Pain

Those searching for answers to the question " Is medical marijuana good medicine? " will find few in Dr. David Sack's Times Op-Ed article.   On the one hand, Sack concedes, "Marijuana can effectively treat neuropathic pain, and it has been shown to improve appetite and reduce nausea," an acknowledgment substantiating the plant's therapeutic utility. However, he later warns that cannabis' ability to provide relief for certain other conditions, such as lupus and anxiety, remains unproven.

In a office decorated with Chinese art and diagrams of body parts, Dr. George Ma cares for more than 4,000 patients. Nearly three-quarters are covered by Medi-Cal, the state's public insurance program for low-income Californians, and Ma said he receives $10 a month to treat most of them. This summer, when California makes a controversial 10% cut to Medi-Cal rates, he could get paid less. Ma said he didn't go into safety net medicine for the money, but he worries that the reductions will make it even harder for his patients to get medication, medical equipment and appointments with specialists.

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.

The civil war in Syria is heading in the wrong direction. In the last year, rebels had won control of big slices of territory, including much of the country's largest city, Aleppo. But those gains prompted a surge of military aid to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime: urban guerrillas from Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iraq's Shiite Muslim militias, combat advisors from Iran's Revolutionary Guard and antiaircraft missiles from Russia (to prevent "hotheads" from trying to impose anything like a no-fly zone, an official in Moscow said Monday)

You've heard about the "Wheat Belly" diet, right? Well, technically, it doesn't exist. Dr. William Davis points out that the word "diet" does not appear on either the cover of his bestselling "Wheat Belly" book published in 2011 or on the follow-up, "Wheat Belly Cookbook," which was published last month and already tops bestseller lists. And that omission is intentional, Davis said. "Wheat Belly" is about stripping your plate of a substance that contributes to heart disease, causes joint pain, inflammation, foggy thinking, bloating and much more, Davis said.

A man with no risk factors for prostate cancer can go his whole life without ever taking a PSA test, according to the American Urological Assn. In a new clinical guideline unveiled Friday, the urologists said that only men between the ages of 55 and 69 should even consider getting a PSA screening test if they have no signs or symptoms of prostate cancer. Men should only get tested after discussing all the pros and cons with their doctors, and if they decide to get tested, they should not get tested again for at least two years, the guideline advises.

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.

Superstorms that slammed the East Coast prompted many Southern Californians to take a hard look at their own emergency preparedness plans, including how to keep cellphones charged when the power goes out. With a flurry of battery-boosting devices landing on the market, I tested eight of the latest and most novel designs on a recent ski trip to Colorado, reasoning that besides a storm, earthquake or blackout, the last place you'd want to be stranded with...

Vietnam veteran John Otte did his best to forget the war. He got married, raised two sons and made a career working at credit unions. But as Otte neared retirement, memories of combat flooded back. Starting in 2005, he filed a series of claims with Veterans Affairs for disability compensation, contending that many of his health problems stemmed from the war. The VA agreed, and now the 65-year-old with two Purple Hearts receives $1,900 a month for post-traumatic stress disorder and diabetes - and for having shrapnel scars on his arms.

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.

It's not so much that they're making it up as they go with Adrian Gonzalez, as they are constantly ready to adjust on the fly. When you have nine players on the disabled list as the Dodgers do, including starters Hanley Ramirez and Mark Ellis, caution tends to rule the day. Not walking-on-egg-shells caution, but more watching-where-you-place-every-step caution. Gonzalez has a strained neck, and has since running into an umpire chasing a foul ball on May 1. He did not start the next three games, though he did pinch hit. He came back Monday against Arizona, but left Wednesday's game before the fifth inning after aggravating the injury.

Michael Jackson's makeup artist testified Friday that although the singer once asked her if she had painkillers, she never broached the subject of his addiction with him. Karen Faye said that during Jackson's 2005 molestation trial in Santa Maria she would spend a lot of time with the performer, arriving at 3 a.m. to help him get ready, and felt it was not appropriate to confront him about his misuse of prescription drugs.   “I was a place of safety for him, and peace,” Faye said.

This review has been corrected. See below for details. "Flashdance the Musical" has its way over "Flashdance" the movie in at least one critical regard: The show's plucky heroine - as you'll recall: welder by day! nonstripping stripper by night! - is played by just one actress, as opposed to the constant cutting from Jennifer Beals to body double Marine Jahan that makes the 1983 film almost unwatchable as a contemporary TV rerun. Actually, the stage version would be a riot if a stand-in for the leading lady ran in every time a dance routine begins.

Adrian Gonzalez said on Monday that he intends to play through the discomfort in his neck. The MRI exam Gonzalez underwent earlier in the day revealed a strained neck muscle and nothing more, according to the first baseman. Gonzalez is in the lineup for the Dodgers' series opener against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium. “Basically, it's how much pain you can tolerate,” Gonzalez said. “I'm going to try to play through it and see how it feels when I'm out there running around and doing all those things.” Gonzalez was injured when he collided with an umpire on Wednesday.

What kind of power do the living have over the dead? It's a question that a Massachusetts town answered Sunday, when Cambridge City Manager Robert W. Healy said he would not allow Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the alleged mastermind of the Boston Marathon bombings, to be buried in the local public cemetery. “The difficult and stressful efforts of the citizens of the City of Cambridge to return to a peaceful life would be adversely effected by the turmoil, protests and widespread media presence at such an internment,” Healy said in a statement emailed to reporters.

Adrian Gonzalez is still bothered by a strained neck muscle but said Monday that he intends to play through the discomfort. Gonzalez, who was out of the lineup in the Dodgers' three previous games, started at first base in the series opener against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium. The former All-Star first baseman underwent an MRI exam that confirmed the source of Gonzalez's pain was muscular rather than disk related. "Basically, it's how much pain you can tolerate," Gonzalez said.

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.

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.

Three people dead in an apparent murder-suicide in Hacienda Heights were all suffering from long-term illnesses, said a relative of the victims. Jim Crabtree went to the home in the 15900 block of Ladysmith Street on Wednesday after seeing news reports of a triple-homicide, he told KTLA News . Crabtree said he was married to Rita Delehanty, 62, who along with her father-in-law and mother-in-law, Don and Carol Crabtree, all suffered long-term...

If you follow directors' careers, you've often heard how hard it is for a so-called small filmmaker to go big. A few, like Christopher Nolan, have done it, evolving from intimate indies to studio tent poles. But it's a trick infrequently attempted and even less frequently pulled off. On the other hand, there's less talk about moving the other way: big helmers going small.  In theory, good direction is about a set of immutable, fundamental skills: managing actors, framing a vision, negotiating with whoever's signing the checks.