Search for tag: "health hack"

Announcer: "Health Hacks" with Dr. Troy Madsen on The Scope.

Dr. Madsen: Today's health hack is avoiding the side effects from Ibuprofen while still getting the maximum effect from the medication. So, if you've ever taken Ibuprofen, you've probably heard take 600 milligrams or 3 of the regular strength over-the-counter Ibuprofen, take it every 4 to 6 hours. Well, you're probably taking too much Ibuprofen and you're not doing it to really provide a lot of benefit for your pain.

So studies that had been done, there have been studies in patients who are postoperative, also patients with dental pain, and they looked at 400 milligrams of Ibuprofen versus 600 milligrams, so just two of the regular strength tablets. They found that that 400 milligrams had the exact same effect on pain as the 600 milligram. And even then, they found that that 400 milligrams 3 times a day was the max effect. You're talking just every eight hours.

If you're someone who you're saying, "Wow, I hurt. I'm going to take 600 milligrams of Ibuprofen every 4 to 6 hours," so you're taking that dose maybe 4 or 5 times a day. You're not getting a lot of benefit from that additional Ibuprofen. And the big thing you set yourself up for is stomach irritation. It can lead to ulcers. It can lead to bleeding sometimes. You could avoid it and just take 400 milligrams 3 times a day. That's the maximum effect for pain. Less is more especially when it comes to Ibuprofen.

Announcer: For more health hacks, check out thescoperadio.com, produced by University of Utah Health.

Announcer: "Health Hacks" with Dr. Troy Madsen on The Scope.

Dr. Madsen: Today's health hack is standing at work. It's something simple. You've probably heard about it before. There are all sorts of problems associated with sitting at work causing potentially even more health problems than things like obesity and smoking. But just sitting at work for prolonged periods can have a very significant effect on your health.

So the health hack is standing at work. If you've noticed problems at work, such as anxiety, just lack of engagement with work, even issues with sickness, missing work, standing has been shown to make a big difference.

The health hack is to do something very simple to remind yourself to stand. My recommendation is set the timer on your phone for 30 minutes. Set it, hit start when you sit down. When it goes off, reset it, hit start again. When it goes off, stand up, walk around. Go get a drink of water. Go use the restroom. Just stand and work. Anything like that so you're not sitting for prolonged periods.

I think anything where you're just not seated for prolonged periods. And I would say if you can just get up and walk, that's probably better than just standing. But anything to do to get out of your seat and have that consistent reminder to do it. You're going to get in the habit of it probably after a week or two. You won't even need the reminder. You'll know 30 minutes, I stand. I walk around. I'm used to it. It makes me feel good.

Announcer: For more health hacks, check out thescoperadio.com. Produced by University of Utah Health.

Announcer: "Health Hacks" with Dr. Troy Madsen, on The Scope.

Dr. Madsen: Today's health hack is having an antibiotic in your bag when you travel. The antibiotic I really have in mind here is Ciprofloxacin. And the reason for it is urinary tract infections. So if you're female and you're traveling, you may have experienced this before. I mean anyone could experience it, but urinary tract infections are more likely in females. And if you're traveling and you experience a urinary tract infection, you know how miserable this can be.

If you're in a foreign country or just even another city, just trying to get in to find health care, interrupt your plans, getting the help you need to get a prescription for exactly what you know you need can be an incredible headache. So I think it's not at all unreasonable if you're going on a big trip or, you know, if you meet with your doctor just to ask them, "Can I get a prescription for an antibiotic to have on hand for this kind of situation?"

I think it's a reasonable thing to have. Typically you know when you have a urinary tract infection, and studies that have been done have shown that if a person feels like they're having a urinary tract infection, they're probably right.

So the health hack here is have an antibiotic on hand. Ciprofloxacin is one that I recommend that works very well for urinary tract infections. Take it with you when you travel. If you have symptoms of urinary tract infection, you can take this, avoid a trip to an ER or to some health care facility in a foreign country.

Announcer: For more health hacks, check out thescoperadio.com. Produced by University of Utah Health.

Announcer: "Health Hacks" with Dr. Troy Madsen on The Scope.

