Cough

Years ago, you wrote about an enzyme in pineapple juice that helps with arthritis pain. At that time I was in my early 40s and already having pain in my hands and feet from arthritis. I started drinking one glass of pineapple juice a day, and my symptoms cleared up. Pineapple juice contains bromelain, which appears to have anti-inflammatory activity. One study found that a product containing bromelain (Phlogenzym) was effective in easing discomfort from hip arthritis (Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology, January-February 2006)

A federal review of safety concerns about cough and cold remedies ought to be quick and result in restrictions on the products' marketing and use, Baltimore's health commissioner said yesterday. Dr. Joshua Sharfstein and a group of prominent pediatricians petitioned the Food and Drug Administration Thursday to warn parents against giving cough and cold medications to young children. The group wants the FDA to require drugmakers to stop marketing products for infants and babies. It also wants warning labels stating that the medications "have not been found to be safe or effective" for children under 6. FDA officials announced plans yesterday to review the matter over the next several months.

Being sick is no fun anymore.There's no one to bring you bubbly ginger ale with a bendy-straw. Remember the sound of a freshly cracked bendy-straw? The straw contorted itself so the healing waters of the ginger ale entered your lips at a most sympathetic angle.Those were the days when Campbell's Soup meant something, darn it. Saltines were at your beck and call. And the Kleenex! Enough to wallpaper the house! Plus, you got to miss blocks of school days.Your ailment was household news. Loved ones tiptoed into your room to receive updates on your condition.

North American Vaccine Inc. reported yesterday a net loss of $11 million, or 34 cents a share, for its second quarter, compared with a net loss of $11.2 million, or 36 cents a share, for the same quarter last year.The Beltsville company, which is developing vaccines for infectious diseases, said revenue for the three months that ended June 30 was $1.2 million, up from $1.1 million in the year-ago period.The company said revenue for the three-month periods in 1998 and 1997 came primarily from research and licensing agreements and product sales of the company's whooping cough vaccine in Europe.

My doctor has scared me by saying that if I don't get my blood pressure under control I could have a stroke or a heart attack. He scolds me if my reading is too high.I have taken so many medicines over the years I have lost count. Propranolol made me incredibly tired. Both Prinivil and Vasotec gave me a cough that was unbearable. Procardia XL made me dizzy.I have been doing well with Cardizem CD but my doctor expressed concern about breast cancer (I am a breast cancer survivor). He just prescribed Cozaar instead.

When her daughter was an infant, Francine Jones of Randallstown noticed that the baby always had a cough and a runny nose. The pediatrician said it was just a cold, but Jones, a 44-year-old respiratory therapist with the University of Maryland medical system, thought otherwise."

Game show of lifePost-It notes came from the same company that invented :A - staplesB - sandpaperC - corn flakesD - yellow legal padsThe 3M company started out making sandpaper which is stuff built up in fine layers. So is Scotch tape and also those sticky, little yellow notes.I don't like toCough. What is a cough, anyway?Danya Klages-MundtWinona, MinnesotaSometimes muscles move on their own. That's called a spasm (SPAZ-em). A cough is a bunch of spasms. Muscles in your chest, neck and head are all going crazy trying to get rid of fluids that have collected in your lungs, throat and nose.

Help! I read in your column about some prescription medications used to treat ulcers and severe cases of bad breath.Unfortunately, the newspaper got thrown out before I could clip the article and I don't remember the details. I think the medicine worked by killing bacteria in the stomach.My husband's breath is absolutely lethal. He's tried everything. He's constantly brushing his teeth or sucking on breath mints. He's tried products like Breath Assure, but they just don't touch his problem.

My 10-year old developed a bad cold with fever and a hard cough last week. In general, he seems better, but he is still coughing. Now he says his chest hurts. Should I be worried?If your son's chest hurts only when he coughs, the pain is probably due to sore chest and abdominal muscles. Coughing is hard work. It can put extra strain on muscles not used to working so hard, just as starting a new sport or exercise program might.Make yourself cough as you read this, and feel how much more deeply you inhale and how much more forcefully your chest and abdominal muscles move in than they do during a normal breath.

A Glen Burnie doctor is being sued in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court by the parents of an 18-year-old girl who claim she died because her asthma was not treated properly.Mark Shacka Sr. and Ruby V. Johnson of the 200 block of Burns Crossing Road, Severn, are seeking unspecified damages in the suit filed yesterday against Dr. Ram Rastogi.The suit alleges that Rastogi treated Malynda M. Shacka with a cough suppressant when she made an office visit Oct. 21, 1993.Her condition warranted further testing and possibly an expectorant medication, the suit says.

