Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
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School is back in session so it is time for a little pop quiz. What is an item that almost every student carries? If you said backpack, you are off to a great start. Do you know what it takes to be at the head of the class? Let’s find out if you are a star student or need to brush up a little on your backpack knowledge. Most students carry a backpack filled with their books at some point during their school day. Did you know a heavy back pack can cause neck, shoulder or back pain? Those narrow s...
It is miraculous to consider how much access and exposure we have to information through our computers, phones, televisions, radios and newspapers. Unfortunately, we need to be on guard because too much of this buzz can be false information. Marketing (sales) can be good and important as it moves commerce, and I'm not saying industry doesn't sponsor credible scientific research. However, marketing can be harmful when selling a weight-loss program that gives false hope, when peddling virility...
Lung cancer is the second most common cancer (not counting skin cancer) in both men and women, only behind prostate in men and breast in women. Although it is the second most common, it remains the leading cause of cancer death in America. Approximately one in five cancer deaths a year are attributed to lung cancer. More Americans die every year of lung cancer than colon, prostate and breast cancer combined. Lung cancer is considered a silent killer and is often diagnosed at a late stage, when t...
It’s that time of year when looking out my kitchen window, the blooming plants have likely reached their peak growth. Things are gorgeous. Of course there are a few plants that are either stressing from the intense heat a few weeks ago or are just bloomed out. You have to overlook these plants and enjoy what you have. In my garden, it’s fun to clip bouquets using the multi-colored zinnias, delicate cosmos and annual asters that are blooming. I’m lucky that friends gifted me with garlic chive...
Our brain releases chemicals into our body that impact functions in our body, such as our mood. There are four chemicals that commonly support “feeling good,” and they are also known as “happiness chemicals.” These four chemicals are dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins. Dopamine provides us with pleasure, motivation and learning. Known as the reward chemical, dopamine may help us feel determined to accomplish our goals or meet our needs. Oxytocin is often known as the love hormone...
True food allergic reactions cause anaphylaxis. Eating even a tiny bit of the allergenic food causes the patient to quickly develop symptoms that can include shortness of breath, hives, vomiting, diarrhea, throat swelling, passing out and, at times, it can be fatal. The patient makes IgE allergy antibody to the food. The cause of the reactions can be determined by the history and confirmed by allergy skin or blood testing. Once we know the allergenic food, a treatment plan can be put into...
Everyone we know, meet, or pass in the grocery store has their own set of personal life experiences that are unique from our own. We all come from different places, have our own set of genetics, and have different parents or families, which is part of what makes us unique from each other. We can even have different experiences than our siblings who grow up in the same home as us. Our experiences are part of what help us learn, create adaptations to the world around us, and how we continue to...
Pain in your mouth is difficult to ignore, especially when it affects everyday activities like speaking, eating, or sleeping. Here are some of the most common reasons to visit your dentist. The first sign to visit your dentist is a persistent toothache. Sometimes our teeth can hurt temporarily due to things like teeth whitening or sinus issues. However, if a toothache does not go away, or goes away and then comes back, this is a good sign to visit your dentist to identify the source of pain. Pai...
Mental health treatment within the criminal justice system plays a pivotal, yet often overlooked, role in both the well-being and rehabilitation of incarcerated individuals. This is often overlooked by the general population due to attitudes against the incarcerated and the lack of overall media attention. It is my belief that change needs to take place. Firstly, while many in society have negative outlooks on incarcerated or previously incarcerated individuals, most fail to realize that approximately 45% of Americans have had an immediate...
"If you're happy and you know it clap your hands." It's a song familiar to all of us. However, how familiar is the awareness of our body clues of feeling happy to all of us to truly "know it?" Recognizing body clues and sensations to aid in the next steps of labeling emotions is the first key skill in emotional intelligence. Unfortunately, these are not skills we are taught. Mental health development across the lifespan is as vital as physical and cognitive development. Understanding the...
When it's hotter than blazes and mosquitoes are a biting, do you question just why you are gardening? I do. Then the next day, the morning is cool, a breeze comes up and as I look at my flowers out my kitchen window or prepare a pitcher of cucumber water, it's all worth the sweating and bites. Well, the bites are questionable. Looking at the flowers out the window and mornings on the patio are my favorite. The morning light just seems to make the flowers show off. We all enjoy our flowers and ve...
Doctors are taught medical terms and jargon in medical school like a secret code. Many medical terms are rooted in Greek and Latin. Over the course of our training, these words become second nature and we become fluent in this medical "language," although we are also expected to talk to our patients using simple terminology. However, most specialties in medicine still use the original Greek and Latin roots for their names. Once you know where these names come from, everything makes sense. Most...
As husband and wife urologists, we talk a lot about the urinary tract and how it affects our patients. In women, the most common urinary concern is incontinence, or the involuntary leakage of urine. There are several causes and many treatment options exist depending on the type. The two main types of urinary leakage in women are urge urinary incontinence and stress urinary incontinence. For women with urge incontinence, treatment is aimed at improving quality of life disrupted by overactive...
