Pain

Times are tough enough for Californians; they're even tougher for Californians' teeth. "One-quarter of all adults and 28% of children in California have untreated dental caries [cavities]," says Len Finocchio, a senior program officer at the California Healthcare Foundation, a health advocacy group. "Our research tells us that many people in California have been avoiding routine care that might have cost about $100 for a checkup and cleaning, and then find themselves in the emergency room, where they get only an antibiotic, a bill that can average over $600 and instructions to see a dentist."

JOPLIN, Mo. - Arielle Speer started to cry. She was having a panic attack, and the movie hadn't even started. Speer is a Joplin tornado survivor, and she had come to remember. Almost a year ago, the 28-year-old was standing on the side of Connecticut Avenue looking at the pile of rubble that used to be her apartment building. It had since been cleared away, and now Speer was sitting in a local university auditorium, waiting to watch a documentary about the storm that destroyed it. A lot has happened since May 22, 2011, when a massive tornado erased nearly a third of Joplin and killed about 160 people.

Brian Price, once a wrecking ball on UCLA's defensive line, has beaten long odds to return to the NFL after two off-season surgeries aimed at keeping his hamstrings attached to his pelvis, rather than breaking loose and coiling down the backs of his thighs. For Price, who will start at defensive tackle Sunday for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, his excruciating recovery was a 10-step process. Meaning just two months ago, he could run only 10 steps. "You have these doubts in your head at times," said Price, a second-round pick of the Buccaneers in 2010 who, because of his congenitally malformed pelvis, spent the last half of his rookie season on injured reserve.

SAN ANTONIO — There was an interesting tweet from Magic Johnson on Wednesday, the Hall of Fame guard saying what so many in Clippers Nation want to believe and what the Clippers themselves firmly contend. "The Clippers can win this series, but they are going to need both @blakegriffin & @CP3 to play not good, but great. " And therein lies the problem for the Clippers in the Western Conference semifinals against the San Antonio Spurs. It is impossible to know whether Blake Griffin and Chris Paul can deliver, as they have all season, because of their injuries.

The PSA test should be abandoned as a prostate cancer screening tool, a government advisory panel has concluded after determining that the side effects from needless biopsies and treatments hurt many more men than are potentially helped by early detection of cancers. At best, one life will be saved for every 1,000 men screened over a 10-year period, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. But 100 to 120 men will have suspicious results when there is no cancer, triggering biopsies that can carry complications such as pain, fever, bleeding, infection and hospitalization.

WASHINGTON - An experimental treatment for multiple sclerosis has caused death, strokes, nerve damage and abdominal bleeding and has no proven benefits for sufferers of the disease, the Food and Drug Administration warned Thursday. Known as liberation therapy, the treatment targets chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency - or CCSVI - a narrowing of the veins in the head and neck. It involves inserting balloons or stents into veins to widen them in an attempt to relieve the symptoms of MS. The FDA received reports in 2011 of a patient who died from bleeding in the brain after undergoing the treatment and another who was left permanently paralyzed by a stroke.

When her labor pain got worse, April Halprin Wayland could have asked for medication. Instead, she lowered herself into a 4x6-foot bathtub at the Family Birthing Center of Upland and let the warm water reduce her feeling of pain. An hour later, still in the tub, she gave birth to 8-pound, 5-ounce Jeffrey. The baby was whisked to the surface immediately by her obstetrician, Dr. Michael J. Rosenthal, and Wayland cuddled him before stepping out of the tub to join her husband, Gary, who had been at her side during the six-hour labor.

Sooner or later, love usually ends up hurting. But in its early, blissful throes, it actually lessens pain ? at least of the physical kind. That's the finding, reported Wednesday, of a study by pain scientists and a psychologist who studies love. The study, published online in the journal PLoS ONE, sprang from a meeting of minds between Arthur Aron of State University of New York at Stony Brook, a longtime researcher of the science of love, and Dr. Sean Mackey, a pain scientist at Stanford University.

Lamar Odom's voice on the phone frequently was barely above a whisper. The pain clearly registered in words that flowed in stops and starts as he delivered a soliloquy about death and the effect it has had on his psyche. The Lakers forward spoke deliberately and expressed how emotional it has been for him to deal with two recent deaths. Odom attended a funeral in New York on July 13 for his 24-year-old cousin, who Odom said was murdered. The next day, Odom was a passenger in an SUV in Queens when it collided with a motorcycle.

