccines for a few of the organisms that cause sepsis. Miller says that the medical community believes that vaccines are the reason that none of the top 5 causes of are infectious. He even agrees but only briefly with the general consensus by saying,

There is growing evidence that this is so, but perhaps not quite in the way conventional medical wisdom would have it.

He fails to demonstrate what is not quite the way conventional medical wisdom would have it. At least I couldn’t find it in the article. Based on his article Miller may not like the risks posed by vaccines (debatable) but the evidence of their efficacy is not easily refuted.

Popularity: 36%

Medical Issues, Vaccines | No Comments »

Acne is primarily an inflammatory disorder of the skin. It occurs when hair follicles become clogged, usually with skin and skin oils. It is not usually a problem with dirty skin, although those who find themselves working in greasy environments may experience a worsening of acne.

The skin renews itself approximately every 4 weeks. During this time, a cell on the bottom layer of the skin moves toward the outside world and is eventually sloughed off. Acne seems to be caused primarily by poor sloughing of the skin cells lining hair follicles. For some reason these skin cells are sticky. If they don’t slough properly, they can occlude the follicle (plug up the hair follicle). This is a problem because of the nature of hair follicles. At the root of the hair are oil glands, which produce oil to nourish the hair and keep it healthy. When we have a hair follicle that is producing oil and plugged up, there is Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 36%

Medical Issues | No Comments »

I would like to share some ideas that I give new parents for dealing with the emotional rollercoaster after the birth of a new child. (I don’t want to deal with the question of what is postpartum depression or does it exist.)

I can think of about three reasons why someone would be depressed after delivering a baby. I am sure there are many other reasons, but these are the three that I often address.

Postpartum hormones are all out of wack!
As a new mother recognize that your hormones have a role in how you feel. Just realizing this can make a difference. “Oh yeah, I know why I am feeling this way! My hormones are doing somersaults.”

You are not getting much sleep!
If you remember, before your baby was born, he liked to wake up and kick Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 51%

Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The other day I was working with a patient who was told that her unborn baby had a potentially fatal problem. This was extremely hard for this woman to hear. Her previous child had died of the same illness after being hospitalized in the ICU for months without ever going home. I remember her through tears saying, “I just can’t put another child through that again.”

This incident brought up several issues including termination (abortion), prayer, intentional inaction, heroic measures, health economics and some others. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 61%

Ethics | 2 Comments »

ADHD¹: So Whose Fault Is It?

Before we start calling parents of those with ADHD bad parents, we need to stop and think about some of the implications of what we discussed in “What Causes ADHD?”

First of all, there is likely a large genetic component to the traits that make up what we call ADHD. Secondly, parenting styles may significantly contribute to ADHD. Just because your kids don’t have ADHD doesn’t mean you are a wonderful parent, and just because your kids do have ADHD doesn’t mean you are an abject failure as a parent. Some children with ADHD would not have ADHD given better parenting, and some children with perfect parenting Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 71%

Medical Issues, ADHD | 5 Comments »

Most churches have nursery policies that sometimes are based more on parent comfort than medical fact. In a brief search of nursery policies on the internet I came across a couple things that I felt warranted some comment.

Fever: A fever is defined as a core body temperature above 100.4 degrees. When I looked at nursery policies I noticed that some define fever as Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 67%

Medical Issues, Nursery Policy | 2 Comments »

A family member asked me if I was saying ADHD exists or not.

By Definition, ADHD as a description of behavior exists.
The experts disagree on whether to call ADHD a disorder, disease, or part of the normal behavior spectrum. From my point of view, it is a simple description of behavior at one end of the NORMAL spectrum.
When I say normal I mean normal children (those without a disorder or disease fit the definition of ADHD). Just like any Gaussian (normal bell shaped) curve, there are extremes.

Popularity: 68%

Medical Issues, ADHD | No Comments »

My posts may be a bit infrequent for some time as I am currently without a home computer…

My daughter (11months) pulled a cup of water out of my wife’s hand and splashed water on my now non-functional laptop. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 51%

Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Caveat: Experts are hesitant to speak to causation. Causation is very difficult to prove. I noticed this morning in a book written by an expert in ADHD, that he would only offer theories on causation. In some instances, my theories are in opposition to his. To some extent my disagreement may come from the presuppositions I bring to this topic as a Christian. That being said, not everyone agrees with what I have to say on ADHD especially the discussion on discipline and family structure.

As a reader commented, many of the symptoms of ADHD are similar to characteristics of boyhood. I would probably carry this a bit further to state that many of the symptoms of ADHD are characteristic of childhood.

ADHD is genetic. Some children are born Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 69%

Medical Issues, ADHD | 1 Comment »

There are so many facets of ADHD that I could discuss, but foundational to the discussion of ADHD is the question of its existence.

First of all, how is it defined? ADHD is a disorder of impulse control that is manifest by difficulties with maintaining attention and difficulties with increased poorly controlled activity (my definition). The psychologists have a more thorough definition, and one that we use in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV (DSM IV). An example of the full definition can be found here. The DSM IV describes ADHD. If a child has behavior that fits the description in the DSM IV without another cause, they are said to have ADHD. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 69%

Medical Issues, ADHD | 4 Comments »