Click to add text, images, and other contentQUESTION: What is your opinion of the use of products containing psyllium such as Metamucil to control cholesterol? My levels are around 250 total (LDL 160 and HDL 50). I am 45 and enjoy reading your column every week.
ANSWER: About 15 years ago, there was a flurry of interest in Metamucil (and the other psyllium products) to control elevated cholesterol. At the time, we didn’t have any good alternatives because the “statin” drugs (Zocor, Lipitor and others) hadn’t been invented.
I jumped on the bandwagon and had hundred of patients drinking that yucky stuff that ranks just below paper mache on the palatability scale. Not a single one is still taking it. Not only was it unpleasant and inconvenient, it just didn’t work worth a flip. The most I ever documented was about a 10% drop in total cholesterol and most of that came from HDL (the good cholesterol) which is the one you’d like to keep high. I’m sure there are some benefits to the use of Metamucil (regularity, for instance) but low cholesterol isn’t one of them.
With an LDL of 160, you are in a moderate- to high-risk category and you really need to take a modern drug. People with LDL’s of 160 often live to see the insides of Coronary Care Units.
Dr. Beaman has practiced in Richton for 28 years.
QUESTION: Please help with a frustrating problem. My son has been to 3 doctors several times to have a large wart on his hand removed. One of those doctors is a dermatologist whom he saw twice for that purpose. The cost has now run into several hundred dollars and not only is the wart getting bigger but now others are appearing. No one has indicated that this is some kind of serious problem with no solution. Their methods of removal are just not effective.
Many years ago, I had the same problem and our family doctor burned the large one and several smaller ones with an electric needle. They all dried up immediately.
ANSWER: You had warts and now your son has them also. It’s interesting how those genes work, isn’t it? Don’t get me wrong…I’m not saying warts are a genetic defect. They are caused by a virus but the susceptibility to that virus is inherited just as surely as hair color is inherited (but we won’t get on THAT subject, today).
I’ve never seen anything written about inheritance patterns of wart susceptibility but my experience tells me it’s a fact. Practically every time I treat warts in the office, the mom will tell me another family member has had them.
The electric needle you remember was called a “Hyfrecator” and there’s no doubt it worked like a charm but there were problems. You had to numb up the area because no one could stand to be burned like that and the shot to do the numbing was painful in itself. The whole process was rather gory with the smoke and the smell of human flesh burning and, usually, it left a big white scar. Not a pretty process on the whole. Still, the burning seemed to stimulate the immune response and speed up the development of antibodies to the wart virus, which is really the only way you can heal viruses anyway. It worked but now we have a better solution.
That solution is called “cryosurgery”, which is just a fancy way of saying we kill the wart (or skin cancer or any number of other growths) by freezing the ever-loving life out of it. There’s no wart on the face of the earth that can survive cryosurgery if you do it hard enough. When warts survive the freezing, it is because there wasn’t enough freezing but that isn’t to say the doctor is at fault. Like the hyfrecator, some patients just can’t tolerate a freeze that’s deep enough to do the job. Sometimes, I provide a prescription for elixer of Demerol to put the patient in lahlahland and that allows you to do the job without inflicting too much pain. Sometimes, even that doesn’t work.
Interestingly, there is a medicine (simple over-the-counter Tagamet) that seems to stimulate antibody formation and allow warts to heal more quickly. I have no idea how it works and the data is all just observational but it seems to be effective in some cases.
Of the thousand-and-one colloquial folk remedies for warts, not one is worth a flip. I’m guessing they originated because all warts eventually go away by themselves and whichever treatment is tried last always gets the credit for the cure.
Yes, it’s true…even if you do nothing at all, eventually your son will be blissfully wart-free. Trouble is that might take until he graduates from college and going through high school looking like you own a frog farm could be a humiliating experience.
Take him back to a dermatologist
Dr. Beaman has practiced in Richton for 28 years.
QUESTION: My mother has started to do something that drives us all crazy. I have been assigned to the task of mentioning it to her but first I wanted to make sure this wasn’t a sign of disease that she didn’t have any control over.
Her problem (OUR problem, really) is that she moans loudly with almost every breath. I don’t think she’s in any pain or she would mention it. The moaning, frankly is so annoying and, in public, so embarrassing that we find ourselves avoiding her and I know she is hurt by this.
Do you think she could actually be in pain and hiding it from us? We would all appreciate your advice.
