SALE!

The premium version of HNM’s Huff & Puff: The Asthma App is now available at a dramatically reduced introductory price! We’ve cut the price to $1.99 for the high def iPad version and just $0.99 for the SD versions for iPhone/iPod and Android devices. (Normally, they’re’s $7.99 and $3.99, respectively.)

“We want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to obtain the full app,” said Tim Jones, HNM’s CEO. The free version is great, but it’s just a taste. The premium version provides lots more fun. And when I say ‘fun,’ I really mean ‘learning’ because that’s what we do. We make health learning fun.”

You can try the free versions of the app, or buy the full versions, using the following links:

(Of course, you could just search “Huff & Puff” in the App Store or Google Play and you’ll find it.)

We’ll be working on updates and improvements just as fast as we can to enhance your fun, so please let us know what you think. Tell us what you like, what you don’t like, or what new features you’d like to see. You can email us at support@healthnutsmedia.com or via our Support page.

Hope you enjoy it. (Please leave a Comment on the App Store or Google Play, if you do!)
 

Dr. Gregg
Posted – May 21, 2013
 

PS – A very special thanks to everyone who supported us – family, friends, colleagues, and more – in the development of Huff & Puff: The Asthma App!
 

When we sleep, we are in another world, so to speak. Either we go somewhere in our dreams or we just sign out of our conscious world for a while. Wherever it is that our minds “go” when we sleep, it doesn’t seem as if we and our bodies are doing much during the “trip.” (Well, except for those vigorous sleepers and folks who sleepwalk or sleep talk.)

But, even though we don’t fully understand all the happens to our bodies when we sleep – or even exactly why we sleep – we do know that getting or not getting a good night’s sleep has a huge impact on our regular, waking selves.

The Harvard Women’s Health Watch summarized some of the best benefits of a good night’s sleep in a nice, short, six-item list (more…)

Hal couldn’t have yawned any larger. If he had, he might have split the corners of his mouth wide open. He was so sleepy that he could hardly see straight. He kept rubbing his eyes, yawning, stretching. Geez…if he could only catch a little more sleep. Double geez…this was just the end of first period!

“Told you, bro,” came the quip from behind. Hal’s little brother, Sal, walked up grinning almost as widely as Hal had just been yawning.

Hal glared at him, though it was a pretty weak glare. He could barely summon the muscles to give a really good glare.

“Shut up, short stack,” said Hal in a tone that was almost more of a whine than a reprimand. Hal leaned against the nearest locker as Sal just kept on grinning.

Just then, Moshe D walked up from Sal’s left looking about as cat-dragged-in as Hal did. This made Sal’s grin go one step broader. “Whoa…Moshe D…man, you look ragged,” (more…)

Most people think of “x-rays” as the pictures that doctors take when trying to “see” something inside their bodies. This common usage is correct, but x-rays (or x-radiation) are actually a type of electromagnetic energy. They act a lot like the rays of light we are accustomed to seeing except their energy waves are much, much shorter.

X-rays – the pictures – have been helping doctors see inside the human body for over a hundred years. They have helped find broken bones and strange objects hidden inside people. They’ve helped diagnose pneumonia and asthma and heart problems. They uncovered strange growths and cancers. They’ve helped us understand the inside of the human body in ways we had never been able to before their discovery.

X-radiation has been used to treat medical conditions for almost as long as they’ve been used to take pictures. At first, they were thought to cause no damage to human tissue in small doses and in large doses the harmful effects were thought to be only temporary. (more…)

Straining, squinting, craning his neck forward…none of it seemed to help. Hal simply could not see the face of the girl who had just waved at him from across the park. As she disappeared behind the row of bushes which lined the grassy commons, he said to his brother, Sal, “Man, I need my Superman x-ray vision glasses.”

Sal peered at him with a quizzical look and said, “Dude, you don’t need x-ray vision glasses. Like I keep telling you, you just need glasses glasses.”

Hal slapped at Sal’s upper arm and responded, “I do not!”

“Yeah?” queried Sal. “OK, so who was that PYT who just waved at you?”

“Right…like you could see her,” answered Hal.

“Sure could,” said Sal. “Plain as day.”

“Nuh uh,” replied Hal. “No way you could make out her face from clear across the park.”

“Could to,” answered Sal. “Wanna know who it was?” he asked.

