Kwaneta Harris had hot flashes and lapses of memory. She didn’t feel right and didn’t know why. “It felt like my body was completely betraying me,” she wrote. “I felt like I was losing my mind.” The cause wasn’…
Category: Conditions
Crippling fatigue: a common enemy of autoimmune disease
For many people with autoimmune disease, fatigue is the most debilitating symptom. Why autoimmune disease and fatigue go together is not entirely understood, although inflammation may be part of the reason. Other possible factors include pain, poor sle…
Crippling fatigue: a common enemy of autoimmune disease
For many people with autoimmune disease, fatigue is the most debilitating symptom. Why autoimmune disease and fatigue go together is not entirely understood, although inflammation may be part of the reason. Other possible factors include pain, poor sle…
Couples counseling: Understanding conflict and building intimacy
Situations that trigger a call for assistance with couples counseling are generally described as a need for improved communication, chronic conflict, lack of physical or emotional intimacy, or a desire to better understand the impacts of past trauma. T…
Eye dryness, insomnia, and more: hidden signs you’re in perimenopause
I am 47 years old and was today years old when I realized I have been going through perimenopause for the last four years. It is only with a retrospective lens that I can review my last four years and pick up intermittent symptoms or even just mild nui…
Pain management for Black patients and painful realities
This piece is inspired by my recent patient encounter. Within the past week, I received a call from the ER to admit a 29-year-old African-American female whom, for the sake of this essay, I will call Keisha. Keisha presented with severe lower abdominal…
Healthy hierarchy for patient safety, experience, and staff wellbeing
The hierarchy must be healthy to achieve critical outcomes in patient safety, patient experience, workforce health and wellbeing, and cost-effectiveness. In a healthy hierarchy, staff must have the right skills, education, and experience to direct and …
The first time I walked again after a spinal cord injury
Once upon a time, I’d imagined myself the Lone Ranger physician, self-sufficient and incapable of weakness, and when I had my spinal cord injury in 2008, I really felt alone, in the negative spiral of a victim mindset, my own worst enemy and in a…
Secret support for this family caregiver
Last month, while spring cleaning my home-based office, I faced off with a bookshelf full of past writing journals. Get rid of them (I coaxed myself). Whatever you wrote here is history now. My inner packrat resisted. Couldn’t I just box them up …
Breaking the stigma with science
Oxford Dictionary defines stigma as “a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.” In other words, it’s a state of being in shame. One of the most influential thought leaders in shame is Brene Brow…
