Health And Wellness Roundup: Hope For Migraine Sufferers; And What About That Numb Thumb?

The New York Times: Me And My Numb Thumb: A Tale Of Tech, Texts And Tendons
It took me a few months to accept that I had given myself tendinosis in my phone thumb. It is a depressingly modern condition in which the tendons around the thumb inflame as a result of repetitive strain — in my case because I had, for hours a day over years of a life, tapped that right-hand digit onto the glass of my smartphone. (Bowles, 5/19)

The Wall Street Journal: New Migraine Drugs Offer Hope To Sufferers
Lisa DeLeonardo set a Google alert so she would know exactly when the first in a new class of migraine drugs was approved. It happened Thursday, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Amgen and Novartis ’ application for erenumab, whose brand name is Aimovig. It’s an injectable drug touted as the first treatment designed specifically to prevent migraines, and is expected to be available to patients within a week for an annual price of $6,900. Three other similar treatments are expected to hit the market within the next year. (Reddy, 5/18)

Orange County Register: STDs, Particularly Congenital Syphilis, Spike In Southern California 
Southern California is mirroring a statewide increase in cases of sexually transmitted diseases for the third year in a row. Of particular concern is the spike in the number of congenital syphilis cases, which are triggering a rise in the number of stillbirths caused by syphilis. (Bharath, 5/18)

NPR: How Dangerous Is It When A Mother Sleeps With Her Baby?
Here in the U.S., this is a growing trend among families. More moms are choosing to share a bed with their infants. Since 1993, the practice in the U.S. has grown from about 6 percent of parents to 24 percent in 2015. But the practice goes against medical advice in the U.S. The American Academy of Pediatrics is opposed to bed-sharing: It "should be avoided at all times" with a "[full-]term normal-weight infant younger than 4 months," the AAP writes in its 2016 recommendations for pediatricians. The organization says the practice puts babies at risk for sleep-related deaths, including sudden infant death syndrome, accidental suffocation and accidental strangulation. About 3,700 babies die each year in the U.S. from sleep-related causes. (Doucleff, 5/21)

The New York Times: What Barbershops Can Teach About Delivering Health Care
Heart disease is the most common killer of men in the United States, and high blood pressure is one of the greatest risk factors for heart disease. ... A recent study shows that the means of communication may be as important as the message itself, maybe even more so. Also, it suggests that health care need not take place in a doctor’s office — or be provided by a physician — to be effective. It might, as in this study, take place in a barbershop, an institution that has long played a significant social, economic and cultural role in African-American life. (Carroll, 5/21)

The New York Times: How To Age Well And Stay In Your Home
What will it take to age well in place, in the surroundings we’ve long cherished that bring us physical, social and emotional comfort? What adaptations are needed to assure our safety and comfort and relieve our children’s legitimate concerns for our welfare? Of course, aging in place is not for everyone. Some seniors may prefer to leave the dwelling long shared with a now-gone partner. Some may want the security of knowing that physical and medical assistance is but a bell-ring away. Others may simply be fed up with having to care for a home. (Brody, 5/21)

The Washington Post: Surgery Can Cause Cognitive Losses In Some Seniors
Two years ago, Daniel Cole’s 85-year-old father had heart bypass surgery. He hasn’t been quite the same since. “He forgets things and will ask you the same thing several times,” said Cole, a professor of clinical anesthesiology at UCLA and a past president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. ... His father probably has post­operative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) — a little-known condition that affects a substantial number of older adults after surgery, Cole said. (Graham, 5/19)

The Washington Post: Watching But Not Treating Cancer Can Be Hard. Sometimes It’s The Right Approach.
However, there is a good argument to be made for taking the watch-and-wait approach (sometimes called “active surveillance”) over treatments that too often have terrible side effects. A study published in JAMA last week found that 72 percent of men younger than 65 with prostate cancer chose surveillance over surgery or radiation; a decade prior, the numbers were reversed: Only 27 percent chose monitoring. As the study numbers suggest, many physicians are counseling men with low-risk prostate cancer to choose active surveillance over surgery and radiation; not only is this approach less invasive, it can help men avoid the incontinence and impotence often associated with more aggressive treatment — and do so without impacting survival rates. (Petrow, 5/20)