ANSWER: I doubt if pain is the source of Mom’s moaning. It’s more likely she doesn’t hear well and can’t hear the sound she’s generating or has concluded (wrongly) that it’s too soft for anyone to hear but her. At this point, it’s probably become such an engrained habit it will be tough to break. Tough but not impossible.
Have you ever noticed that it feels good to moan? When you think about it, it would be an easy habit to get into, especially if you couldn’t hear it yourself.
I like to think of myself as completely free from such annoying quirks but Sandra tells me that, when I’m uncomfortable or being forced to do something I don’t want to do, I growl like a bear. I’ll think I’m being quiet and attentive when she will elbow me and whisper, “Stop making your bear noises”. I’m sure she’s just making it up to embarrass me but it works every time.
I’m guessing your mom would die a thousand deaths before she knowingly did anything to embarrass her children or limit her contact with them. She probably will welcome your input but don’t expect the behavior to stop abruptly. You’ll have to remind her again and again (kindly) but be patient. There really is some wisdom to that “old dog – new tricks” analogy.
Dr. Beaman has practiced in Richton for 28 years.
QUESTION: I have been going to Dr. (deleted) with my (deleted) and I am about to decide all he is interested in is tests and money. I go in to his office, his nurse does everything and then he breezes in and says I need such-and-such test. He never even tells me what the LAST test showed and he sure never explains why I need the test. In fact, he never explains ANYTHING. If I question the need for the test, he gets mad and walks out of the room.
Would you keep going to a doctor like this?
ANSWER: I purposely deleted the name and specialty but I can tell you I know the doctor you’ve been using and I couldn’t agree more. My impression is that tests are everything to him and patients are a necessary evil so that he can have somebody to run tests on. If this isn’t the case, it’s certainly the impression he leaves. I seldom go a week without someone coming to me to get them away from that doctor and in to another one in that specialty. Sad but true.
Regardless, you are under no obligation to go to ANY doctor…particularly one you feel uncomfortable with. Go to your regular family doctor to get his recommendation and referral.
Dr. Beaman has practiced in Richton for 28 years.
QUESTION: I would like your opinion on the use of “smoke-less” tobacco. I have had a blocked coronary artery that has been reopened. I have continued to use smokeless tobacco since that time. My children and grandchildren constantly stay on me about this. Is this really harmful or would a small amount occasionally be OK? I am a man in my late fifties.
ANSWER: If you want to be around to watch those grandchildren graduate and get married, you need to avoid tobacco in any form. It doesn’t matter whether you roll it up and smoke it, stick it into your cheek or bake it into brownies, the net effect is the same…your arteries narrow down and the blood supply to your organs (heart included) is reduced.
A person whose heart muscle has already been starved for blood doesn’t need any more constriction of his coronary arteries than already exists.
I get the impression from your letter that you were hoping for something in the way of affirmation from me…something you could point to triumphantly but I can’t provide it. Sorry.
Dr. Beaman has practiced in Richton for 28 years.
QUESTION: My son who works at the shipyard showed me the enclosed sheet telling about the dangers of an artificial sweetener. If half of this is true, this stuff should be pulled off the market and everyone who ever took it should be compensated. What do you think?
ANSWER: The sheet you sent has been making the rounds at large industrial complexes for several years now. I’ve gotten a half-a-dozen or so copies and I still haven’t figured out why anyone would go to the trouble to cook up such a litany of bogus gobbledegook unless they were trying to get a class-action lawsuit rolling.
Nothing on that sheet makes the slightest sense medically or statistically. It’s just meant to inflame the reader and it does that pretty effectively. You have to hand it to the author…he knew how to whip up a frenzy without any hard evidence to point to.
There is one tiny shred of truth among the malarkey and that’s the fact that the Air Force and Navy have discouraged their pilots from consuming this product before they fly for fear their short-term memory would be affected. The studies are conflicting on this but at least one appears to show mild, temporary memory impairment in people who use the stuff regularly.
If you’re wondering what product all the fuss is about, you’ll just have to keep on wondering because I have no desire to fan the flames of litigation or get sued by a major manufacturer. I can say it is a sweetener whose name you would recognize.
My advice to people who use a lot of any sweetening product and who feel their short-term memory (what you had for breakfast this morning rather than what you used to eat for breakfast as a child) has declined, is to change sweeteners and see if things improve.
Not likely but it’s worth a shot.
Dr. Beaman has practiced in Richton for 28 years.