Dr. Madsen: Well, today's health hack is a trick to try and get a raisin or any other sort of foreign body out of your child's nose. Now, this health hack is a little bit gross, but it works, and it could save you a trip to the ER.

So if your child sticks something up their nose, a raisin or anything else they find around the house, you can't see it to pull it out and you're thinking to yourself, "There's no way I'm going to get this out." One trick is to have your child lie down on a couch or on a bed. You place your mouth on your child's mouth. You blow into their mouth forcefully, quickly, only maybe a second or two of forceful air into their mouth. That air then gets forced up through the nose and that is going to ideally force this raisin or whatever else is in there out of their nose.

Now, it's a little bit gross because you've got to put your mouth on your child's mouth, you have to blow in there, and most likely that raisin or whatever else is in there is going to get blown out onto your face with some mucus. But the good news is you avoid the trip to the ER. If you were to come to the ER with the same problem, I would probably ask you in the ER, "Are you willing to try this here? Because it can avoid a whole a lot of trauma to your child, a whole lot of probing around in their nose." So, if this happens at home, give it a try. There's good evidence that this works well. It can save you a trip to the ER.

Announcer: For more health hacks, check out thescoperadio.com. Produced by University of Utah Health.

Announcer: "Health Hacks" with Dr. Troy Madsen on The Scope.

Dr. Madsen: Today's health hack is a simple thing you can do to drop calories from your diet and lose weight. So let's say you're cruising along, you want to lose weight, but you just cannot seem to drop the pounds. Simple trick is look at your diet. If you're having a soda every day for lunch, particularly a large soda, or maybe breakfast, maybe dinner, whenever you might have a soda or several sodas, if you can cut a large soda, one of these gas station soda-sized things from your diet every day, you will lose a pound per week.

This is based on the fact that these large sodas probably have 500 calories. If you're just maintaining that drop right there, 500 calories for a man or a woman, is enough that you should be dropping about a pound of weight per week as long as you're keeping things steady with the rest of your diet. It's a simple thing you can do, just a matter of trying to replace it. Just drink more water, avoid the calories from that soda, and over several weeks, you're going to see the weight start to come off.

Announcer: For more health hacks, check out thescoperadio.com, produced by University of Utah Health.

Announcer: Health Hacks with Dr. Troy Madsen on The Scope.

Dr. Madsen: Today's health hack is treating an ingrown toenail to prevent it from getting worse. So if you've ever had an ingrown toenail, you know they're pretty miserable. They get inflamed. Sometimes you need to have a piece of the toenail cut off, you need to have the infection opened up and drained, and you need to go on antibiotics. So if you can catch this early, you can save yourself a whole lot of pain and headache.

An ingrown toenail essentially happens when one side of the toe or one side of the toenail digs into the toe and it grows out. It causes that area to just get inflamed. So if you can get that corner of the toenail and somehow lift it up so it's not pushing into the skin, you can prevent it from getting worse.

The hack here is to use a cotton swab. You take that cotton swab, you pull the cotton off the end of it, throw the stick away, and then take that cotton and roll it up so it's kind of a little bit longer and thin, and then you lift the edge of the toenail up, slide that cotton up under it, and then leave it there. Do that every morning after you take a shower when the skin's a little bit softer. What that does is it lifts the toenail up away from that edge of the skin. It prevents the toenail from growing into the skin and getting worse. If you do that for about a week, you're going to be good. The toenail will grow far enough you're not going to have an ingrown toenail. You'll save yourself from having to have any sort of procedure done or having that drained.

Announcer: For more health hacks, check out thescoperadio.com, produced by University of Utah Health.

Announcer: "Health Hacks" with Dr. Troy Madsen on The Scope.

Dr. Madsen: Today's health hack is using a combination of ibuprofen and acetaminophen instead of an opioid for injuries and pain from those injuries. This is all based on a study. Came out in the Journal of the American Medical Association a few months ago. It was eye-opening for me, for a lot of people I work with because we've always assumed that opioids worked better.

