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Chasing success, losing sleep

Dear Annie: I was really excited when I landed my dream job a few months ago. It has great pay and a title that can really take me places. But now, just a few months in, I’m pulling my hair out. We’re in our “busy season,” which means lots of late nights and working weekends. Every time I finish one assignment, two more pop up. My problem isn’t the hours — I know busy season will end — it’s that I cannot sleep. For the past week, I’ve been lucky to get three or four hours a night. When my head hits the pillow, despite being exhausted, I start replaying every ...

Providing more information about Repatha for cholesterol

DEAR DR. ROACH: I’m a 75-year-old woman who’s in very good health. Since my early 50s, I’ve had issues with my cholesterol. My doctor has put me on several statins that caused very sore joints and muscle aches, to the point that I finally had to stop them. I felt that it just wasn’t worth all the aches and pains. My doctor decided to put me on the drug Repatha by self-injection every other week. This has worked amazingly well for me. I have no aches or pains from it, and we are both thrilled at my recent blood tests. I understand that Repatha is a fairly new drug. Do you have ...

Pittsburgh is just built different

Art Rooney II was standing on the pitch of the brand-new U.S. Steel Community football field, located on the sprawling 178 acres where the men and women who lived in the slopes overlooking Hazelwood Works labored in the mill. It doesn’t seem that long ago when those massive steel structures were churning out steel for over 100 years, playing a significant role in building this country. Off in the distance stands the U.S. Steel Tower, the tallest building in Appalachia. Closer to the field are the skeletal remains, now repurposed to house Carnegie Mellon University and its ...

Dear Annie: Holding firm on boundaries with estranged family

Dear Annie: I am a woman in my early 40s, living several states away from the town where I grew up. My relationship with my parents has always been complicated, especially with my mother, and for the last 25 years I have also been estranged from my older sister. She still lives near my parents, while I built my life far away. The issue comes up whenever I consider visiting. If my parents know I’m coming, my mother almost always tells my sister and tries to arrange some kind of family get-together. What she doesn’t seem to accept is that I do not want contact with my sister. Our ...

A combination of BP meds can be more effective than just one

DEAR DR. ROACH: I’m a 69-year-old woman who’s been on different blood pressure medications for a very long time. I was on 20 mg of lisinopril and 5 mg of amlodipine for a while, but my blood pressure spiked to 190/100 mm Hg. My doctor then increased the amlodipine to 10 mg, which brought my blood pressure down somewhat, but I still was often in the 150-170 range. I also had a fast heart rate often, so metoprolol (50 mg) was substituted for amlodipine. This didn’t really work, so 12.5 mg of hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) was added. Now I’m suddenly having low blood pressure — the ...

Is the SPLC indictment about fraud or something more sinister?

When it comes to the U.S. Justice Department’s stunning announcement of criminal charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center, as an old saying goes, where you stand depends on where you sit. If you sit with the broad section of Americans who revere the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement and who look with distaste on the resurgence of white nationalism in American politics, it may come as no surprise that President Donald Trump’s DOJ is going after an organization with a long history of standing up to organized racism. If you sit with the Trump administration’s Justice ...