DEAR DR. ROACH: Four years ago, my husband had an abscess. What started as a boil became so deep and hard that he required general anesthesia to remove it. The wound was left open, and we had to change the packing twice a day for eight weeks. It was diagnosed as MRSA, and he was […]

DEAR DR ROACH: I am a healthy 71-year-old man. I broke my collarbone in the middle in a serious auto accident. I was told that the bone should stop moving and heal in four to six weeks. More than six weeks have passed. There has been slow but steady progress in moving my arm, but […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: I am 49 years old and fairly healthy. I’ve been HIV-positive for over 20 years and have diabetes. My HIV doctor told me that my rheumatoid factor was 112, and said to see a rheumatologist. He told me that the shot for arthritis isn’t good for me because my immune system is […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: I have had hot flashes, similar to those experienced by post-menopausal women, ever since my coronary bypass in 1990. I can be sitting quietly in a chair reading or at my computer, and suddenly I find myself dripping with perspiration. I also have had panic attacks, with increased heart rate and other […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: Please enlighten your readers about too much alcohol causing impotence. My husband drinks beer after beer daily, from noon until night, then expects to be able to perform. He has done this for years, and now cannot get an erection. He is 65 years old. I would like to know the damage […]

DEAR DR ROACH: I have had coronary bypass surgery, and I take cholesterol medicine. I have significant muscular weakness from my medicine. If the medicine affects muscles, what about my heart muscle? My ejection fraction has started going down. — B.K. ANSWER: I can understand your concern. Statin drugs do occasionally cause muscle damage and, […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: Would you explain the proper method for taking blood pressure? One instruction I read says to use the left arm. However, another shows the health-care worker taking blood pressure in the left arm and patients using automatic cuffs on the right arm. The right subclavian artery comes off the ascending aorta closer […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: I am a 92-year-old man with lots of age-related problems. I am dealing with them, but a few months ago I noticed that my right hand, particularly the little finger and the one next to it, became numb. It was mildly numb at first, but it’s become more and more unpleasant and […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: After many weeks of a unilateral nasal leakage of clear watery liquid, I was diagnosed with a cerebrospinal fluid leak. I experience almost constant leakage from the right nostril, which is irritating as well as embarrassing. After CT scans and an MRI, the source of the leak was found to be a […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: I am 83 years old. I was lifting a heavy end table back in November, and I heard a crack. I knew I was in trouble, as that had happened on the golf course many years ago. I went to the hospital and was there for six days. They took an X-ray, […]