Doctors

Plantar fasciitis. If you haven't had to deal with it personally, just ask around. Chances are you know lots of people who can describe it in great detail: stabbing heel pain and agonizing steps followed by a frustratingly slow recovery. Plantar fasciitis - an inflammation of the plantar facsia, a thick band of tissue that runs along the arch from the heel to the toes - has become so ubiquitous that podiatrists can practically make the diagnosis before a patient even sets foot in their office.

As more people get their health information from TV and the Internet, it becomes crucial to have experts on the small screen who can provide accurate information. That's where Travis Stork, co-host of the TV show "The Doctors," comes in. Stork, an emergency room physician, is passionate about educating the public on how to prevent the illnesses that bring so many people in to see him in a crisis. Here, Stork, a onetime contestant on "The Bachelor," talks about getting outdoors, redefining fast food and using television as a positive influence.

Michele and Russell Poland's credit was shot, but they managed to buy their suburban dream home anyway. After a business bankruptcy and a home foreclosure, they turned to a rare option in this era of tightfisted banking - a subprime loan. The Polands paid nearly $10,000 in upfront fees for the privilege of securing a mortgage at 10.9% interest. And they had to raid their retirement account for a 35% down payment. Most borrowers would balk at such stiff terms. But with prices rising, the Polands wanted to snag a four-bedroom home in Temecula near top-rated schools for their 5-year-old son. By later this year, they figure, they'll be able to refinance into a standard loan.

His wife was a patient at the clinic where I worked in my early days as a doctor. I saw her regularly for hypertension. But on one visit, she was more concerned about her husband - let's call him Pedro. He was having stomach pains and difficulty swallowing. I told her to make an appointment for him with me. When I saw him, Pedro explained that he had lost weight and was having trouble swallowing solid food. A barium swallow study confirmed my fears: He had esophageal cancer. Another doctor at the clinic received the report before I saw Pedro again and made an urgent referral to surgery.

A worrisome abdominal pain drove Jalal Afshar to seek treatment last year at healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente. The Pasadena resident and Kaiser member had lived for years with a rare condition known as Castleman's disease, which affects the lymph nodes and the body's immune system. But this was the first time he experienced such severe symptoms. Kaiser granted his request to see a specialist in Arkansas. But it ultimately declined to pay for his treatment there. By June, Afshar said, Kaiser was arranging for hospice care so that he could die at home.

You're at the gym working out, confident that you can lift more weight today than yesterday. You bend down to pick up the barbell and, as you come up, you feel a pop in the groin area. Next comes a dull pain and a queasy feeling. Even though the pain continues after you finish your workout, you figure it's just muscle strain. But the bad news is it may be a hernia. A hernia occurs when part of an organ within the body slips through an abnormal opening in the wall that normally contains it.

I'm an 84-year-old man on Social Security with original Medicare and Mutual of Omaha gap insurance. My insurance premium was raised from $262 to $363 a month, a 39% jump. After all my monthly expenses, I have just $240 left. What can I do in the event of another increase in my premiums? If you've had your current Medicare supplement plan for years, it's not surprising that you've seen your costs steadily rise, says Steve Zaleznick, senior Medicare advisor at PlanPrescriber, a Maynard, Mass.-based online provider of Medicare education and plan comparison tools.

Asthma sufferers have long relied on inhalers for relief from wheezing or coughing attacks. But as of Dec. 31, Primatene Mist -- the only available over-the-counter asthma inhaler -- was taken off shelves because of its adverse effect on the environment. Other inhalers are available, but these require a doctor's prescription. Some people with asthma aren't happy about the change, but lung doctors and asthma specialists agree that Primatene Mist wasn't the best option for patients anyway.

At the headquarters of Boston Medical Group in Costa Mesa, six salesmen were working the toll-free appointment line on a recent afternoon, fielding calls from men around the country enticed by newspaper and radio ads promising a "proven" solution to erectile dysfunction in "one office visit. " The results are visible "right there in the office," one sales representative told a caller. "It's amazing. " Following a script, he answered a few questions and offered to schedule a $195 consultation at one of the company's 21 U.S. clinics.

Baby wrangling is a tough job in the best of circumstances. Add colic to the mix and … well, that borders on the cruel and unusual. Unfortunately, it's not unusual at all. According to the National Institutes of Health, roughly 1 out of 5 babies gets colic, which means they cry inconsolably at least three hours a day, at least three days a week. The crying often starts like clockwork at a particular time of day, usually in the evening. Nobody knows what causes colic, and it's hard to say exactly what babies are feeling.

