Higher Pollen Count Means Sniffy Season
Allergy sufferers who think they’re sniffling more than ever this season aren’t dreaming. Tree pollen counts in the Los Angeles area are higher now than last year, said Bonnie Ank, a UCLA laboratory technician who conducts pollen counts for the Los Angeles chapter of the Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America. “And I don’t remember seeing so many different kinds of tree pollen.” Current offenders, she said, are mulberry, pine, oak and walnut trees.
Avoidance of the allergens, the treatment of choice, is not always possible, noted Dr. Bernard Geller, a Santa Monica allergist and USC clinical professor of pediatrics. In lieu of staying indoors, the use of over-the-counter medications--antihistamines or decongestants--may help, he said.
It may be time to see an allergist, Geller added, “when avoidance is impossible or when simple medications are ineffective or--if they are effective--when side effects make life intolerable.” In general, he said, it’s a good idea to seek medical help if allergy symptoms persist two weeks or longer.
Cervigram vs. Pap Test
Special photographs of the cervix called cervigrams are five times more effective in detecting precancerous lesions than the traditional Pap smear, Kaiser researchers have found.
In the study, more than 3,000 women were given simultaneous Pap smears and cervigrams. “Eighty-one lesions were detected,” said Dr. Katsumi Tawa, a gynecologist at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Los Angeles who led the study. Seventy-two lesions were picked up by the cervigram, 14 by the Pap smear and five were detected by both methods.
“The cervigram is not designed to replace the Pap smear, but (to serve) as an adjunct,” said Tawa, whose study was published recently in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology and partially funded by National Testing Laboratories, the St. Louis-based manufacturer of the cervigram camera.
Neither test is perfect, Tawa added. Although the cervigram is more sensitive to detection of lesions, he said, the false positive rate tends to be higher for cervigrams than for Pap smears.
At least two other studies published in medical journals in the past year also found cervigrams superior to Pap smears.
Tawa and other researchers hope that cervicography, developed in 1981, will soon be available on a more widespread basis. Currently, only a handful of doctors in the Los Angeles area offer the technique, according to Jo Ellen Faulkner, project manager of National Testing Laboratories. The typical patient cost for a cervigram plus office visit is about $80, she said. A Pap test plus office visit averages $76. (For names of area physicians who use the cervigram, consumers can call the company at (800) 325-9737.)
Post-Heart-Attack Sex
A heart attack need not squelch a patient’s sex life.
With their doctor’s OK, most patients can resume sexual activity from two to six weeks after the attack, according to John Vyden, a UCLA clinical associate professor of medicine and author of “How to Prevent Your Next Heart Attack” (Prentice Hall Press, 1988).
His “stair test” is one way to gauge readiness. “If you can climb a couple of flights of stairs without any ill effects, you are probably ready to resume sexual activity,” says the Beverly Hills cardiologist, who reasons that both activities can require about the same amount of energy.
Vyden also debunks common myths among heart attack patients, saying there’s no evidence that sex will cause another heart attack, that it will accelerate underlying heart disease or that it caused the heart attack.
Non-Caffeine Lifts
For caffeine fiends, resolutions to cut down on the brew are easier made than done. Especially by mid-afternoon, when ambition and energy slump and the critical question becomes: How to get a caffeine-like lift without the caffeine?
A fruit juice and mineral water spritzer (2 ounces of juice, 8 ounces of mineral water) may ease you over the slump, suggested Gretchen Newmark, a Santa Monica registered dietitian. With the mineral water diluting the fruit juice, she added, you take in fewer calories (about 35) and just enough sugar to raise blood sugar slightly.
