There is something wildly inappropriate about me being traumatized when shopping for nutritional supplements in a national chain pharmacy.
I have sustained Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (luckily far from the worst cases I have seen) from my auditory trauma. Read more on Pharmacies Practicing Medicine!…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, News, prescription drugs by on Dec 7th, 2017. Comment. 
I only saw pea plants growing in a field one time I can recall in a field in Northern France. Read more on Bless Your Pea-Picking Heart!…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, culture, life, News, Nutrition by on Dec 6th, 2017. Comment.
I’ve met a lot of people since I moved to California over 20 years ago, but one who has endured as a close and dear friend is Christelle Tachon.
I sat down for an intimate chat with her last month and fortunately had the cameras rolling. What we captured is funny, intimate and emotional — a testament to a pair of friends who care deeply for one another. Read more on Blog…
Filed under Doctors, Education, News by on Nov 13th, 2017. Comment.
Trump’s Just Say No Campaign
Patients often try to discuss politics with me and I always avoid it the best I can.
I don’t care what folks believe, for here in the U-S-of-A I will not stop believing that every one of us has the right to choose. I try to tell them I am about as apolitical a human as they are going to find.
Should they want to push me into a corner and find out if I am “left” or “right,” I try to convince them that I grew up in Boston and so am “fairly liberal,” or remind them I am a veteran of the United States Army Medical Corps, which is usually enough to make me pass for “conservative.” Read more on Reviving The Failed “Just Say No” Drug Campaign…
Filed under Government, News, politics by on Nov 3rd, 2017. Comment.
Sexual harassment has been making the news lately. Dozens of powerful men in Hollywood (especially) and business and government are being accused of misconduct by vulnerable young women (and men in some cases).
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can result from any trauma. Car accidents, animal attacks, a bad fall — not just sexual assault or war.
A high-school student doing a report for school recently wrote to me asking about PTSD. I thought my answers might be of interest to others, so I’m sharing them with you. Read more on Student Questions About PTSD…
Filed under abuse, Alternative Medicine, depression, Diagnosis, Disease, Dissociative Disorder, Doctors, Mental Illness, News, Psychiatrists, PTSD, Research by on Nov 3rd, 2017. Comment.
Down with oversimplification. I have no interest in seeing life resolved to “yes” or “no” questions. This is what “mass media” seems to be doing. I hate, for example, people who agonize trying to decide if I am “conservative” or “liberal.” If a patient tries to focus on this sort of thing (and it is amazing how often they do) it is not too tough to find out what they want me to be and to convince them that I’m exactly what they want me to be. (It usually involves either telling them I am a veteran of the U.S.Army or telling them I went to undergraduate university in Boston.) Read more on It Is Not A “Yes” Or “No” Question…
I’m on my way to shoot a video with my dear friend Christelle Tachon that will end up on my new podcast site. This is actually the second time I will have filmed with Christelle, and the first episode with her is nearly completed in the editing process.
Filed under Doctors, Education, Family, life, medicine, News, Psychiatrists, Psychology, Psychotherapy by on Oct 15th, 2017. Comment.
I recently read a heart-wrenching series of reports on doctors not believing women. I thought this sort of value judgment was outmoded, finding it hard to believe in this century and in this country. I have had at least a few experiences within the last year of patients who I sent back to the primary care physicians who referred them to me. I simply felt that although the primary physicians had in every case told the patient it was “all in your head” and sent them to me for care, I had found signs indicative of physical illness and wanted them to have a further workup.
Filed under Doctors, News by on Oct 13th, 2017. Comment.
I’m excited to announce that a project that I’ve had in development for so long is ready to be unveiled. Read more on New Podcast From The Renegade Doctor…
Filed under Education, Family, News by on Sep 27th, 2017. Comment.
Teency children, starting at about four months, laugh about 400 times a day. Adults seem to laugh only about five times a day. This has got to have at least something to do with why growing up often stinks. The authors of this article start by reporting about a case of a woman with a mood disorder that was difficult to control. But she was more easily controlled with medication once she started doing “laughter yoga.”
Now “laughter yoga” sounds like my idea of a crashing bore. I think that this discipline — invented by an Indian Doctor in the 1990’s — is intended to make people laugh without using words. From what little I can find it seems to depend more on the “contagious” nature of laughter than on any humorous content. I suppose laughter can exist, as a neurophysiological entity, apart from content. A bunch of neurophysiological imaging studies, which I have actually attempted to read, implicate practically every part of the brain I can think of. Tickling initiates laughter in a baby (and on several occasions, in my husband as well). Read more on The Good Stuff…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, depression, News, Stress by on Sep 20th, 2017. Comment.