Blog & Columns
Useful information about health and Korean medicine.
Total 207 posts
Acid that comes up the moment you lie down: three things you can change tonight
During the day it's more or less manageable. The problem is the moment you lie down. So you stack two or three pillows, and some nights you fall asleep propped up on the sofa. When you lie down, the esophagus and stomach become level, and during sleep you swallow less of the saliva that washes acid back down. Three ways to reverse those conditions have been confirmed with numbers.
When neck pain comes with tingling down the arm, it's a different story
Your hand tingles, so you shake out your wrist and wonder if you slept on it. But it's been going on for weeks. Tingling is a signal from the wiring. Even when the pinch is in the neck, the tingling is felt in the arm and fingers. Where it hurts and where the problem is can be different places. We've put together three clues to gauge at home, and four signs that mean getting checked right away comes first.
Turtle neck posture bands: what to know before you pay
If there's a posture correction band sitting in your shopping cart, take three minutes to read this before you click. There's still no established, good-quality evidence that posture bands reduce neck and shoulder pain. And there's an even earlier problem: the premise that "it hurts because of turtle neck" hasn't itself been confirmed by research.
The night you skipped your stomach medicine: why did it get worse?
I've been feeling a bit better lately, so maybe I'll skip it tonight. Then a few nights later, you wake up to acid worse than before. Drinking water in the early hours, you conclude: my stomach just can't do without the medicine. But that night may not be proof that your stomach is broken. It may be a predictable reaction that happens when a medication is suddenly taken away.
Does turtle neck cause the pain, or does the pain cause turtle neck?
People come in with a side-view photo of themselves. Their ear sits in front of their shoulder, so it's turtle neck, and that's why it hurts, they say. A review pooling 15 studies is more cautious. There was a link in adults but not in teenagers, and it still hasn't been sorted out whether posture is the cause or the result. The stronger evidence lies somewhere else.
Acid that comes back up when you stop the medication
It's fine while you take the medication, but within a week or two of stopping, it comes back up. There's a mechanism behind this called rebound. Even in healthy people with no reflux symptoms at all, 44% developed acid regurgitation and heartburn after taking an acid-suppressing drug for 8 weeks and then stopping. We've summarized the evidence on what you can do without stopping your medication on your own.
I've worked night shifts for years. Why haven't I adjusted yet?
You work all night and head home in the morning. Your body is exhausted, but when you lie down, your sleep is strangely shallow. After years of this, one thought keeps coming back: other people say they adjust, so why am I still like this? Researchers who study the body clock have reached a conclusion: the human body never fully adjusts to night work. It isn't a matter of willpower but of how the body is built.
The night you cut your sleeping pill in half on your own: why did you sleep even worse?
Maybe I'll take just half a pill tonight. Or maybe I'll skip it altogether and tough it out. And that night, you lie awake far worse than usual. The conclusion you reach the next morning: I guess my body just can't sleep without pills. But that night isn't proof that your body is broken. It's a predictable reaction that happens when a medication is suddenly taken away.
If you can't fall asleep, get out of bed
"Tonight I'm definitely going to bed early," you think, and lie down an hour early. But your eyes are wide open and you just keep looking at the clock. Lying in bed longer is the most common effort people with insomnia make, and it's also the very first habit insomnia treatment corrects. That's because your bed is being learned as "the place where sleep doesn't come."
If your first steps in the morning hurt the most
Heel pain that is worst with the first step after getting out of bed is the hallmark of plantar fasciitis. That's because the spot that healed slightly overnight gets pulled again under your morning body weight. Most cases get better within 10 months, but 1 in 10 lasts a long time. The treatment with the strongest evidence isn't an injection or a machine. It's a stretch that pulls the toes back to lengthen the plantar fascia itself.
How long should I keep wearing a neck collar?
People who come in the day after an accident are often still wearing the collar the ER put on them. And they almost all ask the same question: how long do I need to keep this on? Nobody told them. On this question, the answer is unusually clear. No trial has found that wearing a collar and resting did better.
The 3 months after a car accident: how you spend them makes a difference
Recovery after a car accident follows a strange timetable. Most recovery happens within the first 3 months after the accident, and after that the recovery curve flattens noticeably. This isn't meant to scare you. It's a question of where to put your effort. The same effort pays off most when it's spent in the first 3 months.