DEAR DR. ROACH: Why do older people tend to get lightheaded (not vertigo) and therefore become liable to trip or fall? What causes that, and can anything be done? I’m an 83-year-old lady afraid to trip over the garden hose or her own feet. — A.R. ANSWER: I’m glad you made a distinction between lightheadedness […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: I am a 76-year-old female in reasonably good health. Around Thanksgiving last year, my left ankle was swollen, red and very painful. I thought it was tendonitis, so I stopped going for my half-hour walks in the morning. Around Christmas, my doctor ran a blood test that showed my uric acid was […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: Over a year ago my husband had surgery. A couple of days later he was diagnosed with a blood clot in his calf. They did blood testing on him, and one test came back positive for “one copy of the Factor V Leiden Variant.” We have never heard of such a thing. […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: What is causing my hair to fall out? What can I do to stop it? I’m 72 years old and female. Could I be hypothyroid? — L.O.I. ANSWER: By far, the most common cause of hair loss in women in their 70s is female pattern hair loss. This pattern of hair loss […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: Your recent column on melanoma piqued my interest. My husband was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam in 1968. He had a melanoma on his neck removed with lymph nodes in 2007. On July 31, 2017, he was finally declared disabled from exposure, due to damage to his heart and lungs. He […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: My husband recently died from anaplastic thyroid cancer. I always thought thyroid cancer was one of the most successfully treated cancers that exist. Could you please explain the difference between anaplastic thyroid cancer and regular thyroid cancer? Thank you very much. — M.A.S. ANSWER: I am very sorry to hear of your […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: I am a 55-year-old female. I have always been in excellent health, but this year, my routine bloodwork showed that my creatinine is 1.08 (high) and that my GFR is 58 (low). Can that be because I drank alcohol the night before my bloodwork? My 2019 test showed GFR 65 and creatinine […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: I have been suffering for some time with jock itch. The resulting scratching leaves my groin area and thighs abraded and oftentimes bleeding. In addition to the ketoconazole I’ve been prescribed, I have tried several over-the-counter sprays and ointments, to no avail. My doctor prescribed generic Claritin (loratadine) and I use a […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: I am a male, 83, and my bladder leaks continuously since I had a hip replacement surgery. The surgeon used a catheter during the surgery, and when it was first removed, I could not urinate. I went home with a new Foley catheter. Five days later, it was removed, and I have […]

DEAR DR. ROACH: With all the masks, hand-washing, sanitizing and social distancing, will we all have weak immune systems when life goes back to normal? — J.D.H. ANSWER: No. The immune system remembers pathogens for life, and constant exposure to germs is not necessary for the immune system to function correctly. The “hygiene hypothesis” suggests […]