Sheepishly, Hal looked at his little brother and said, in a much less argumentative voice, (more…)

Coaches often use the phrase “There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’” to emphasize the importance of group effort. Any good team is truly made up of partners, members who see the value of working together as more important than any of their individual glories.

As far back as our human history can be judged, people have always found that teaming up brings benefits. We are a communal people. We work together, play together, pray together, and look for ways to increase our connectedness via technology. In short, we are a “tribe.”

Why then is it that people so often feel alone when it comes to health issues?

Whether it’s a physical or mental health issue, you’ll often hear people say they feel alone, as if they are the only person on the planet who has such feelings (more…)

Hal sat under the cool shade of his favorite Weeping Willow. He looked out upon the park’s small, but well-kept pond. A mother duck was leading her six ducklings across the serene water, gliding along almost effortlessly. (At least, it appeared effortless on top of the water, but he knew those little duck feet were churning away like mad under the surface.)

As he watched them sail across this tiny “sea,” he heard his little inner voice wondering about his recent mishap and thinking, “I feel so alone, so left out.”

He looked down at his still-throbbing right ankle, now wrapped in gauze and guarded by a black plastic contraption that looked like the back half of a black cowboy boot. (Well, sorta.) He could see, in his mind’s eye, the twist it took and the odd shape into which it formed when he had fallen. It had been an ugly sight and he shivered just thinking about it. It wasn’t broken, but it was a really bad sprain. He’d be out for weeks.

Now his basketball buddies were off at the regionals playing for a shot at the state title while he sat here, looking at ducks. He had fallen that morning, just messing around with his brother, Sal, playing a little one-on-one in their driveway. Unfortunately, that was also the morning they were leaving for the tournament. He was still in the emergency room when the team took off. He wondered, “Why did this have to happen?” Now the team was off to the tourney and he wasn’t. He felt so very alone. (more…)

Patients must think doctors and nurses have water on the brain; we’re always talking about water!

Seriously, I wonder how many thousands of times I’ve mentioned to patients (or their parents) the need to increase their fluid intake? I tell them when they have a cold to drink up. I tell them when they have a sore throat to drink more. I tell them when they have a stomach bug to forego the food, but to stay hydrated. I tell them when they have headaches that dehydration can make a headache worse, or even cause one. I tell them when they have a urinary tract problem how important it is to “keep the pipes running.” I tell them to drink up winter, spring, summer, or fall, though usually more so in the hot summer, of course. I tell them to drink water so often…well…maybe I do have water on the brain!

Assuming I don’t have a water fixation – and, really, I don’t – why do I, and so many other healthcare providers, focus so much on water and good hydration? (more…)

Hal’s mom walked up behind him as he sat at the kitchen table, thumbing through some old photos on her iPad. She noticed he was looking at all the “Water Baby” photos, as she called them, from when he was an infant. “Don’t think I gave you permission to swipe my iPad from my bedroom, mister,” she said with her obviously phony stern mom voice.

Hal didn’t even turn around as he knew she was just teasing. “Yeah, ‘Swiper, no swiping,’ I know, Dora,” Hal joked.

“I’ve told you a million times, my hairstyle is not copied from Dora the Explorer!” Hal’s mom quipped. “Joseph at the salon says it is super chic and highlights my sensuous features.” She struck a profile view pose with her nose just slightly tipped up.

Hal chuckled, “Yeah, you’re the ‘chic-est’ mom in the South Side, Dora.” (more…)

Think back. Not much. Less than a hundred years ago…maybe 60 or so years.

Back in the 1950s, everybody knew somebody who had been devastated by TB (tuberculosis). Everybody also knew somebody who had polio and who was either in a wheelchair or who wore braces because of the disease. Everybody’s grandmother could diagnose mumps and chicken pox pretty durn accurately. Everybody knew what an entire block of quarantine signs looked like when mini-epidemics of measles broke out.

Now, come back to today and you’ll find doctors who have a hard time recognizing measles. You’ll see nurses who’ve never seen an active mumps case or heard the “whoop” of whooping cough. You’ll be hard-pressed to find anybody who has suffered from polio, since it has almost been wiped from the face of the earth. You definitely won’t find anyone who’s ever had a case of small pox because it has been wiped, completely, from the face of the earth. (Well, except for a few hidden vials in research labs.)

All of these once-called “scourges” have been driven down or out for one simple reason: (more…)