Chief Medical Officer at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital Dr. Kevin Most joins the Steve Cochran Show to discuss the importance of checking your blood sugar levels daily, how to differentiate between muscle and fat weight gain, and how music therapy can help alleviate pain.
Dr. Kevin Most’s Steve Cochran Show Notes:
Childhood Vaccine Measles Mumps, Rubella, Tetanus, Pertussis polio and Chicken pox
- The percentage of kindergartners who received their vaccine for measles remained below the federal target again
- The vaccine exemptions for these children hit a record high
- Lower level of vaccine rates increases the chance for an outbreak
- Often there are clusters of under vaccinated or unvaccinated in some areas that can lead to outbreaks
- Vaccine rates are at about 93% this equates to about 250,000 kindergartners who are at risk for measles infection
- Currently school vaccine requirements do not include Covid vaccination, even though CDC has added it to the recommendation list for childhood vaccines
- Measles was deemed eradicated in the US in 2000
- First case in 4 years of measles in Chicago noted on Oct 17th, it involved an international traveler who had not been vaccinated
- Measles is highly contagious, prior to vaccinations we had 500 deaths a year from measles and close to 50,000 hospitalizations
- CDC is very dangerous for young babies and the first dose is given at 12 months of age, followed by a second dose at age 4-6 yrs., so protecting newborns with all around being vaccinated is key
- In the spring Ohio had an outbreak of 85 cases, all in children who were not vaccinated
Strep throat on the rise- antibiotics shortage
- Strep throat cases are on the rise as is expected with the return to school.
- Data shows an increase in cases of children aged 4-12
- Symptoms – sore throat- fever- pain with swallowing- swollen red tonsils
- If your pharmacy does not have the amoxicillin, do not wait for the dose to be delivered, talk to your doctor about an alternative antibiotic
- Contagious for up to 24-48 hours after starting antibiotics
- We are seeing a national shortage of amoxicillin powder used for suspension and common for use in children
- The shortage has been in place now for just over a year
- We still have 4 manufactures that make this drug but continued demand has kept the drug in short supply.
- Capsules and tablets of amoxicillin are not in short supply
Pain treatment should include music
- A study out of McGill University showed the importance of music for pain relief and specific music.
- Study took 63 individuals and they used a device that caused a sensation of pain
- As the pain was inflicted the participants listened to either random music, their favorite music or silence
- While a specific set of music was played the participants were asked to rate their pain intensity and unpleasantness
- Researchers found that participants rated their pain less intense when listening to their favorite music, when compared to random music or silence
- They also found that placing relaxing music did not show a decrease in the perception of pain.
- Songs that were favorite and had an emotional tie showed a greater decrease in the perception of pain.
- The decrease when listening to their favorite music showed a one point decrease on a 10 point scale consistently.
- The one point decrease is similar to what we would expect from taking an over the counter pain reliever
- This strategy may be used as an adjunct to pain management and even for things as simple as a flu shot.
Covid news
- Currently Covid testing is being done at 7 airports in the US to track Covid from International flights
- CDC has increased surveillance at 4 US Airports to track incoming international travelers for a larger number of pathogens, including Flu and RSV
- They are offering voluntary testing to travelers at Logan, Dulles, JFK in NY and San Francisco
- They will be looking for much more than Covid as they will be testing for influenza and RSV now and then expand to more than 30 bacteria and viruses.
- Currently 6,000 passengers each week are tested at the 7 sites, completely voluntary
- The current method asks many other non identifying questions to track location, vaccination status, exposure
- This has proved to be helpful, the first case of BA 2.86 was noted during a voluntary screening at Dulles Airport ( first case in US, from Japan where they had not identified any cases and the first case found outside of Denmark and Israel)
- The surveying is looking beyond the altruistic travelers and is also testing wastewater from incoming international flights.
- Paxlovid will transition to the commercial market over the next two months
- Government paid doses of Paxlovid will be held and used for Medicare and Medicaid patients thru 2024