How can you tell if you or someone you know is having a heart attack? Sometimes the symptoms can be surprisingly subtle. "They can be very different from person to person, between women and men and even within an individual who has more than one heart attack," says Dr. David Rizik, director of Interventional Cardiology for Scottsdale Healthcare Hospitals, in Scottsdale, Ariz. Men and women may experience atypical heart attack symptoms. In contrast to the "classic" chest-splitting, gasping-for-breath symptoms, many heart attacks begin with symptoms that are so mild they are often mistaken for indigestion or muscle ache.

SAN MARCOS, Calif. —When paramedics arrived at the Purdy home March 20, Margaret was seated in her favorite chair in the living room. The morning sunshine streamed in through a picture window that overlooked a valley. A plastic bag was over her head, tied securely at the neck. A suicide note in her handwriting was in a folder on her desk, beneath a shelf with books about death and dying. She had written that the pain from her various medical conditions had become unbearable. Alan Purdy met the paramedics at the door.

California's projected budget deficit has ballooned to $16 billion, much larger than the $9.2 billion estimated in January, Gov. Jerry Brown said, and he warned of more painful spending cuts. "We will have to go much further, and make cuts far greater, than I asked for at the beginning of the year," Brown said in a video posted Saturday on YouTube. He plans to detail his revised spending plan in the Capitol on Monday. It's a significant setback for Brown, who began his return engagement in Sacramento by promising to get the budget back under control.

It was a murder that prosecutors say was committed in a fit of rage and jealousy and then covered up for more than two decades. But on Friday, as she was sentenced to 27 years to life in prison for killing her ex-boyfriend's wife, former Los Angeles Police Det. Stephanie Lazarus masked any emotion, other than a glance and wave in the direction of her mother as she was led away in handcuffs. The sentencing brought to a close a case that garnered national attention for its sensational story line of a lovelorn cop killing a woman she viewed as a romantic rival and then harboring the dark secret for 23 years.

The Lakers know Game 7s, whether painful or prolific. Do they ever. There have been 24 of them in Lakers history, the latest taking place Saturday against the Denver Nuggets at Staples Center. Their first-round series ended too late for this edition, though the historical odds were in the Lakers' favor . . . mainly because they weren't playing Boston. The Lakers were 15-8 in Game 7s before Saturday, though only 1-4 against Boston in such showdowns. The most agonizing Game 7s in Lakers history are easy to pinpoint, primarily because the Celtics are almost always involved.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — There was a nice breeze, the stench that is Memphis blown over to Arkansas while down at Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken it was Jim Brooks' 72nd birthday. The Hollywood writing and directing genius was in town with the Clippers for Game 5 of the playoff series, not realizing at the time that munching on fried pickles was going to be as good as it would get. Happy birthday, Jim, but as any longtime Clippers fan understands, success as a franchise is a frustrating lifetime pursuit.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The injuries to Blake Griffin (sprained left knee) and Chris Paul (strained right hip flexor and jammed middle finger) only compounded a game the Clippers lost. They lacked composure, which showed in their getting hit with five individual technical fouls. They lost the momentum they gained by winning two games at home. Now the Clippers limp home after a 92-80 defeat to the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday night in Game 5 of the Western Conference first-round playoff series.

IF it's been a year or two since you've shopped for a mattress, you're in for some surprises. That memory foam bed that once seemed so novel? It's now decidedly mainstream. Latex is the hot material of choice. And that's not all that's changed. Choices are multiplying -- especially on the luxury end -- and prices are too.

A tangy, sour, fermented milk drink may not sound like a likely candidate to move from health food stores to mainstream supermarkets, but that's exactly what kefir has done. The beverage is steadily gaining fans convinced of the health benefits -- proponents tout its purported ability to help cure cancer, reduce high cholesterol and treat high blood pressure -- yet the scientific studies to support the claims are still few. Kefir's closest cousin is yogurt, also made by fermenting milk with bacteria.

TEHRAN — On a recent trip to a city on the Persian Gulf, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood in the back of a pickup as it made its way through a thick crowd clamoring for his attention when an older, disheveled man began to shout at him. "Ahmadinejad, I am hungry, Ahmadinejad, I am hungry," he pleaded desperately. The man banged on the pickup's front window to get the notice of the president, who leaned forward as the two exchanged a few words. A young woman then climbed onto the hood of the vehicle and told the leader, "I have problems.

Chris Paul thought Caron Butler was "crazy" for playing in Game 3 of the first-round playoff series against Memphis with a fractured left hand. Paul also said he had to commend Butler for gutting out 22 minutes of pain Saturday afternoon at Staples Center. Butler was injured in the third quarter of Game 1 in Memphis last Sunday night. He didn't play in Game 2 and was supposed to be sidelined four to six weeks recovering from the injury. But Butler practiced Friday and decided to play Sunday.