Question: : I started taking lisinopril for high blood pressure in December. Soon after, I developed a nagging dry cough that wouldn't stop. I have thrown up because the coughing was so bad. I also have had blood tests and chest X-rays. They all came back negative. In desperation, I went to an ear, nose and throat specialist, who told me this kind of cough is common in people my age (50) due to postnasal drip. He knew I was on lisinopril but gave me an antihistamine and cough suppressant.

Kennedy's absence could impact healthcare debate Senate Democrats and the White House are stepping up preparations to overhaul the nation's health-care system without the ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy, a politically and emotionally fraught move that could dramatically alter the course of what is expected to be a titanic legislative struggle. While battling a malignant brain tumor, the 77-year-old Massachusetts Democrat, who has devoted much of his 46-year Senate career to advocating for better health care, spent months working on a sweeping bill that Democrats hope will help lay a foundation for the most ambitious health overhaul in generations.

IN THE MIAMI AIRPORT -Against the advice of our vice president, I have braved the germ-infested world, forced into transit by prior commitments and surrounded by strangers who may not recently have washed their hands. My own, of course, are scabbed from repeated scrubbing through all four lines of "Happy Birthday to You," which, my epidemiologist-neighbor tells me, is how long you have to keep the soap on your hands to do any good. At this writing, I am sequestered in a small partitioned area of Miami International Airport.

If the price is too good to be real, the drug might be a fake! With Nexium more than $4 a pill, I ordered it from an online Canadian drugstore. When the pills came, they were from India, and they were generic. This medicine did not work, and now I have my asthma symptoms and cough back. I don't know what I will do, since I can't afford the name brand! Acid-suppressing drugs such as Aciphex, Nexium, Prevacid, Prilosec and Protonix can relieve reflux. Some people with this condition develop other symptoms, such as asthma or cough, as a result of acid irritation.

The alarmist can only wag his finger. The Maryland men's basketball team has the worst academic score of any Atlantic Coast Conference school. It's also the worst of any of Maryland's 27 sports teams. The realist can only shake his head. In all, men's basketball teams from 124 Division I schools posted insufficient grades in the NCAA's latest report card - its annual Academic Progress Rate report. The basketball fan can only shrug his shoulders. What does it all mean? Either basketball players are dumb as rocks for taking a free education for granted, college coaches are sleazeballs for pretending they care, or everyone else is naive for thinking grades still matter.

Have you heard of using milk of magnesia on severe acne? My son has cystic nodular acne. He is 16 and has been under a dermatologist's care for many years. We have spent thousands of dollars, to no avail. He has recently tried a home remedy: applying milk of magnesia to his face at night before bed. He looks the best he has in four years. Can you tell us why this is working so wonderfully well? Milk of magnesia is a solution of magnesium hydroxide and is best known for its laxative action.

Amidst a national debate over the safety and efficacy of over-the-counter cough and cold medications, a new study suggests that nearly two-thirds of the estimated 7,000 children treated in emergency rooms each year after taking the drugs fell ill because they got into the medication and accidentally took too much. The study's authors, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said their data show that more care needs to be taken by parents to properly store the medicines - as well as by drug makers to develop packaging to prevent youngsters from circumventing child-resistant caps.

I want to thank you for the "sugar cure" column. I had a toe amputated more than a year ago and it still is not healed. I read your column about using sugar for wound healing and asked the doctor about it. She said: "Nothing else is helping, so go for it. It couldn't hurt." I mixed the sugar into Polysporin and applied it on a Friday afternoon, and by Monday afternoon the improvement was very noticeable. At my next appointment, the doctor was very impressed. We first found this old-fashioned approach in medical literature two decades ago (Southern Medical Journal, November 1981)

One of the ongoing story lines of professional sports has been the use of performance-enhancing substances. Or anything stronger than a cough drop, it would seem. What's that? No cough drops, either? Huh. Anyway, a reader wrote as a result of one of our posts, perhaps it was the Barry Bonds-asterisk thing last week, that this business of competitors and drug testing can crop up in the most unlikely of places - like bridge, for instance. In fact, one bridge player was stripped of a medal five years ago for refusing to take a drug test.

A federal drug advisory panel concluded yesterday that over-the-counter cough and cold remedies should not be given to children under 6 because of safety concerns, and found no evidence that the remedies are even effective in children under 12. The panel recommended that the Food and Drug Administration prohibit drug makers from marketing the formulations to children under 6 and require that they change the wording on labels from "Consult a Physician" to...