DEAR DR. DONOHUE: For the past year, my wife has had to deal with autoimmune hepatitis. It’s something that hardly anyone knows about or understands, and that makes it even more difficult to cope with. Everyone thinks she has an infection. I can only haltingly explain what she has. Will you tell your readers about […]

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I’m sure golf is one of the most injury-free sports imaginable. Do you know the common injuries from golf? I don’t mean things like slipping and falling or getting hit with a golf ball. I mean things actually caused by playing the game. — J.F. ANSWER: Golf isn’t a contact sport, so […]

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: My lower back has kicked up on me for quite some time. The doctor tells me it’s spinal stenosis and that I have to learn to live with it. I take Tylenol, and it helps me some. Can anything more be done? — L.H. ANSWER: Spinal stenosis is a common cause of […]

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I have had headaches since I was 12. I am now 32. I hear people talk about their migraine headaches and wonder if I might have them. What makes a headache a migraine headache? I take aspirin for my headaches. It helps, but not all that much. Are there special medicines for […]

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: Please clear something up for me: Triglycerides. It appears on the printout of my yearly lab tests. Triglycerides are marked as being high, but no one said anything about them to me. Why not? Can I ignore them? — R.T. ANSWER: Triglycerides are fats. The white to yellow stuff you see on […]

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: My calcium is on the high side. My doctor isn’t sure why, but he thinks it might be the parathyroid glands. I’m familiar with the thyroid gland, but not the parathryoids. What are they? When he first mentioned it to me, he spoke of surgery. The next time I saw him, he […]

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: High-school football caused me to lose my spleen. I was on the bottom of a pile-up. They had to rush me to the hospital. I lost a lot of blood and was taken to surgery for a ruptured and bleeding spleen. I mentioned this to a doctor friend of mine. She told […]

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: Do some people sweat more than others? If they do, I’m one of them. I jog on a treadmill for half an hour at a speed that is not all that fast. When I’m through, I am dripping in sweat. Those around me, running a lot faster than I do, are dry. […]

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: My son is 7 and he still wets the bed. My husband can’t imagine why he does this, and he believes it’s willful. He thinks the boy needs to be punished. I don’t. What do you recommend for this situation, which is a source of conflict between my husband and me? — […]

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: My daughter is scheduled to deliver her first baby in about two weeks. Her doctor told her she had to have a culture done to see if she is a carrier of Group B strep. What is this, and why is it done? She hasn’t been sick one day of her pregnancy. […]