A few years ago I visited my physician here in Chilliwack with a complaint of nasal congestion that simply wouldn’t go away. It’s something that I’ve mostly always dealt with, but only started to complain about it when I realized that other people didn’t seem to have the same problem. My doctor noticed that the inside of the nose was inflamed, so he prescribed nasal corticosteroids to help me breathe better. Since that time I’ve visited many different countries around the world. In some of them my nose was just as congested as it was back home. But in many of them my nose completely cleared up, ...

Many people don’t realize that if they are in another country that they will often have to pay for all their medical expenses out of their own pocket. A simple visit to a doctor’s office probably won’t set you back too far in most countries, but being hospitalized can potentially bankrupt a person in certain parts of the world, such as the United States. I had a friend who got into a scooter accident in Thailand years ago, and only avoided hefty medical bills thanks to the travel health insurance he purchased before leaving Canada. So without a doubt one of the first items that should be on everyone’s ...

Today was an odd day. It was the first day back to work in about two weeks now, which in itself was a lot of fun, given what we have on our plate. Prior to that though I had to go a few tests down at Chilliwack General Hospital as a final follow-up to all that garbage I went through with my c. diff. infection years ago. Thankfully everything checked out ok, and I think I can finally put that whole health saga finally behind me. That said, I got nothing but sympathy for anyone who acquires c. diff in a hospital setting like I did. After work today I went out and made a run to all of my favourite ...

If you would have mentioned that you were trying to lose weight by a reducing your carbohydrate intake a few years ago, people would have dismissed you as crazy and told you that you were only hurting your body. However, that all changed sometime around 2003 when a prestigious medical school released a peer-reviewed study that basically showed Low Carbohyrate diets not only help people lose more weight, but also result in better blood-lipid profiles than their low-fat counterparts. Since then, I’ve read countless studies on PubMed that basically indicate the same thing. However, another fairly ...