All About Propecia

A muscle cramp can occur during virtually any activity, even while sleeping.

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons says the slightest movement that shortens a muscle can make it contract forcibly and involuntarily, leading to a cramp.

Here are the academy’s suggestions for what to do when a muscle cramp strikes:
Immediately stop any activity or exercise that led to the cramp.
Gently stretch out the muscle, holding it in a gentle stretch until the cramp and pain subside.
Gently massage the muscle.
Apply heat if the muscle continues to be very tight or tense.
Apply cold if the muscle is tender or sore.

Any head injury should be taken seriously, but certain warning signs indicate that the injury needs immediate medical attention.

The American Academy of Family Physicians says a doctor’s evaluation is required if you notice the following:
Any symptom that begins to worsen, including sleepiness, nausea or a headache.
Nausea that doesn’t subside.
Behavioral changes, such as acting confused or irritable.
Enlarged eye pupils, or pupils that are a different size in each eye.
Difficulty talking or walking.
Any bloody or unusual discharge from the nose or ears.
Seizures or vomiting.
Weakness or numbness in the legs or arms.

A new treatment for overuse injury of the Achilles tendon doesn’t appear to be effective, a new study shows.

Researchers in the Netherlands concluded that platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections are no better than placebo in reducing pain or improving a patient’s ability to be active.

The study included 54 patients, aged 18 to 70, with chronic Achilles tendinopathy. All the patients did eccentric exercises (stretching the Achilles tendon while contracting the calf muscle) and were randomly selected to receive either a PRP injection or saline injection. Both groups showed significant improvement in pain reduction and increased activity within 24 weeks after the start of the study.

“Among patients with chronic midportion Achilles tendinopathy treated with an eccentric exercise program, a PRP injection compared with a saline injection did not result in greater improvement in pain and activity. Therefore, we do not recommend this treatment for chronic midportion Achilles tendinopathy,” wrote Dr. Robert J. de Vos, of Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, and colleagues.

“These findings are important and clinically relevant as PRP is thought to be growing in popularity and recent reviews supported its use for chronic tendon disorders,” they added.

The study appears in the Jan. 13 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

New research is giving scientists a greater understanding of how a brain becomes susceptible to depression and anxiety on a molecular level and why some people are resistant to antidepressants.

Scientists think two things — biological factors and stressful life events — cause the mental disorders. Antidepressants (such as Prozac) are available to treat them, often by increasing serotonin levels, but they don’t always work.

“Unfortunately, more than half of all depressed patients fail to respond to their first drug treatment,” senior study author Rene Hen, of Columbia University, said in a news release. “The reasons for this treatment resistance remain enigmatic. Elucidating the exact nature of both the factors predisposing to depression and the mechanisms underlying treatment resistance remains an important and unmet need.”

In the study, researchers used mice to investigate the way the brain deals with serotonin. The brain’s mechanism for handling serotonin appears to be related to levels of so-called “autoreceptors,” the study authors found. Mice with higher levels didn’t respond to treatment with antidepressants, but they did better when the levels went down, the study showed.

The research could lead to treatments to make people more responsive to antidepressants before they take them, Hen said.

The findings are published in the Jan. 14 issue of the journal Neuron.