Arthritis

Every 18 seconds, another baby boomer turns 50. Even though their AARP cards are in the mail, don't you dare call them "old."Half of them are facing some form of arthritis. They say it's no problem -- don't you dare call it a handicap.Boomers are not the first to put a happy face on aging. It seems to be the American way.At least 80 percent of their parents have at least one chronic condition, yet a third of them assess their health as good or excellent, according to the Statistical Handbook on Aging Americans.

Brent Whalen stayed up late last night stuffing T-shirts, numbers and bells on shoelaces into bags for 60 kids. The 32-year-old science teacher knows that collecting money, arranging car pools and picking up kids who don't have rides to Sunday's 5-K Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis is too much work. But he can't say no.He's been fielding a team from Robert Moton Elementary School in Westminster since the day seven years ago when a student with rheumatoid arthritis asked him to help her organize classmates for the race.

WASHINGTON -- Merck & Co., the world's No. 3 drugmaker, won Food and Drug Administration approval yesterday for its once-a-day painkiller Vioxx, a rival to Monsanto Co.'s Celebrex in the $8 billion-a-year arthritis painkiller market.Merck said Vioxx will arrive in U.S. pharmacies by mid-June.Vioxx will compete directly with Celebrex, which has become the second-most-prescribed arthritis drug after entering the market in January. Developed by Monsanto, Celebrex is co-marketed by Pfizer Inc.Merck needs a new winning product to offset an expected decline in revenue after 2001, when four of its drugs -- with combined annual sales of about $5 billion -- will lose patent protection.

Q. What is the latest scoop on glucosamine and chondroitin? My son-in-law and his mother both swear by it. He is in his mid-40s, and she in her late 70s. After her back surgery several years ago she is doing wonderfully.I am bothered with knee problems now, though my doctor says not to worry. I take Synthroid, HCTZ, Tylenol and a multivitamin. Is there any chance glucosamine could forestall the onset of arthritis? My doctor says he doesn't know and my daughter says, "Ask the Graedons."A. We're in the same boat as your doctor.

ANNAPOLIS carpenter Sean White isn't a track and field star. He isn't even an enthusiastic amateur runner. In fact, he does not run regularly and has competed in only two races in his adult life.Yet White, 28, will compete next month in the Dublin International Marathon. He is part of a 20-member Joints In Motion team that includes his father and stepmother, Tom White and Kate Boland of Potomac. They are running because people like Susan Bolander of West River cannot.Bolander, 36, has arthritis.

BETHESDA -- Bob Murphy, whose victory at last week's Nationwide Championship was his third this year on the PGA Senior Tour, said yesterday that he was considering pulling out of the 16th Senior Open because a flare-up of an arthritic condition."

Does your nonprofit organization need a convenient place to meet?Brooklyn Park Library, 1 E. 11th Ave., will take reservations for its meeting room for 1996 starting Oct. 2. Bookings will be for operating hours, 1 p.m. until 9 p.m., and will be on a first-come, first-served basis.There is no charge. Reservations are for nonprofit groups only. For more information, call the library at 222-6260.*Getting nervous that the yard sale season is about to come to an end? Not to worry, there is at least one more weekend of shopping left.

Mary Lee Schab says she feels "like Ms. America" when she uses a new ladder designed to make it easier for arthritis patients to get in and out of the Olson Memorial Pool at Anne Arundel Community College.The 78-year-old Annapolis woman is among a number of arthritis patients who have begun using the pool since the plastic ladder, with steps that dip into the pool at a 45-degree angle, was installed in February, thanks to a $2,000 grant from the Arthritis Foundation.Nancy Buckman, a technical assistant in the college's Health and Physical Education division, said the ladder has given the swimmers a different sense of who they are."

The volunteer: Agnes Abernethy is a member of the board of directors of the Southern Branch of the Arthritis Foundation and promoter of one of the foundation's fund-raisers each year -- the Jingle Bell Run.A music teacher who retired from Annapolis High School, Mrs. Abernethy has started a second career as a real estate agent with Prudential Preferred Properties in Eastport.Each year as the date of the run approaches, she jingles bells and sings over the office public address system to make everyone aware that the time to pledge and participate has arrived.

Summer is just around the corner and Harbor Hospital is offering a free brochure titled: "Answers to the Burning Questions," which explains why skin cancer is the most common form of cancer and who is at risk.The hospital also is offering free educational brochures on arthritis. "Basic Facts: Answers to Your Questions" provides an overview of the disease, including treatments, medications and types of arthritis. "Taking Charge: Learning to Live With Arthritis" gives information about coping with the challenges of the pain associated with arthritis.