Josh Hamilton said he was assured by doctors this week that the allergies that lead to occasional sinus and throat discomfort and dizziness were not caused or exacerbated by his heavy cocaine use from 2002-2005. "You have a hallway up the middle of your nose and sinus cavities on each side," said Hamilton, whose addiction to drugs and alcohol led to a ban from baseball from 2003-2005. "When you breathe air, it goes up and down the hallway. "Same thing when you do drugs, it goes up the hallway, not into the sinus cavities.

Jennifer was one of my first patients as a new doctor, and she came to see me about an unintended pregnancy. A single mom to a rambunctious 5-year-old girl, Jennifer was struggling economically and battling depression. We talked about the options available to her: continuing the pregnancy and preparing to parent another child, offering the baby for adoption or having an abortion. She chose to continue with the pregnancy, and I worked with her over the following months as she struggled with the discomforts of pregnancy, excessive weight gain and the anxiety of having to raise two small children on her own. Seven months later, I delivered Jennifer's beautiful baby boy. Six weeks after that, I saw Jennifer, her new baby and her 5-year-old for a joint checkup.

When Philadelphia doctor Kermit Gosnell was put on trial for murder, activists seized on the case as a symbol of all that is wrong with abortion in America, and used it to call for tighter restrictions and stepped-up oversight. But though Gosnell's behavior was deplorable, macabre and unquestionably illegal, it was aberrational, not symbolic. He has now been convicted, and he will be punished. This does not weaken the case for safe, legal and accessible abortion. Gosnell, a 72-year-old doctor who was neither an obstetrician nor a gynecologist (having failed to complete a residency in those specialties, according to a grand jury report)

A West Hollywood doctor surrendered to federal authorities Monday after being indicted on charges that he illegally prescribed powerful painkillers to patients, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. James William Eisenberg, 72, is accused of writing more than 1,200 prescriptions for addictive painkillers after the Drug Enforcement Administration revoked his authority to prescribe controlled substances, authorities have alleged. Eisenberg was indicted Friday.

A West Hollywood doctor pleaded not guilty Monday to federal charges of illegally prescribing powerful painkillers to patients, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles James William Eisenberg, 72, is accused of writing more than 1,200 prescriptions for addictive painkillers after the Drug Enforcement Administration revoked his authority to prescribe controlled substances. Eisenberg's bail was set at $200,000, with home detention ordered, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

Thom McDaniels is no stranger to surgery. As a longtime athlete and high school football coach, he's spent years putting his knees through the wringer. After injuring his right knee again during football practice, he was told by an orthopedic surgeon that it was time for reconstructive surgery. Reluctant to undergo a seventh knee surgery, he tried a lightweight knee brace that wraps around his leg from the thigh area to just below the knee. It changed the Ohio coach's life. "It's like somebody turned a light on," he said.

Watching Alzheimer's disease steal away the memory, talents and very selves of its victims is hard enough for the people who love them. Now, a new pill formulated by a respected pharmaceutical company and approved by the Food and Drug Administration will do little to help most patients and will bring misery to some, say two medical investigators. The drug, Aricept 23 mg, is no more effective on the whole than the disappointing ones already on the market - but is more likely to cause gastrointestinal problems, wrote Drs. Steven Woloshin and Lisa Schwartz of Dartmouth Medical College in an article published Thursday in the medical journal BMJ. The new formulation was devised to serve commercial objectives, they say, and was approved despite a poor showing in company-sponsored tests.

Can a private company own rights to your DNA? The nine justices of the Supreme Court will consider that question Monday as lawyers for Myriad Genetics make their best case that the company should be able to keep its patent on two genes known to influence the risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer. Challenging that notion will be lawyers representing the Assn. for Molecular Pathology and other scientific organizations, which argue that allowing genes to be patented slows or shuts down scientific research involving those genes.

SACRAMENTO - With California's deficit wiped out and its economy starting to hum, this was to be a year when Gov. Jerry Brown was free of the budget logjams that have paralyzed the Capitol. But instead, the governor has a fight on his hands - with his fellow Democrats. He is on a collision course with them over how to reshape the state's sprawling, complicated healthcare system to conform with President Obama's national overhaul. The sticking points in extending public healthcare to more Californians include how many to add to state insurance rolls, how much to pay doctors and hospitals, and how much money to give counties for their care of the indigent.

One of the brothers behind the 1-800-GET-THIN ad campaign for weight-loss surgery faces the possible revocation of his medical license in a misconduct case filed by state regulators. The Medical Board of California accused Michael Omidi of "repeated acts of negligence" in treating two women, one who sought corrective breast surgery and a second who sought weight-loss surgery. The board alleged that Omidi provided "substandard care" in the treatment of the first woman and that his staff gave "inaccurate or misleading information" about the second woman's health, saying she had sleep apnea even though she had not been previously diagnosed with the disorder.