Free Republic

One day, my hand stopped speaking to my brain. As a doctor and flute player, I had to try to understand this strange afflictionThe morning after performing the concert of my life, I could no longer play the flute. The pinky and ring fingers of my left hand failed to cooperate with what my mind wanted to do – I couldn’t work the keys. The harder I tried, the more my fingers curled into a claw, stuck in spasm. Even stranger: no other activity was affected. I could type on a keyboard with the same facility as usual and play...

A new drug with the potential to treat endometriosis-associated pain with very few side effects is getting closer to official approval. Endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory condition and the leading cause of pelvic pain worldwide. With no known cause or cure, many patients have run out of options and are living with chronic and unrelenting symptoms. Safe and effective long-term treatments that can help patients live pain-free lives are desperately needed, and yet to date, very few drugs have been approved for clinical use. Those that have, like elagolix and leuprorelin (aka Orilissa and Lupron), don't work for everyone and...

On the last Sunday in March a year ago, The Washington Post Magazine published a goopy cover story titled "Pelosi's Moment." On the last Sunday in March this year, The Post published an "Opinion Essay" in the A section that went on for three pages (with eight photographs) celebrating Pelosi as "A troublemaker with a gavel." Reporter-turned-columnist Karen Tumulty wrote what sounded like a very long, saccharine Hallmark greeting card for Pelosi's 80th birthday. She has been the target of thousands of Republican campaign ads, though that assault failed spectacularly in 2018, when Democrats swept the midterm elections and regained...

It’s true that the first day of your period is usually the absolute worst. It’s different for everyone, but cramps, fatigue, and irritability are pretty common, and for some women, they can be crippling. That’s what the women of Culture Machine say, at least, in a new video announcing the company’s plan to give women the first day of their period off. Culture Machine is a digital media company in Mumbai, which makes this all the more progressive. In rural parts of India, women are often sent out to menstruation huts to wait our their period. The huts are very...

Yesterday I asked some friends to pray for me over at facebook, because I was having some stomach troubles. Well this morning I think my troubles may be worse than I thought. Yesterday I woke up with severe cramps and bowel pains that lasted about 20 minutes until I had a movement. The pain went away, but I was sweating bullets and the whole experience was extremely painful. Then about 45 minutes later it all happened again, but this time all that came out was bile. I again felt better afterwards, and then every 45 minutes through the day I...

Lux Interior, lead singer of influential garage-punk act the Cramps, died Wednesday morning (February 4) due to an existing heart condition, according to a statement from the band's publicist. He was 62. Born Erick Lee Purkhiser, Interior started the Cramps in 1972 with guitarist Poison Ivy (born Kristy Wallace, later his wife) — whom, as legend has it, he picked up as a hitchhiker in California. By 1975, they had moved to New York, where they became an integral part of the burgeoning punk scene surrounding CBGBs. Their music differed from most of the scene's other acts in that it...