Recent content by blz

Radiology is actually getting easier to match into as long as you go to a decent US school. By far, the three hardest specialties to get are Plastics, Derm and ENT. This is mostly because of lifestyle and really good money.

I'm an ENT resident and although I deal more with surgical issues relating to the head and neck, I've done rotations in the ER and have extensive medical knowledge from medical school. With that said, swatdoc's advice is GOLD.

Wow you need to relax there. Statins are very safe drugs and although they are associated with very rare muscle and liver problems, their benefits are huge even at a low dosage. Patients on statins are monitored routinely by their doctors to prevent very rare complications such as...

I indirectly support the site by buying all my supplements from sponsors or recommendations on this board. However, I do feel like this site has become rampant with board members trying to push their products that I'm starting to doubt the validity of anyone's claims on this site. Also, I'm...

It's actually a pretty good preventive medicine for migraines from what I've read and heard from patients. Patients usually welcome an interesting side effect of the med: weight loss.

A markedly elevated GGT would support a cholestatic process (coupled with the elevated alk phos) or some type of drug causing increased hepatic microsomal GGT induction (alcohol, barbituates, phenytoin, etc.) I'm not saying that's all you need, but his LFTs are hardly complete. He also needs...

Musculoskeletal chest pain, costochondritis, reflux and anxiety are all very common noncardiac origins of chest pain in younger individuals. History is actually the best way to see if your chest pain is cardiac in origin. Questions to ask yourself include: is your chest pain "pressure" in...

Not to label you already but the symptoms you are describing are very classic for hypothyroidism. Make sure your doc gets a TSH level.

Did they do a GGT level too?

Could be a deeper issue here. Depressed people usually have this problem of early morning awakenings. How has your mood been?

The only thing I'd worry about with an ACE-I is gain of potassium. You may feel weak and tired if you're potassium overloaded.

nm

I know what the normal ranges are and I still don't think your values are that high to be emergently worried - but then again, we are missing a lot of info here. Your values aren't consistent with an alcoholic picture becuase you usually see AST > ALT at about 1.5-2:1

Those LFTs aren't that high at all, relax. your doctor will take of it. By the way, LFTs won't tell you anything about your renal function.

you better rule out an infectious etiology (ie. septic arthritis) before they even start considering corticosteroids.