Author: Angelika Rampal
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Back to School #covidstyle
As a long-anticipated return to school is upon us, many of my patients are asking me about COVID prevention. In this post, I will review some must-do items and I will also cover what I am doing for my own three children who will be returning to in-person school after a year and a half.…
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Nutrition Tidbits
My office holds clinical meetings once a month. At these, my colleagues and I discuss interesting journal articles, new clinical recommendations, and what we call “clinical pearls.” Clinical pearls are interesting pieces of information or take-home messages that any one of us may have picked up at a recent conference. Last night, I shared some…
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Peanuts again. When? Why? Are They Safe?
Nuts have once again made headlines. The good news is that not much has changed over the past few years. These newer guidelines simply give a more active recommendation to go ahead and feed peanuts to higher risk babies, whereas prior statements were more lukewarm, advising that there is no need to delay introduction of…
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Stop For a Minute: Making Mindfulness and Gratitude Part of You
I recently worked with a most excellent medical student, Karinne Van Groningen. She is the kind of student that practicing physicians love to work with: enthusiastic, bright, and a self-starter. During her rotation with us, she chose a topic and wrote a guest post featured below: “Good morning my Karina!” That was the typical greeting…
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My Love-Hate Relationship with Antibiotics
Antibiotics are amazing. They can save lives. They can prevent horrible complications of infections, like rheumatic heart disease as a complication of strep infection. I prescribe antibiotics regularly. However, I also have many conversations about why I do not recommend antibiotics for various illnesses. I have to say, these conversations are generally longer and more difficult than writing a simple…
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Getting Your Kid to Eat Your Food (Assuming You Eat Healthy Food)
Multiple times a day I hear stories of picky eaters, battles over food, and the resultant parental stress. There are books and articles galore on the subject, but for those of you who just want a quick read, here are some thoughts and strategies. If any of you have ideas to add, please feel free…
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Sick of Being Sick – Home Cold and Flu remedies
My husband keeps complaining that he is sick of being sick… well, winter is here, and as I keep telling my patients, it is the Venn diagram season of viruses. We are still seeing summer viruses and the winter viruses seem to be in full force. There is not one surefire method of preventing or…
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Stop Bugging Me
With warm weather come mosquitos and ticks and reports of various vector-borne illnesses like West Nile virus, Chikungunya, Dengue, and Lyme disease. You West Coasters are lucky to have fewer of these pests but the rest of us need to keep up with our bug spray trivia in order to best protect ourselves and our…
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The Latest on How to Start Solid Foods
One of the most common discussions I have with patients revolves around starting solid foods. Given the many changes recommended over the years, I would like to give my basic suggestions and some of the logic behind them. For more information regarding the timing of solids, see my prior post on introducing nuts and wheat (also,…
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Wheat Cereal Receipe
What you need: Cracked wheat… 1 cup Water… 3-4 cups A pot Immersion blender or blender What to do: Rinse 1 cup of cracked wheat with water. Then place it in 3-4 cups of water. Bring to a boil. Bring it to a simmer and cover for 25-40 minutes. Let cool. With an immersion…