Live Healthy WV

If you frequently feel dizzy or like the room is spinning, you may have a balance disorder. More than 90 million Americans will experience a balance issue at some point, and balance-related falls account for over half of all accidental deaths in the elderly. But fixing this problem may be easier than you think.  We talk with WVU Medicine Physical Therapist Miranda Hose about vestibular therapy – physical therapy for your inner ear that can get you back on your feet and keep you there.

Nearly two and a half million Americans suffer with an Inflammatory Bowel Disease or IBD, like Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative colitis. Both conditions cause chronic inflammation of the digestive tract, but they can affect different parts of it.  We go there and talk about everything you need to know about Crohn’s and Colitis, with Dr. Jennifer Hadam-Veverka, director of the WVU Medicine Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center.

West Virginia has one of the highest rates of COPD with more than 186,000 West Virginians, or 13 percent of the state’s adults, affected by this lung disease. COPD is more than just a cough. We talk about prevention and promising treatments helping patients manage symptoms with Rachel Leonard, MD, WVU Medicine pulmonologist.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S., and West Virginia has the second highest rate of new lung cancer cases in the country. But survival rates are on the rise thanks to new treatments and lung cancer screenings.

November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month, and we talk about prevention, treatment, and screening with Kyle Chapman, MD, pulmonologist at the WVU Cancer Institute.

The Medicare open enrollment period is already underway, so we talk about the fastest growing Medicare Advantage plan in West Virginia – Peak Advantage. Peak Health Medicare Director Missy Bazzo explains all the new benefits, including a wellness program, and expansion into more West Virginia counties and into Pennsylvania.

Domestic violence survivors are an often-overlooked population prone to repeated concussions. An estimated one-in-three women, and one-in-seven men in the U.S. will experience physical violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so we talk about a specialized neurological program giving VIP treatment to domestic violence survivors with Dr. Javier Cárdenas, director of the Concussion and Brain Injury Center at the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute.

Are you overdue for your annual gynecological exam? Don’t put it off any longer. An estimated 117,000 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with gynecologic cancer this year, and about 34,000 will die from it. September is Gynecologic Cancer Awareness Month, focusing on cancers affecting the cervix, ovaries, uterus, vagina, and vulva. We talk about prevention and treatment of these cancers with Dr. Wade Barton, a gynecologic oncologist at the WVU Cancer Institute.

Are you one of the 100 million Americans suffering with chronic pain?  You don’t have to learn to live with it. We talk about the explosion of new treatments that are helping many find relief from chronic pain, with Richard Vaglienti, MD, director of the WVU Medicine Center for Integrative Pain Management.

West Virginia still leads the nation in overdose deaths, but the CDC estimates a drop of about 42 percent in those deaths over the last few years. However, that doesn’t mean the overdose epidemic is over.  We talk about overdose awareness, prevention, and treatment, with Dr. Michael Reynolds, addiction medicine specialist at the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute’s Healthy Minds – Chestnut Ridge Center.

It’s estimated that 72% of children will have a heart murmur at some point during childhood and adolescence. We talk about everything you need to know about heart murmurs from when to be concerned to what to do about them, with Dr Jai Udassi, director of the WVU Medicine Children’s Heart Center.