As perennial flowers bloom out during their season and others wait their turn, there are blooming annuals for a quick glimpse of color. Even then, there are times when looking out my kitchen window that the greens in the garden take front stage. I’ve just trimmed the spent iris and peony pods. Looking out my window the hostas are well leafed out. I’m a hosta fan and I’m fortunate I have shade for them. There is a variety of them in the flower garden and they put on quite a show. I don’t know th...
Doctors write prescriptions for medications all the time. However, have you ever heard of a doctor prescribing a walk in the park? While this prescription will not fit in a bottle, it can pack some powerful health benefits. It may sound strange, but doctors actually can prescribe time outdoors to their patients with the help of a national program, ParkRx.org. This free online program can help a patient track their outdoor activity and discuss more outdoor exercise options with their doctor. In...
My name is Joanie Holm. I am a certified nurse practitioner in Brookings, South Dakota, and I am the person fortunate to have been the life partner of the original Prairie Doc, Richard P. Holm, M.D. Rick and I were married for 40 years before his passing in March 2020. During those wonderful decades together, if I could point to one powerful action that strengthened our relationship with each other, with our family, our community and with our patients, it would be the act of kindness....
We've all heard it, April showers bring May flowers. For Nebraskans it's May showers that have helped kick in the May flowers and we hope this just continues. We sure don't want more storms. We've lucked out where I live that iris stems stand tall and the winds haven't caused any damage. Others haven't been so fortunate. I guess that is why when a flower bud opens, we better enjoy the show. I look out my kitchen window and realize what a blessing it is to be able to view the flowers. Not only...
It has been a few years since my children were babies. Having spent my youth as a babysitter and a career in pediatrics, I was pretty comfortable in watching the developmental of babies, toddlers and young children. (Teenagers are another story for another day.) That isn't always the case for young parents who may not have experience with this age group. Babies develop in a somewhat predictable fashion. As you think of a newborn, you might think of the poor neck control which changes drastically...
As unique is our loss is as unique is our grief. What do we do when one day we can smile, laugh and look back at memories with fondness and thankfulness for the life we shared with our loved one; the next day we feel paralyzed by our pain and sadness? We feel broken and feel as though we may never be our "old self" again? We may not like the answer ... we feel what we feel. There is no twelve steps, timeline or prescription for our grief. New research supports that as unique as we are as...
Technology has come a long way in the past 200 years. The telegraph was invented in 1837 and made rapid long range communication possible. Messages could be sent around the world through a series of connected wires. The telegraph had medical applications in the Civil War. It was used to order medical supplies and report information about injuries and casualties to medical teams. This was cutting edge technology at the time, but it now is considered an obsolete method of communication. Alexander...
As we approach the end of our 22nd season, I would like to thank our audience for trusting us to bring them health information that is current and accurate. There are many doctors out there who cannot make the same claims as the Prairie Doc’s and I would like to take this opportunity to help sort out those charlatans and quacks from trusted sources of health information. While tasty and refreshing, I would not trust Dr. Pepper for medical advice. Nor would I trust Dr. Evil from Austin Powers, de...
An exceedingly common question I get in clinic, especially in the heart of a South Dakota winter, is how to remedy dry skin. And the questions aren’t just in clinic; my own kids, family, friends, everyone seems to have an occasional problem with dry and irritated skin. Dry skin is something we are all familiar with; if your dry spots come with a rash or anything else unusual, it may be worth showing it to your primary care provider, as it could be something else entirely. Eczema, a common i...
It’s human nature to tell stories about the past and doctors aren’t immune to that impulse. The second year medical students rotating through my clinic have me reflecting on my own years as a fledgling physician, and the changes I’ve seen in my decades of practice. I remember one late evening spent in the PICU watching over a toddler who had meningitis. At one point I turned and bumped into a bedrail, which came crashing down. Both my preceptor and I jumped and I probably even shrieked. The child, however, didn’t even blink. That’s when we k...
There is an old joke where a man walks into his doctor’s office and says, “Doc, it hurts every time I do this. What should I do? To which the doctor replies, “Simple, don’t do that!” While the advice seems trite and maybe even insulting, like most jokes, there is some truth in it. Pain is one of the ways your body tries to protect you from even worse injury. Pain tries to keep you from walking on a sprained ankle or lifting things with a broken arm. In those cases, the advice from the doctor is...
As a general internist who does primary care for adult and elderly patients, I talk to patients a lot about arthritis and joint replacement surgery. This type of surgery, also known as arthroplasty, is one of the most common types of elective surgery done in the United States. Knees, hips and shoulders are the most frequently done arthroplasties, and most of those surgeries are done for severe osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis, the most common type of arthritis, is due to wear-and-tear of the...
