The Healing Podcast - Brought to you by MarinHealth

Still smoking? Don’t despair – many people try to quit the habit 20 to 30 times before they are finally successful. The fact is nicotine reaches the brain in less than ten seconds – faster than cocaine or heroin. And it’s just as addictive. In this podcast, Paige Brown-Kelly, a Registered Respiratory Therapist at MarinHealth Medical Center, discusses the risks of cigarette smoking and what you can do to kick the habit. It’s important to understand your triggers – the stresses or activities that make you want to light up. Paige explains the benefits of supervised smoking cessation at MarinHealth Medical Center’s Center for Integrative Health & Wellness, which uses a combination of counseling and integrative treatments like massage or acupuncture. If you’ve tried and failed to quit on your own, this could be the support you need to succeed.

You may not be able to take a vacation from your diabetes, but you can certainly treat yourself while on vacation. All it takes is a little advance planning.Endocrinologist Dr. Linda Gaudiani, Medical Director of the Braden Diabetes Center and Inpatient Diabetes Care Program at MarinHealth Medical Center, offers some sensible advice for managing your diabetes while on vacation. This informative podcast covers everything from health and safety precautions to managing diet and alcohol while managing to have a good time!

No matter how much milk you drank when you were little, somewhere between ages 30 and 40, your bone mass will begin to decline. It’s a natural part of aging. However, for people with certain risk factors, bone loss leads to ostopoenia and osteoporosis, conditions that put older people at risk for serious fractures.MarinHealth Medical Center endocrinologist Dr. Alexander Uihlein explains the biology of bone loss and what you can do to maintain your bone density. Learn about medical conditions and medications that can cause calcium to leach out of your bones. Find out about treatments and lifestyle changes that can help you maintain a healthy bone density.

For centuries, people have used various types of opioids for pain relief. These powerful drugs are very effective for acute pain from a broken leg, bad burn, or recent surgery. Unfortunately, opioids are often overused, or misused for lesser aches and pains, or abused as recreational drugs. As we have learned from America’s raging opioid crisis, these drugs can be extremely addictive.

In this podcast, Dr. Ramanu Naidu, Medical Director of Pain Management at MarinHealth Medical Center talks about pain relief and how opioids work compared to other types of medications used to control pain. Dr. Naidu covers a variety of topics, including the difference between dependency and addiction, and the social, cultural, and hereditary factors that can make people more prone to opioid addiction.

We commonly use the name Arthritis as a way to refer to a broad spectrum of conditions that cause joint deterioration and pain. However, according to the Arthritis Foundation, there are more than 100 different types of arthritis and related conditions!  Sometimes, a family physician can help, but in more severe cases, patients will be referred to a rheumatologist or orthopedic surgeon, depending on the type of arthritis.

In this podcast, rheumatologist Dr. Arundathi Malladi gives a concise overview of the types of arthritis, treatments, and risk factors. Have a listen: addressing your aches and pains starts with understanding the cause.

One of the most promising tools in an oncologist’s toolbox is immunotherapy. This treatment boosts the body’s own immune system so it can effectively destroy cancer cells. Immunotherapy has proven very effective in certain cancers, such as some melanomas and lung tumors. While immunotherapy is still unavailable at many community hospitals, it has been prescribed at MarinHealth Medical Center for several years, with encouraging results.

Learn more as MarinHealth Medical Center oncologist Dr. Barbara Galligan explains immunotherapy and how it works. Topics covered include how the treatment is administered, who is a good candidate, and potential side effects.

While senior citizens and children younger than five are at greatest risk, anybody can get the flu. Symptom severity is what differentiates the flu from the common cold. Both can cause a sore throat and runny nose, but the flu puts you to bed with a fever, chills, muscle aches, and even “the shakes.”

In this podcast, Alexander Evens, a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine and an infectious disease specialist at MarinHealth Medical Center, offers tips on how to protect your self and your loved ones during flu season. He also debunks some misconceptions about the flu shot and offers recommendations to hasten your recovery if you do get the flu.

As many learn the hard way, the “Information Age” is also the age of information theft. So how do you protect your personal medical information? What are the signs that you may have been hacked? And what is that scary sounding “dark web”, anyway? This helpful overview, provided by MarinHealth Medical Center’s Manager of Information Security and Customer Experience, Jason Johnson, answers all these questions and more. Find out how to protect your privacy on your cell phone and computer and what to do if you think your devices have been hacked or compromised.

The human hand consists of 29 bones, 29 joints, 34 muscles, and 123 ligaments. That’s a lot of interconnected moving parts, and an issue with even one of them could lead to numbness, pain, and mobility problems. In this podcast, MarinHealth Medical Center hand surgeon Dr. Thomas Kim shares his concern that too many people postpone seeking help from a hand specialist until their problem has gotten worse. From hand arthritis to carpal tunnel, many hand conditions can be treated non-surgically if caught early enough. Here, Dr. Kim discusses a variety of hand conditions and treatment options, both non-surgical and minimally invasive.

Once upon a time, the prevailing wisdom was “once a cesarean, always a cesarean.” Thankfully, those days are long gone, but the rate of successful VBACs (vaginal birth after cesarean) still differs widely from one hospital to the next. That’s why it’s so important to choose the right hospital for your special delivery.A passionate advocate for lowering cesarean rates, MarinHealth Medical Center OB/GYN Dr. Lizellen La Follette talks about the hospital’s pro-woman, patient-centric approach to labor and delivery. The key is letting you take your time while nature takes its course. Listen and learn why MarinHealth Medical Center made the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative’s C-section Honor Roll for their exceptionally low cesarean rate.