So this study, patients got a combination of ibuprofen 400 milligrams and acetaminophen, also known as Tylenol, 1,000 milligrams. These are standard over-the-counter medications, and they compared it to patients who got opioids. Those who got this combination of ibuprofen and acetaminophen did just as well with their pain. So I think the take home from this would be if you're in the ER and you're offered opioids, ask for some Tylenol, ask for ibuprofen. Avoid the opioids and avoid that addiction potential.

Announcer: For more health hacks, check out thescoperadio.com. Produced by University of Utah Health.

Announcer: Health Hacks with Dr. Troy Madsen on The Scope.

Dr. Madsen: Today's health hack is getting just three to four servings of fruits and vegetables a day. So personally, when I hear about how many servings of fruits and vegetables I'm supposed to eat a day, I get overwhelmed. And we're talking about recommended amounts of five to nine servings.

So this is based on a study that was done that appeared in the journal called, "The Lancet," where they looked at patients and they said, "Well, where's really this maximal benefit?" And they found that these individuals who were eating three to four servings a day, when they looked at their risk of heart disease, they seem to do just about as well as those who are getting even more than that. So the health hack here is have some fruit with your breakfast, have a banana, have an apple, have some snacks around the house, meaning having some fruit, having some fruit sitting out at eye level where when you reach for something, that's what you're grabbing.

And then if you can get three to four servings a day, feel good about yourself. Don't feel like you need to eat five to nine servings a day. You're probably getting just as many benefits to your heart by eating that amount.

Announcer: For more health hacks, check out thescoperadio.com produced by University of Utah Health.

Announcer: "Health Hacks" with Dr. Troy Madsen on The Scope.

Dr. Madsen: Today's health hack is an easy to do, homemade splint. So all of us have cardboard boxes around the house. So let's say you have something where you fall or a child falls, you look at their arm, and it looks like it's broken. It's obviously deformed, it's swollen, they're having lots of pain. You want to get them in to get some x-rays and get this checked out. But every time they're moving that arm, it hurts.

So if you take a cardboard box, you break it down, do a couple layers the length of their arm, you can then put one piece of that cardboard box on each side of their arm, so you've got two pieces total. And then wrap it around with something that's not too tight, maybe just use like a shirt, a couple shirts to tie it around there. This can stabilize their arm and help them to feel a lot more comfortable while they get into the ER to get an x-ray.

So you're wondering, "Well, why cardboard?" Well, it's easy to use. And a lot of EMTs, so if you call an ambulance, a lot of them have cardboard splints. They're just using the same thing. It's really a great tool to have. The advantage of it is if this arm's moving around while they're in the car, they're just going to hurt a lot. There's potential that the fracture could move out of place even further. And again, it's something you probably have around. It's simple enough to do. You can grab it, quickly put this in place, get them in to get some treatment.

Announcer: For more health hacks, check out thescoperadio.com. Produced by University of Utah Health.

Announcer: Health Hacks with Dr. Troy Madsen on The Scope.

Interviewer: What is today's health hack?

Dr. Madsen: Today's health hack is a trick to avoid a trip to the ER for a broken toe. So let's say you're walking around the house, you don't have shoes on, you hit a corner of the bed with your foot, and you immediately have pain in one of your toes. And you're thinking to yourself, "Wow, my toe hurts like crazy. I wonder if it's broken."

So your first thought is, "I need to go to the ER or an urgent care and get an x-ray." If you were to come to the ER or an urgent care and get an x-ray and if your toe were broken, we would do a simple thing. We would tape it to the toe next to it and we would send you home.

So here's your health hack. If you do hit your toe hard, you wonder if it's broken, just tape it to the toe next to it. If it's broken or if it's sprained, the treatment is the same. As long as it's aligned okay, it's moving okay, as long as the blood is profusing okay, it looks nice and pink, we're going to tape it, we're going to call it good, tell you to give it a few weeks. It should feel better. It should heal up just fine.

Interviewer: And if it is having some of those other issues, that's when you should go to the ER.

Dr. Madsen: Yes. If you look at your toe and it's kind of twisted weird or you're just not able to move it right, that's a sign that maybe it's a more serious fracture, but that's pretty rare. Most cases of fractures in the toe, we're just going to tape it to the toe next to it and give it time to heal up.

Announcer: For more health hacks, check out thescoperadio.com produced by University of Utah Health.