
{"id":27055,"date":"2012-07-19T10:25:02","date_gmt":"2012-07-19T14:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=27055"},"modified":"2012-07-19T10:25:02","modified_gmt":"2012-07-19T14:25:02","slug":"house-calls-july-19-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/07\/19\/house-calls-july-19-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"House Calls, July 19, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2012\/01\/19\/house-calls-january-19-2012\/stethoscope-4\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-22924\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/stethoscope-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"stethoscope-4\" width=\"300\" height=\"188\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-22924\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/stethoscope-4.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/stethoscope-4-113x70.jpg 113w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/stethoscope-4-150x94.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/stethoscope-4-100x62.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>Practicing family physicians from the <strong>UNC Department of Family Medicine<\/strong> have teamed up with<\/em> <strong>The Carrboro Citizen<\/strong> <em>to bring you a weekly feature responding to your questions about health and medicine. Send your questions or comments to yourhealth@unc.edu<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This week we respond to questions about Chantix and back pain.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dear<\/em> HOUSE <em>Calls, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m trying to quit smoking and my doctor prescribed Chantix, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard it can cause heart attacks. Is it safe?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>There was a study suggesting an increase in the short-term risk of heart events with Chantix, but mostly in people with heart conditions. The tricky thing here is that quitting smoking is far and away one of the best things you can do for your health. But the near-term risk of heart events is scary for some people. Continuing smoking over time increases your heart-attack risk far more than six months of Chantix. We think that for some people Chantix can be a great aid in the struggle to quit smoking. There are other medicine and non-medicine techniques. These include nicotine-replacement therapy (patch, pill, gum, lozenge and inhaler), buproprion (Wellbutrin and Zyban), behavioral therapy, hypnotherapy and group support. Talk to your doctor about the pros and cons of each, but the most important thing you can do is keep on that road toward quitting.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dear<\/em> HOUSE <em>Calls, I have a desk job and my lower back hurts. Is there anything that I can do to help?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Sitting places a lot of stress on your back and makes your core weak, but there are many things you can do to reduce your pain. First, make sure your ergonomic position is reasonable. Your feet should be flat on the floor with your knees slightly above your hips. Hopefully you can adjust your chair to make this happen with your desk still in reach (but watch keyboard position as your chair drops or you might get carpal tunnel syndrome). Some offices and companies can help with this by having an ergonomic specialist evaluate your office environment, especially if your back pain becomes a big problem. Second, get up frequently. This is good for you in so many ways, and will actually increase your productivity. Third, get into the habit of stretching your back daily for just five minutes. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of suggestions online. Pick four to six stretches and make them a habit. Better still, consider an exercise that will strengthen your core and stretch your back at least twice per week. We like yoga, pilates and swimming.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>House Calls<\/strong> is a weekly column by <strong>Dr. Adam Goldstein<\/strong>, <strong>Dr. Cristy Page<\/strong> and <strong>Dr. Adam Zolotor<\/strong> on behalf of Your Health and the UNC Department of Family Medicine.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week we respond to questions about Chantix and back pain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":22924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[424],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-house-calls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27055"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27057,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27055\/revisions\/27057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}