Medical Treatments

Vertigo. For most people, the word summons images of Jimmy Stewart dangling from high places in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller by the same name. It means something else, however, to hundreds of thousands of people who experience the strange, dizzying affliction. The most common cause of vertigo, known as benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, usually can be treated with one visit to the doctor.

I began worrying more than seven years ago, when I first brought him the violins donated by readers. Would they make my new friend, a Juilliard-trained musician who'd suffered a breakdown 35 years earlier, less safe on the streets of skid row? Would he be attacked by thieves? And that was just the beginning of the worries. As I got to know Nathaniel Anthony Ayers better, I fretted not just about whether I could protect him, but also about how to help him. Time passes; the worries never do. Uncertainty lingers constantly when you have a relationship with someone who has a severe mental illness, and watching the video this week of the Kelly Thomas beating was a reminder of how quickly things can go horribly awry.

Researchers have for the first time performed a successful bone marrow transplant to cure sickle cell disease in adults, a feat that could expand the procedure to more of the 70,000 Americans with the disease -- and possibly some other diseases as well. About 200 children have been cured of sickle cell with transplants, but the procedure was considered too harsh for adults with severe sickle cell disease. Now a team from the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins University is reporting today in the New England Journal of Medicine that it has developed a much-less-toxic transplant procedure and used it to cure nine of the first 10 patients studied.

Vin Diesel has embraced his baldness. And it's doubtful Michael Stipe spends much time browsing for toupees. But not all of the 40 million American men with follicularly challenged scalps are going quietly into that bald night. They're raging -- with Rogaine, among other things. Men who want to hang on to their hair have many options, including medications and surgical transplants, says Dr. Marc Avram, hair transplant surgeon and clinical professor of dermatology at Weill-Cornell Medical College in New York City.

In 1842, the English writer Sydney Smith wrote, "Gout is the only enemy that I do not wish to have at my feet." Anyone who has suffered a painful attack of gouty arthritis would probably agree. Gout is the result of an imbalance between the production and excretion of urate, the metabolic end product of dietary purines that are found in abundance in animal proteins. If blood levels of urate rise high enough, the chemical can settle as crystallized deposits in joints.

The first outbreak was devastating enough. But within weeks came another outbreak. Then another and another. For Gina Caprio, then 22, the virus that causes genital herpes was nightmarish, "like my life was over." An antiviral drug managed to keep the virus under control, preventing recurrences, but she had to take it every day, year-round.

Patients who receive treatment for a minor stroke within 24 hours reduce their risk of a second stroke by 80% compared with those who wait three days or more to see a doctor, according to a new study released today. Many patients who experience the relatively mild and temporary symptoms of a minor stroke -- slurred speech, arm weakness and dizziness -- often forgo seeing a doctor for days or weeks. Some doctors also fail to initiate immediate treatment for such symptoms.

Men at an above-normal risk of prostate cancer may be able to reduce their risk of developing the disease by taking a drug already on the market. In research reported Wednesday, the drug dutasteride, currently used to shrink enlarged prostates, was found to reduce the risk of prostate cancer by about a quarter in high-risk men. The medication, sold under the brand name Avodart, apparently caused small tumors to stop growing or even to shrink, researchers...

About 4 million adult Americans with a mild form of asthma may not need to take daily steroid doses, but instead can use the drug only as needed to control symptoms, says a new study supported by the National Institutes of Health. The change would make drug use more convenient, minimize side effects from the powerful drugs and possibly save the nation as much as $2 billion per year, the study concludes.

You're ON the verge of falling asleep, and then it starts. The snorting. The choking sounds. Sometimes there's even a little whistle to it. A family member or roommate sleeping nearby has launched into an all-night bout of snoring, and you're the one who is going to lie awake all night listening to it. According to the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, 45% of normal adults snore at least occasionally, and 25% are habitual snorers....

Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh left his battered nation Sunday for medical treatment in the U.S., asking his countrymen to forgive him for years of turmoil and vowing to return to the Arabian Peninsula state he has ruled for decades. It was not immediately evident what effect Saleh's absence from Sana would have on a government weakened by protests, resurgent Al Qaeda militants, secessionist rumblings in the south and a rebellion in the north. The president's departure was characteristic of his brash, often unpredictable nature that has long kept his friends and enemies off balance.

Tucson shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner can refuse anti-psychotic medication until his appeal of the treatment prescribed by prison doctors is decided, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. Loughner, who has been deemed mentally ill and incompetent to stand trial in the Jan. 8 shooting rampage that killed six and injured 13, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, is in custody at a federal prison medical center in Missouri. Doctors there began treating him against his will with psychotropic drugs a month ago, prompting his lawyers to ask the courts to halt the forced medication that they said could irreparably harm or even kill the 22-year-old suspect.

He was chained to a cot, a lone prisoner in a small cell facing eight guards who beat him while a summoned ambulance crew was kept waiting outside. When the doctors were finally admitted to the prison, they found Moscow lawyer Sergei Magnitsky dead, his body bruised, most of his knuckles smashed, one of his arms dark blue from a grip of the handcuffs lying nearby. The attorney's death in Moscow's infamous Sailor's Silence prison was described Tuesday in a report delivered to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev by his advisory human rights council.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said Monday that it would review old unsolved homicide cases to determine whether any are linked to a man accused of four home invasion killings this fall in the South Bay. The move came amid questions raised by The Times about how John Wesley Ewell was able to stay out of jail at the time of the killings even though he had recently been convicted of second-degree burglary for stealing from a Home Depot...

Americans have a near obsessive interest in death and dying. Today's most popular television series is about violent crime investigators. The biggest movie of the year is likely to be " Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. " The bestseller list is packed with crime novels. And the latest hit video game revolves around Cold War assassins. And yet, Americans also are notoriously reluctant to confront the realities of death itself. In particular, how is it that so few people have taken steps to ensure that their wishes will be respected if they're too sick or injured to speak for themselves?

Each year in the United States, perhaps a few dozen pregnant women learn they are carrying a fetus at risk for a rare disorder known as congenital adrenal hyperplasia. The condition causes an accumulation of male hormones and can, in females, lead to genitals so masculinized that it can be difficult at birth to determine the baby's gender. A hormonal treatment to prevent ambiguous genitalia can now be offered to women who may be carrying such infants. It's not without health risks, but to its critics those are of small consequence compared with this notable side effect: The treatment might reduce the likelihood that a female with the condition will be homosexual.

Macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness in the elderly, appears to be yielding to new laser treatments that seal off destructive blood vessels behind the retina. Although doctors caution that the treatments do not offer a cure, they say the therapies have in many cases arrested the downward course of a disease that ordinarily robs people of their sight. Next month, the U.S.

Until recently, post-menopausal women seeking treatment for osteoporosis had few options other than estrogen replacement and calcium supplements. Both are still widely used, but they've been augmented by several new and immensely profitable medications that retard bone loss and prevent fractures. Women who take any of these prescription drugs also must be sure to get at least 1,200 mg of calcium from food and supplements and at least 400 international units of vitamin D.

In a second ruling against a medical marijuana dispensary, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday that bars a popular Venice-area outlet from selling or distributing the drug at its sprawling store on Washington Boulevard. The decision by Judge James C. Chalfant could embolden city prosecutors to seek more court orders to close dispensaries as they try to find the most efficient way to reduce the number in Los Angeles. As he did in a previous case, Chalfant concluded that the state's medical marijuana laws do not allow collectives to sell cannabis.

Men at an above-normal risk of prostate cancer may be able to reduce their risk of developing the disease by taking a drug already on the market. In research reported Wednesday, the drug dutasteride, currently used to shrink enlarged prostates, was found to reduce the risk of prostate cancer by about a quarter in high-risk men. The medication, sold under the brand name Avodart, apparently caused small tumors to stop growing or even to shrink, researchers...