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Looking at alternatives for osteoporosis medications

Columns

DEAR DR. ROACH: At age 48, I underwent a lumpectomy, chemo and radiation for stage I breast cancer. All is good so far, but I started experiencing osteopenia in my mid-50s, perhaps earlier than I would have because of the chemo and estrogen-blocking meds. My mother also had osteoporosis. For the osteoporosis in my hip, I took alendronate for five years, but it did not stop the bone loss. I am now on Prolia, which has helped. I am healthy and fairly active. How long can one take Prolia with breaks in between, and what are your thoughts on alternatives? I am concerned about ...

Neil Sedaka

Letters to the editor

Jim Newton Itasca Hitmaker Neil Sedaka was ahead of his time in more ways than one. While we remember “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” and “Laughter In The Rain” following his February 27 passing, he had one record that might have slipped through the cracks: “The Immigrant” from his 1974 album “Sedaka’s Back.” Immigration wasn’t quite the hotbed issue in 1974 that it is today, but the record reached #22 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. It wasn’t Sedaka’s biggest seller, but talk about prophetic. Lines like, “To find they’ve closed the door, they don’t want ...

Shield tests make cancer screening more accessible

Letters to the editor

Philip Vonada South Williamsport Losing family to cancer changed my outlook on life. It taught me that when it comes to cancer, putting off screening just isn’t worth the risk. With Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month around the corner, I hope people across Pennsylvania will take a moment to consider the importance of prevention for this disease that is estimated to claim more than 2,000 Pennsylvanian lives this year alone – more than one in three Pennsylvanians diagnosed with colorectal cancer die from the disease. The problem is that people are not getting screened on time. ...

Tasting Armageddon as conflict is downplayed

Columns

Science fiction has long held the ability to foretell possible futures, no matter how absurd they may seem at the time of publication. I’ve written before (and probably will again) about how my dad made sure I grew up with the original series of Star Trek — the brilliant, if at times goofy, one from the 60s. Sometimes, I wonder if that influential show had a direct impact on the future that we actually created — the communicators are perhaps the most obvious example, being cell phones in all but name and form. Perhaps kids who grew up with the show became scientists who ...

Dear Annie: Forced to choose between love and a pet’s loyalty

Columns

Dear Annie: A friend of mine is facing a painful choice, and I can’t stop thinking about it. She has dogs she loves dearly, but the man she’s dating is allergic. Not “a little sneezy,” but truly can’t be around them. She feels like she’s being asked to choose between her pets and a relationship that could become something real. I keep thinking about an associate of mine from a local board. She was in a serious, loving relationship with a man who was kind, gracious and clearly devoted to her. The problem was her cat. He was allergic, and it wasn’t something he could just ...

Trump avoiding repeating history in Iran

Columns

History doesn’t always repeat itself, or even rhyme. People sometimes learn from experience, their own or others’. Example: Woodrow Wilson, a stubborn Southerner, refused to involve any Republicans, all Northerners in those days, in treaty negotiations after World War I. His treaty version, which would require the United States to go to war on a vote of the League of Nations, was rejected by the Senate. Franklin Roosevelt, who had been Wilson’s assistant secretary of the Navy, included Republicans in post-war and treaty planning while World War II was still going on. That ...