Dr. Lawrence E. Shulman, former director of the connective tissue division of the Johns Hopkins Medical School who later became the founding director of the National Institutes of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, died of bladder cancer Oct. 10 at his home in Washington. The former longtime Bellemore Road resident was 90. The son of a physician, Dr. Shulman was born and raised in Brookline, Mass. He was a graduate of Boston Latin School and earned his bachelor's degree in 1941 from Harvard University.

Seminar focuses on juvenile arthritis Anne Arundel Medical Center (AAMC) and the Arthritis Foundation of Maryland will partner for a Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis Seminar from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the AAMC Sajak Pavilion, 2001 Medical Parkway. The seminar is free and open to the public. According to the foundation, juvenile arthritis affects nearly 300,000 children in the United States -- 50,000 of them stricken with rheumatoid arthritis. "There are approximately 5,600 children with pediatric arthritis in Maryland alone," said Grace Ban, executive director of the Arthritis Foundation's Southern Maryland branch.

GAITHERSBURG -- Using light waves, polymers and a nuclear reactor, researchers here are investigating a superstrong, experimental gel that might some day turn into a novel treatment for millions of people who suffer from arthritis. Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have spent two years shooting neutron beams at the mysterious hydrogel, trying to determine why it is almost as strong, flexible and resistant to friction as the cartilage in the human knee. The polymers in the gel - formed when synthetic molecules are struck by ultraviolet light - were developed by researchers at Hokkaido University in Japan in 2003.

Osiris Therapeutics Inc. Shares rose $1.60, or 16 percent, to $11.84 after the Columbia-based developer of treatments using adult stem cells said its experimental drug Chondrogen eased arthritis pain in the knee.

Golf fundraiser -- The Arthritis Foundation of Southern Maryland will hold its eighth annual "Get Teed Off at Arthritis" Golf Tournament at 9 a.m. Friday at South River Golf Links, 3451 Solomons Island Road, Edgewater. Registration will begin at 7:30 a.m. and there will be a continental breakfast, lunch, silent auction, raffle and award ceremony. The cost is $195 for an individual, $750 for four, or $875 to include a company tee sign. Registration is required and sponsorships are welcome.

I'm a nurse in a rural hospital. Some of the people I care for tell me that a bee sting every two years or so will significantly decrease arthritis inflammation and pain. They attribute this remedy to the Chinese who came to this area a hundred years ago to work on the railroads and in the logging industry. "Apitherapy," or bee-venom therapy, for arthritis goes way back in time. There are reports that it was used in ancient Egypt and China. Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.) is purported to have written about bee stings for painful joints.

For some people, simply jogging or playing a friendly game of tennis comes with reminders of the passage of time: creaking knees and aching hips. Although these symptoms often can be treated with rest, therapy and medication, nearly 500,000 Americans each year receive knee replacements, says Dr. Brian Mulliken, a joint replacement specialist at St. Joseph Medical Center/Orthopaedic Associates. Another 300,000 people receive hip replacements. And, as the population ages, that number grows annually.

Rheumatology Joints may benefit from bone drug A drug that strengthens aging bones may also protect patients' joints from osteoarthritis, according to a study by a Johns Hopkins University rheumatologist. Dr. Clifton Bingham and colleagues studied the effect of risedronate, commonly marketed as Actonel, on a group of 2,483 arthritic men and women from the United States and Europe. Researchers measured the amount of cartilage at the one- and two-year point and used blood tests to look for more cartilage breakdown.

Valentin Keller enlisted in an all-German unit of the Union Army in Hamilton, Ohio, in 1862. He was 26, a small, slender man, 5 feet 4 inches tall, who had just become a naturalized citizen. He listed his occupation as tailor. A year later, Keller was honorably discharged, sick and broken. He had a lung ailment and was so crippled from arthritis in his hips that he could barely walk. He died at age 41 of "dropsy," which probably meant that he had congestive heart failure. His 39-year-old wife, Otilia, died a month before him of what her death certificate said was "exhaustion."

My 26-year-old daughter has been on Effexor for more than a year for anxiety. Recently, she forgot a dose, and the next day she experienced what she described as an electrical sensation from her feet to her head. She described it as a "zing." The sensation went away when she took the required dose that evening. She is on the lowest dose of Effexor and would like to stop taking it before getting pregnant. Should she be concerned about stopping this medication? The electrical "zing" she experienced is sometimes mentioned when people describe what happens when they stop taking this or similar drugs.