DEAR DR. ROACH: My husband has been diagnosed with a rectal fissure. It has been a couple of months, and it isn’t any better. He has been treated only with a stool softener. What do you suggest? — A.T.S. ANSWER: Anal fissures are painful. Although a stool softener is one part of management for people […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: At a routine follow-up at my doctor’s office, the nurse took my blood pressure on my left arm, and it was 143/73. This seemed high, so I asked her to check it on my right arm. It was 104/62 on that arm. She said she had never seen anything like that. Is […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: In a recent column, you responded to a reader asking about the link between Benadryl and dementia, and near the end you mentioned that melatonin is “very safe.” I’ve heard that taking melatonin can affect your body’s natural production of melatonin, causing a loop — the more you take, the less your […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: I’m a 54-year-old white female, and for the past six years or so, I have been getting a butterfly-looking rash in the same exact place: under my breasts and around my rib cage. When the rash appears, I feel very sore, and it hurts to move. I just don’t feel good and […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: Five years ago, I added five to six minutes of easy yoga, mostly sitting exercises, to my daily exercise routine. My PSA has gone down to the 0.9-1.1 range, from 4.3. This is for someone who has had two prostate biopsies through the years. My doctor now says that the odds of […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: In a recent column, you said that red yeast rice acts as a kind of natural statin. Can natural and synthetic statins be used together? — M.P.A. ANSWER: Red yeast rice is a traditional Chinese food and medicine used for circulation. It was found to decrease cholesterol by about 15 percent, and […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: I am wondering about oral herpes. Have there been any advances made for treating or preventing oral herpes? I know about and use Abreva, but is there anything that works better? — L.P. ANSWER: Herpes simplex virus type one is the cause of oral herpes, usually called “cold sores” or “fever blisters.” […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: I am a 72-year-old male in good health. I’ve had a couple of colonoscopies (the first one found some adenomas), but the required cleansing prep with harsh laxatives has become increasingly difficult for my body to take. I only got halfway into the last prep before becoming so sick that I had […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: Can you give any reason why a penis wouldn’t grow or form like it is supposed to? My penis is undersize. It is not regular size for a man. I’d just like to know what could cause this. — V.P. ANSWER: I hear this question frequently, and most of the time when […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: I have a problem that you might not have heard about. I had shoulder surgery on my left shoulder two years ago and developed strong body odor on that side. A year later, I had surgery on my right shoulder and developed body odor on that side. I never had strong body […]