Varicose veins are a very common problem, generally appearing as twisting, bulging rope-like cords on the legs, anywhere from groin to ankle. Spider veins are smaller, flatter, red or purple veins closer to the skin surface. While many people have heard about varicose veins, very few understand their underlying cause, and the potential they have…
Jeff Lumerman, M.D., FACS What is Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia or BPH? Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy is part of the natural growth of the prostate gland. It is not cancerous but has many troublesome symptoms, which can adversely affect a man’s lifestyle and possibly cause health concerns. The prostate gland surrounds the male urethra which is the tube one…
M. David Gershbaum, M.D. The prostate is a small gland localized within the male reproductive system. The function of the prostate is to produce a fluid that keeps the sperm alive while it travels through the female reproductive system. The fluid from the prostate and sperm for the testis and fluids from smaller gland in the…
Francisco Garcia-Moreno, M.D. For an organ the size of a walnut, the prostate sure can cause a lot of trouble. It is the most common type of cancer in men, although as a cause of death, it ranks behind lung cancer and colorectal cancer. The prostate is a gland which has evolved in the lower…
Barry Shepard, M.D. Low testosterone level, or hypogonadism as it is referred to in medical books, is a common condition in men. Testosterone is produced mainly in the testicles with a small amount being made in the adrenal glands (a gland which sits above the kidneys.) It is estimated that in men between 40 and…
Robert K. Luntz, M.D. Over the past 20 years, the medical community and the patients we care for have been the beneficiary of many medical advances. There is a trend in medicine towards minimizing the invasiveness of the procedures that we perform and the urological community has been extremely proactive in leading this charge. One technology…
Gary S. Oshinsky MD, FACS The summer season brings with it an increased risk of kidney stones. Kidney stones are composed of salts and minerals that normally stay dissolved in the urine. However, when these salts are present in excessive amounts, they can form crystals and eventually become large enough to form stones. Once formed,…
Alan Fein MD, Jeffrey Fein BA, Lawrence Shulman, DO Affecting more than one third of the global human population, Tuberculosis (TB) is the most common infectious disease in the world. Ten percent of diagnosed TB cases progress to the disease’s active form. Thankfully, in the United States, TB is much less common than in most…
By: Karl Neuman, M.D. Fasten your seatbelts – family air travel is heading for turbulence. Children are becoming persona non grata in the supposedly friendly skies. London’s Daily Mail reports that several major airlines are considering child-free sections on aircraft and child-free flights. The Wall Street Journal asks, “Will new airline seating proposals create “baby ghettos” in the back of…
Airplane EarLindsay Block, M.D. Many of us have experienced Airplane ear, also called barotrauma, during air travel. Airplane ear is caused by an imbalance in the air pressure in the middle ear space and the air pressure in the environment. Most people experience airplane ear during take-off when the plane is ascending quickly, or during…