By: Kathy Hubbard. Think about this for a minute. You spend on average $5.50 on an item that you’re going to light on fire, breathe in the smoke and then throw away. Does that make sense? And when you think about the fact that this item leads to disease and disability and harms nearly every organ of your body, does it make sense that you bought it, lit it on fire, sucked it up, and threw it away?
By: Kathy Hubbard. The cartoon shows a little girl watching a little boy peeing on a tree. The bubble over her head says, “That’s a clever gadget to bring to a picnic!” There are hundreds of jokes about urinating. But bladder health isn’t something to laugh at. So, despite the National Institute on Aging saying, “people rarely talk about bladder health,” today that’s exactly what we’re going to do.
By: Kathy Hubbard. There are some scary statistics about Halloween. Perhaps the scariest is that children are more than twice as likely to be hit by a car and killed on Halloween than on any other day of the year. The National Safety Council says that the “lack of visibility because of low lighting at night plays a factor in these incidents.”
By: Kathy Hubbard. In 2011 as part of a national campaign, staff members from the Sandpoint Police Department, Idaho Conservation League and Bonner General Health Foundation got together to develop and promote a program on how to safely dispose unwanted or expired drugs. With eyes on crime, health, and the environment, we established a Drug Take Back Program based on the Drug Enforcement Agency’s national program.
By: Caroline Lobsinger. Getting healthy, regardless of age, boils down to the same things: nutrition, good hydration and physical activity. Dr. Tessa Reinke, the primary care medical director at Bonner General Health in Sandpoint, said becoming and staying healthy for those 55 and over — or any age — is achievable for everyone.
By: Kathy Hubbard “I wake up every single morning stiff, with a lot of pain all over my body, and it takes me at minimum two hours before I can really accomplish anything,” a person posted on Fibromyalgia Forums. Another member of the forum likened the symptoms to wearing a “concrete overcoat.” And, another person wrote, “Sometimes when I’m having a bad flare up, I feel physically sick (nauseous, weak legs and arms, dropping things, struggle gripping things, hot and cold with sweats, really restless legs, sore or scratchy throat, tension in shoulders and headaches with a stuffy feeling,”
By: Kathy Hubbard. Three weeks ago, this newspaper’s front page headline read, “Pertussis cases increase in region.” And it’s not only in our region. Throughout the country the numbers of people contracting pertussis, aka whooping cough, have skyrocketed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 14,569 cases of pertussis so far this year. Compare that to the 3,475 cases in 2023.
By: Kathy Hubbard. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has changed their recommendations about when a woman should start having mammograms. They now say that all women should get screened every other year starting at age 40 and continue until they’re 75.
The American Cancer Society’s website, however, still says that women could choose to have mammograms between the ages of 40 and 44 but should have them every year from ages 45 to 54. Then, at age 55 they could switch to mammograms every two years if they preferred and continue as long as they’re in good health.
By: Kathy Hubbard. It’s heartening to know that there are several ongoing research studies of new treatments for childhood cancers. If we can’t irradicate the disease, at least we can make remission more commonplace.
By: Kathy Hubbard. A primary care provider is your main health care provider in non-emergency situations. Your PCP’s role is to provide preventive care and teach healthy lifestyle choices; identify and treat common medical conditions; assess the urgency of your medical problems and direct you to the best place for that care; and make referrals to medical or surgical specialists when necessary.
By: Kathy Hubbard. Over ten times as many babies were born with congenital syphilis (CS) in 2022 than in 2012. Think about that for a minute. Then know that nine out of ten of those cases could have been prevented. An article published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on December 14 of last year goes on to say that two in five women who gave birth to babies with CS didn’t seek any prenatal care.
By: Kathy Hubbard. The first thing women need to know about uterine fibroids is what they’re not. They are not cancer and almost never turn into cancer. They’re very common and most often cause little to no discomfort. But when they do, they can be very uncomfortable.
Bonner General Health is a 25-bed Critical Access Hospital and healthcare network of outpatient clinics and services serving Sandpoint and the surrounding region.
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